With the government’s sudden fixation with violence and terrorism (as defined by Janet Napolitano, at any rate), it’s worth going over what “security” is.

The big picture, of course, is important; government has a constitutional duty to defend the country.  It’s one of a very, very short list of duties actually spelled out for a legitimate government in the Constitution; it’s one of the few legitimate reasons any government exists. 

Secure the borders?  Absolutely.  There is not a nation in the world worth the title that doesn’t protect its own sovereignty.  There’s a reason for this; we formed a nation for a reason.  We intend it to be disctinct from other nations.  If tomorrow all of the world’s other nations upheld freedom, the rule of law, the value of the individual, and (after November, 2012, God willing) the free market.  Of course, the United States is a nation of immigrants, and indeed we need immigrants to keep rejuvenating this nation; nations with unchanging cultures become ossified and stagnant.  But the key is that immigrants must come to the United States, rather than bringing Ireland or Finland or Greece here. 

But that’s fodder for the upcoming “Culture” installment.

Protecting us from criminals?  Yep.  That too.  The law-abiding citizen should be secure on his/her property, with his/her possessions, and his/her rights.  The law should

Which is where government keeps screwing up.  It’s not just governments run by crime bosses and warlords – Russia and Tadjikistan and the Congo – that break this rule.   In the UK, a law-abiding citizen who defends his home, property or self from a burglar, robber or attacker with any kind of force frequently faces stiffer punishment than the criminal involved.  In Chicago – a city prowled by gangs armed barely a degree behind the Fedayin Saddam fashion curve – the full weight of the city’s legal system waits to fall upon the citizen who dares resist the thugs with a .22 handgun.

Any dictator can make you “secure”; the streets of Rome were safe enough under Mussolini.  But that’s not security, any more that a dictator (or university dean) giving you a few minutes to say what you want within a bunch of carefully set-up guidelines is “freedom of speech”.  “Security” that exists only at the pleasure and to the purposes of ones’ leaders – masters, really – isn’t security at all.  It’s the kind of “Security” that a flock of sheep get when escorted by a pack of wolves; it exists only for the needs of the wolves, not the flock.

“No problem, Mitch.  America’s not like that!”

Gun control laws that burden the law-abiding more than criminals – that’s almost all of them – don’t enhance “security”. 

Property forfeiture laws that penalize the innocent (which one is supposed to be, until proven guilty) do not make us more “secure”.

Federal “watch lists” that stimatize mainstream (if temporarily out-of-power) dissent make us less secure.

A government policy that is more accomodating to those that would kill us than to those who have defended us doesn’t make us more secure.

That’s what I want; that’s what this nation needs; a government that knows “Security” protects the nation while upholding the citizen.

Wow.  I am an extremist!

Also in “spring has sprung” news, it’s now Buzkashi season in Afghanistan.

The centuries-old game has been described as “Rugby on horseback with a sheep carcass in stead of a ball”.  It involves hundreds of Afghans on horseback trying to throw a carcass across the finish line, or something.  Buzkashi is among the most violent sports in the world, frequently ending in injured or dead contestants.

In related news, Frank Rich has demanded that House Republicans condemn the violence the Tea Parties have brought to Afghanistan’s national pastime.

It’s spring break along the Gulf Coast, and that means it’s time for thousands of bobble-headed college kids to flock to the beach, get completely drunk on Mom and Dad’s money, and pass out in pools of their own vomit.

And when you mix alcohol and post-adolescents, you get trouble:

In related news, Steny Hoyer has demanded that House Republicans condemn the “avalanche of violence” that the Tea Parties have brought to Spring Break.

Margaret Martin’s Minneapolis Crime Watch has always (since 2006) been one of those blogs that showed what blogging was supposed to be.

At a time when the Minneapolis media was whitewashing Minneapolis’ crime record, Margaret and her other writers (“Chunkstyle” and “Nordeaster”) prowled the crime reports and provided in many cases, the kind of analysis that the big media couldn’t.  I’m still not aware of anyone that covers North Minneapolis crime like MCW.

Posting has gotten a bit more sparse lately, as life’s pressures, little and big, catch up with the staff.  But MCW still catalogues the thrum of daily life in Minneapolis like nobody else.

Here’s a typical blotter, skimmed from the Minneapolis Police site:

ASSLT2 w/Dangerous Weapon; ASLT5

44th Ave N & Lyndale Ave N Sunday 3/14/10 0425 hrs 10-069671

Officers were flagged down by V2/BF, 30 yrs, who relayed that she & V1/BF, 23 yrs, were assaulted & kicked out of a car.

V1 & V2 were leaving a friend’s house when a pit bull chased them onto a parked car. S1/BM, 20-50 yrs, 6’2”, heavy set, & S2/BM, 40-50 yrs, 5’6”, light build, w/goatee, wearing blue jeans & white t-shirt, pulled up in an older white, 4 door car. Suspects picked up the victims, but wouldn’t drive them back to their hotel. S1 stopped the vehicle, pulled V1 out of the car & began beating her. V1 was struck an unknown number of times in the face & torso, causing a cut above her eye. S1 also shoved V1 to the ground, kicked her in the torso, & pulled out a wooden stick/club, striking V1 in the back several times. V2 was punched once in her right ear by S1, causing it to ring. Suspects were GOA. The officers transported the victims to the hospital.

Margaret’s looking for contribs.  If you have an interest in following and/or analyzing Minneapolis crime (ideally both), drop her a line!

(Steny Hoyer has reportedly asked House Republicans to apologize for the crime listed above).

In sports news:  you all know nothing fires me up like hockey.

And I just had to comment about this great hit – Jaroslav Spacek smacking  David Booth

That’s gotta hurt.

In related news, Steny Hoyer has demanded that House Republicans repudiate the climate of violence the Tea Parties have brought to hockey.

In broadcasting, one of the cardinal rules for air personalities on TV and radio is never get a subsitute that’s better than you.  It makes you look expendable; it’s reportedly one of the reasons that Hugh Hewitt hasn’t had the Northern Alliance back to fill in for him in four years.

Not that any of us are lucky enough to have Keith Olbermann figure that out after nearly a month off:

But a strange thing happened in the first quarter of 2010 – the 8pmET landmark show Countdown fared better without regular host Keith Olbermann than with him.

Olbermann was out all but one day during March before returning Monday due to the illness and death of his father. During that month, with Lawrence O’Donnell serving as the fill-in anchor, Countdown averaged 262,000 in the demo and 1,052,000 in total viewers. In January, the program averaged 1,000 more in the demo but 49,000 less in total viewers. In February, the program had 255,00 in the demo and 963,000 in total viewers. The year-to-year difference was also least in March than January or February. Overall though, the show is down 42% in the demo and 26% in total viewers year-to-year in the quarter.

In related news, Steny Hoyer demanded that House Republicans repudate allegations that Tea Partiers are scaring Olbie’s viewers away.

New Jersey McDonald’s customer slaps cashier, crawls through drive-through window to get his Filet-o-Fish ™ sandwich:

“His Filet-O-Fish was taking too long at 4:30 in the morning,” said South Brunswick Police Detective Sergeant James Ryan to NBCNewYork.

According to Ryan, the customer yelled at the employee and pushed him against the counter.

“After he slaps him, he takes his food,” said Ryan.

Steny Hoyer has apparently asked House Republicans to condemn the action.

Amid all the accusations and the elaborate flummery about “avalanches of violence and threats”, and as the left works itself into a self-righteous lather about the base benightedness of its opposition, it’s worth keeping things in some historical perspective.

With that in mind, I direct you to “The Paranoid Center” by Jesse Walker.

Here’s your fifteen seconds of exposition…:

We’ve heard ample warnings about extremist paranoia in the months since Barack Obama became president, and we’re sure to hear many more throughout his term. But we’ve heard almost nothing about the paranoia of the political center. When mainstream commentators treat a small group of unconnected crimes as a grand, malevolent movement, they unwittingly echo the very conspiracy theories they denounce. Both brands of connect-the-dots fantasy reflect the tellers’ anxieties much more than any order actually emerging in the world.

When such a story is directed at those who oppose the politicians in power, it has an additional effect. The list of dangerous forces that need to be marginalized inevitably expands to include peaceful, legitimate critics.

…but you really do need to read the whole thing.

…so why does America think we lost…and lost big?

Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the health care overhaul signed into law last week costs too much and expands the government’s role in health care too far, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, underscoring an uphill selling job ahead for President Obama and congressional Democrats.

Is it the Pareto Principle? Are one-third of us smarter than the other two thirds? If so, is that how Amerika works now?

“They’re going to have to spend substantial time convincing people of the concrete benefits of this legislation.”

Isn’t that supposed to happen before a law is passed?

Interestingly, regarding the post-passage “violence” on the part of “opponents” to the bill, what say ye Amerika?

And when asked about incidents of vandalism and threats that followed the bill’s passage, Americans are more inclined to blame Democratic political tactics than critics’ harsh rhetoric. Forty-nine percent say Democratic tactics are “a major reason” for the incidents, while 46% blame criticism by conservative commentators and 43% the criticism of Republican leaders.

Is that tacit approval for the acts of defiance?

…that I started teaching myself how to play guitar.

I’ve written about it before; when I was a little kid – the day of the first moon landing, in fact – my dad had brought home a guitar someone had left in his locker years earlier.  It’d been sitting around the house for eight years, serving as a fort or battleship for toy army men, as a rifle in games of Soldier…as pretty much everything but a guitar.

But seized with the urge to play, I repaired it – replaced three tuning machines, hammered a fret back into place, and restrung it – and started teaching myself.

You  may recall the classic Mitch Hedberg bit; “I’ve been teaching myself guitar.  It’s not going so well.  I have a crappy teacher”.  That’s probably the norm.  I lucked out – but not because I was a good teacher.  I had some good source materials.  It helped that I’d been playing cello for four years, of course; I knew theory, rhythm, key, the scale, all of that sort of thing.

And I had John Denver.  Say what you will about the guy and his music, but he wrote stuff that was eeeeeasssssy to follow on the guitar.

But most of all?  I had a copy of the Gene Leis “Nexus” Guitar Chord book, a cardback folio that was the perfect book on the subject; it started slow (how to hold the guitar, how not to), how to form the simple chords, how to hold a pick and strum…

…and, interspersed throughout, the little written bits of advice and encouragement a live teacher might give you.  (He warned the newbie about the first-position “F” chord – a plateau of hand-cramping agony that kills off a lot of new guitarists; “this one’s going to be tough.  Hang in there”).

I got the book at the local music store; it was actually a reissue of a 1961 publication.  It’s long out of print, of course.

Which is a shame.  I’ve been teaching my son to play, and it’d be handy.  I’m tempted to try to write my own sometime, here – but that’s another article.

But I did end up googling Gene Leis – and wow, what a story.

About a quarter of Americans O believe this nation will be the most powerful nation in the world 90 years from now:

Just 27% of U.S. voters now think the United States will still be the most powerful nation in the world at the end of the 21st century, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. That’s down eight points from the previous survey in February just after a highly-publicized U.S. military surge in Afghanistan

I don’t think it ever got this bad during the Carter years.

The “avalanche of violence” – Steny Hoyer’s “estimated” ten Democrat house representatives who’ve gotten off-color/picqued messages from constituents – has come home to roost.  Rep. Betty McCollum (DFL-MN4) reports getting a shredded flag and a condom in the mail, as well as…

…well, I’m sure there was some violence amid that avalanche.

But I thought – what’s the larger context, here?  Having worked in talk radio, including a stretch as a call screener, I know that threats and ugliness are just part of being in the public eye; some people, regardless of their politics or target, just don’t handle diversity well.

So I asked Rep. Michele Bachmann’s office “what kind of things to you get from people during an ordinary stretch of sessions?”  It may have been an unfair question; Rep. Bachmann is like a red cape in front of insane bulls.

But the office duly obliged.

From email:

Date: Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 3:20 AM
Subject: I want to share my opinion with you.

You are, in my opinion. one ugly fucking human being. I’m so glad I don’t live in Minnesota. In Fargo, the Coen brothers did a great job of depicting your state as populated by dimwits, and now it’s even easier to believe that that is reality. I’m glad we’re finally closing the door on the amazing stupidity of the Bush assministration, and I will be nearly as happy when you are no longer holding any significant political office, you asshole.

Wow.  If it’d been aimed at a Democrat, I’m sure brows would be getting plenty furrowed!

Comments from Michele Bachmann’s YouTube channel:

phish1085 has made a comment on The Bill Must Be Repealed!:

you dont know what the fuck your talkin about bitch

jim2hal has made a comment on Bachmann Reacts to the Health Care Vote.wmv:

If Micheal pulled her hair back I’m sure that you would see her horns and turn heraround and bet there is a tail there…. so hateful

plzwakeup has made a comment on The President’s Health Care Advisers:

Hope you fucking die. SOON!!

HateRepublicans has posted a comment on your profile:

you are an evil person, you are the devil, you are a person without a moral conscience
I really hope you die, you took part in destroying this once great country
you are one of the most corrupt politicians out there

Would these have made the news – and caused furrowed brows – if they were aimed at Democrats?

Oh, well.  It’s not like anyone’s shooting at Congresspeoples’ offices or anything.

Uma Thurman’s latest, Motherhood, flopped badly in the US, bringing in only $40,000 toward a $3.5 million budget.

But that was great compared to its showing in the UK; opening weekend brought in a grand total of 11 viewers, including only one on its debut Sunday.  The total take for its UK opening weekend?

£88.

Barry Norman, the critic, said it was “astonishing” that only 11 people could be bothered to go and see a film starring Thurman. “The reviews were very poor indeed but that alone isn’t enough to explain it.”

True.

But the Tarantino Curse does explain it.  Working with Tarantino seems to have become a Faustian bargain for stars; make big bank now, and get on the train for palookaville later.

Now, again, kids, don’t be violent.  We’re going to get rid of this administration – or at least neuter it – at the polls.  There’s no need for all sorts of foamy-mouthed Kossing, here.

I say that because, naturally, if I don’t someone will accuse me of grabbing Grampa’s Garand and heading into the north woods, ready to shoot at revenooers.

At any rate, yay for federal law enforcement and all, and goodnesss knows that’s going to come out at trial, but if the news reports are any indication, Big Sis has just “protected” us from the Keystone Militia:

In an indictment unsealed Monday, prosecutors said the group began military-style training in the Michigan woods in 2008, learning how to shoot guns and make and set off bombs.

Shooting guns?  You mean, like 50% of the American people do?

David Brian Stone, 44, of Clayton, Mich., and one of his sons were identified as the ringleaders of the group. Stone, who was known as “Captain Hutaree,” organized the group in paramilitary fashion and members were assigned secret names, prosecutors said. Ranks ranged from “radoks” to “gunners,” according to the group’s Web site.

I’m going to guess they had a secret handshake, to help them tell who was the mole, too.

Prosecutors said Stone had identified certain law enforcement officers near his home as potential targets. He and other members discussed setting off bombs at a police funeral, using a fake 911 call to lure an officer to his death, killing an officer after a traffic stop, or attacking the family of an officer, according to the indictment.

Now, when I first read that bit – that the “militia” planned to draw law enforcement into a huge ambush – I thought “this could have been a serious bunch of people”.  That’s a classic asymmetric tactic.

Why, in the hands of a ruthless, competent insurgency…

After such attacks, the group allegedly planned to retreat to “rally points” protected by trip-wired explosives for a violent standoff with the law.

…oh.  Never mind.

No confirmation on whether they planned to paint huge targets on their foreheads, or go into action with central lines already inserted for the lethal injections.

Hutaree says on its Web site its name means “Christian warrior” and describes the word as part of a secret language that few are privileged to know.

Secret languages.

Oddball internal rituals and ranks.

Inscrutably bobbleheaded strategy.

Janet Napolitano just rounded up the Scientologists.

Of course, this is no laughing matter; threatening to “levy war” is a big deal.

And it’s even less a laughing matter that our government feels the need to make a huge splash over Captain Hutaree and his Christian Avengers at a time when Congress’ Democratic Caucus is actively slandering dissenters with an overwrought, and curiously coordinated, campaign of finding “violence” and “threats” and “racism” under every rock (for which, somehow, no indictments exist; also evidence, other than the kind of thing every dogcatcher and sports reporter in America gets as part of the job).

Fearless prediction:  Look for a brow-furrowing “investigation” of “militias” by Ann Curry.

Stat.

UPDATE: Let me be clear, here.  The Hutarees seem to have been amateurs – but amateurism is no defense when it comes to charges of conspiracy to murder anyone, much less cops.  The Fort Dix Six were amateurs, and they’re in jail – justifiably so.  Major Hassan (and every other mass-murderer, for that matter) was an amateur, but that doesn’t make his victims any less dead.

My beef isn’t with the FBI or the Feds for investigating or arresting them. 

It’s with the media and the Dems (pardon the redundancy), which seem to be using this episode as part of an ongoing smear of all right-wing dissent.  Last night the local news ran a report about “the militia and Hate Groups in the Twin Cities”; it focused on a doughy guy in a house in Apple Valley who ran a white-supremacist online bookstore.  

And it’s with the Southern Guilt By Association Poverty Law Center being taken seriously as a source on the subject again.  It’s Janet Napolitano’s watchlist, and hordes of semi-literate leftybloggers chanting “Avalance of Violence!  Avalanche of Violence!” like a bunch of demented macaws.

It’s that there are so many smears, happening in so brief a time, so closely tied to an epochal, divisive political event.

That’s the beef.

This might explain the protracted effort on the part of the Democrats and media (pardon the redundancy) to smear the Tea Parties.

The Tea Party is winning:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 52% of U.S. voters believe the average member of the Tea Party movement has a better understanding of the issues facing America today than the average member of Congress. Only 30% believe that those in Congress have a better understanding of the key issues facing the nation.

When it comes to those issues, 47% think that their own political views are closer to those of the average Tea Party member than to the views of the average member of Congress. On this point, 26% feel closer to Congress.

Only one of these numbers troubles me:

Finally, 46% of voters say that the average Tea Party member is more ethical than the average member of Congress. Twenty-seven percent (27%) say that the average member of Congress is more ethical.

I thought we’d win by at least a 2:1 margin.

Today’s stop?  John Murphy’s , John Murphy Report, formerly The Medina Report.

Like a lot of professional blogs, JMR seems to serve its owner’s purposes.  John doesn’t write too frequently (although he does do it plenty enough to meet the threshold for inclusion in this series; indeed, I’m surprised at how few “dead” blogs I’ve run into while writing this series).

I liked this bit, from last January:

Roger Lowenstein has published an excellent piece in today’s New York Times regarding strategic defaults – other wise known as walking away from your property.    The Mortgage Bankers of America of course don’t want you to do that….neither does Wall Street or the Obama Administration.  But when Wall Street or businesses make a bad deal, they walk or flush the company.  It’s no big deal.  It happens all the time.

I am seeing more and more information about strategic default.  This could become a REAL problem if this starts to gain more traction.  Although that said, in conversations I’ve had with others recently, the government is doing so much to try to manipulate the market from loan modifications to holding interest rates artificially low – that no one really knows what the market should actually look like.

That’s the John Murphy Blog.  Among MOB blogs, he’s got location, location, location!

Again, and as always, I reject violence and threats and intimidation in any area of life, to say nothing of politics.

Of course, with last week’s non-events – the unexplained severing of a propane line, a “brick thrown” through a 30th floor window, the non-intentional lofting of spittle and the non-chanting of a racial slur at Congressmen, and the non-news that some people reacted to Obamacare by sending threatening or (more usually) threatening-sounding or socially inappropriate phone messages to Congresscritters (as if a listen through a week of Michele Bachmann’s messages wouldn’t curl their nose hair!) – the majority Democrats in Washington are trying to seize the mantle of victimhood.

And innocence, of course.

Not so fast:

• It was not the fear of conservative violence that caused Ann Coulter’s speech to be cancelled this week.
• It was a liberal who bit the finger off a man who disagreed with him on healthcare.
• It was Obama-loving Amy Bishop who took a gun to work and murdered co-workers.
• Joseph Stack flew his plane into the IRS building after writing an anti-conservative manifesto.
• It was liberals who destroyed AM radio towers outside of Seattle.
• It’s liberals who burn down Hummer dealerships.
• It was progressive SEIU union thugs who beat a black conservative man who spoke his mind.
• It’s doubtful that a conservative fired shots into a GOP campaign headquarters.
• In fact, Democrats have no monopoly on having their offices vandalized.
• Don’t forget it was Obama’s friend Bill Ayers who used terrorism as a tool for political change. SDS is still radical, with arrests in 2007 and the storming of the CATO Institute in July 2008.
• It was a liberal who was sentenced to two years for bringing bombs and riot shields to the Republican National Convention in 2008.
• It was a liberal who threatened to kill a government informant who infiltrated her Austin-based group that planned to bomb the RNC.
• It was liberals who assaulted police in Berkeley.
• It was liberals who intimidated and threw rocks through the windows of researchers.
• The two Black Panthers who stood outside polls intimidating people with nightsticks were probably not right-wingers.
• Every time the G20 gets together, it’s not conservatives who destroy property and cause chaos.

Oh, and it wasn’t conservatives who threw bleach at elderly RNC delegates, or dropped sandbags on delegate buses at the RNC.

Let’s not forget the Minnesota union thugs who attacked the Young Republicans at the 2004 MN State Fair, or burst into the St. Paul Bush Campaign headquarters with clear intent to intimidate.

Let’s be clear, here; Conservatives and Republicans aren’t “victims”.  Just, occasionally, targets.

And – unlike Steny Hoyer and Frank Rich and Ed Schultz – I’m not going to use this long, and by no means complete, list of outrages to try to tar all Democrats.  Unlike many of the left’s most “respected” talking heads, I’m not going to slime all of my opponents by association.  That’s the mark of the intellectual bankrupt and the moral coward.

Still – when you count actual incidents, as opposed to the innuendo-via-press-release that Steny Hoyer got splashed in front of the media last week, the balance of idiocy is pretty clear.

While Democrats have become very quick to try to hide their own failings behind purported Republican/conservative baseness (remember when Hillary Clinton blamed Rush Limbaugh for the Oklahoma City Bombing?), it’s interesting to notice how selective they are about the subject.

Evan Coyne Maloney on-again, off-again tolerance for violent imagery in activism:

The Obama Administration’s confrontational tone included some violent imagery last August, when one White House official encouraged Obama supporters to “punch back twice as hard” against opponents.

Later that day, at an anti-ObamaCare rally in St. Louis, a black man named Kenneth Gladney was handing out “Don’t Tread on Me” flags when he was approached by pro-ObamaCare SEIU union members. One of the men asked Gladney, “What kind of n*%%er are you to be giving out this kind of stuff?”

…

Obama’s supporters got the message. They were getting in people’s faces, and they were punching. And kicking. Repeatedly.

Yet despite the fact that the Kenneth Gladney beating occurred the same day that the Obama Administration recommended supporters “punch back twice as hard,” there was no hyperventilating in the media about political violence or the veiled threats that encouraged it.

Real statements.  Real violence.

Now, unlike Steny Hoyer and Ed Schultz, I’m not going to babble about how these actions – this preponderance of actions – reflects on every liberal.  That’d be stupid.

But in Modern Times, Paul Johnson notes that “the end justifies the means” is a theme connecting all statists, from Mussolini to Alinski.

…what can be better attributed to watching the bottom line.

“The Rage Is Not About Healthcare”, Frank Rich of the NYTimes assures us, and in so doing shows why his first gig was as drama critic:

If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from.

Attention, Frank Rich.  If the President, the Speaker and the Senate Majority Leader were all gun-toting Presbyterian Wal-mart-shoppers who could trace their anscestry back to the Mayflower, and they were proposing to nationalize much of the economy, sap the nation’s economic vitality, gut our healthcare system and put our great-grandchildren into debt, I’d be out there protesting, too.

And I’m pretty sure I speak for more Tea Partiers than you have, say, readers, when I say that.

The rest of Rich’s column is full of the kind of historical illiteracy and disingenuous dependence on Democrat talking points, it’s worth a separate fisking all on its own.

Maybe tomorrow.

Is the Uptake – the left-leaning but ostensibly higher-aiming “citizen news” outlet – on the outs with the Capitol Press Corps?

Sarah Janecek at PIM writes:

At least two media organizations currently renting space in the Capitol press room are objecting to The Uptake also renting space in the basement of the Capitol. The Uptake is a Minnesota-based citizen journalist organization operating on a low budget and perhaps best known for its live streaming of the various proceedings attendant to the 2008 U.S. Senate recount.

We’ve written about the Uptake before.  Since basically anyone can contribute to the Uptake, their efforts can be all right, and they can be pretty stupid, and in any case they depend on the restraint and “journalistic ethics” of the people involved.

And while I’ve broadly supported the Uptake, there’ve been some real veers into partisanship.

So have they, again?

Mike Dougherty, the local news editor for the Rochester Post-Bulletin, sent an email to Commissioner of Administration Sheila Reger (Admin is in charge of leasing the space), objecting to The Uptake’s presence. Wrote Dougherty:

“My concern is that they [The Uptake] are not a nonpartisan news site, which compromises the efforts of all the media in that complex that have built their reputations over time. Including The Uptake in this area with access to information about what many of the news organizations are working on with no guarantee someone else’s work won’t appear on their site or be Tweeted via Twitter … the media we represent are very different than The Uptake and we hope you will address our concerns by not allowing them to lease space in our current office or within the current press corps complex. We believe our concerns are shared by other news media organizations.”

TPT’s political reporter and “Almanac at the Capitol” host Mary LaHammer confirms that TPT also has concerns about The Uptake’s presence in the press room, noting that TPT is “zealous” about anyone or any organization using any TPT resources for partisan purposes, because of the public television company’s nonprofit status.

So what’s the problem?

Several people have said there have been some highly partisan tweets from some Uptake staff. We’ve checked the official Uptake Twitter account, and can’t find any specific, objectionable tweets other than the overriding liberal bent that is The Uptake.

We’re told the most partisan tweets are coming from Erin Maye, who is an Uptake intern. Specifically, Maye was tweeting from a House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher (DFL-Minneapolis) press conference while covering it for The Uptake. Maye allegedly tweeted that Kelliher would be a great governor. A check of Maye’s tweets doesn’t show that happened. So either the tweets were deleted or they didn’t happen.

The smart money would go with “deleted”.  We carried one of them last winter:

…in reference to a story where she was alleged to have done some fairly dodgy editing based, it might be surmised, on political bias:

UPDATE:  The years have played hob with some of my graphics.  The quote I refer to comes from Erin Maye, then an editor at the Uptake:  ““I’m Editing.  I feel important because I can make people say things they may not have said.  Muhahaha”. “

   – MBerg 10/1/2016

And Luke Hellier at MDE has another, the one from the presser above:

Both are from “Erin Maye”, an “intern” whose bio notes that she’s a “progressive” and was a “peace studies” major.

The Tweets are pretty much par for the course – if you’re a political blogger whose biases are part of your entire identity.  But if you’re trying to present yourself as a genuine news organization that’s “detached” from its staff’s individual partisanship, this is a real blot on the Uptake.

If you read through the PIM report’s comments, Mike Mcintee of the Uptake claims this is a battle of old media versus new media.

I’m sure that’s in the background. But then, it’s in the background of every story where new media and old media collide.

More to the point – what do you think would happen if someone, even a dime-a-dozen intern from, say, MPR or WCCO or the PiPress would do what Maye did?  Flout their biases, giggle about their ability to misrepresent and, says Hellier, go on to do it?

Do you think that “news” organization is going to get open, unfettered information from, say, the opposition party?

It’s the kind of thing “interns” and cub reporters and newbies get fired for doing at “real” news outlets (although it could be argued there’s a statute of limitations on that standard).

So there are several explanations for this:

• Maye didn’t get the memo on “journalistic ethics”.  Or maybe Uptake assumes they’re for squares.  I invite Mike Mcintee and/or Chuck Olson to comment on the Uptake’s “training”, if you will, in the rules of the road for “journalists” and CapCorps correspondents in particular.
• Maye got the memo, but just didn’t connect the dots.  She did major in “peace studies”, which is the “underwater basketweaving” of the 21st century, but I think we need to assume that the Uptake didn’t knowingly hire an idiot.
• It’s really nothing but a culture clash.  Maybe the old media really are attacking the new media!  Including Mary LaHammer, whose new media efforts via her blogs, tweeting and so on are among the most widely-read in town.  It could be.

I’ll be looking for comments from some of the principals in this story.

UPDATE:  Welcome PIM readers!

UPDATE 2: In the comments below, Margaret Martin notes that there’s another explanation:

If you’ve ever seen where the media resides down at the capitol, it’s a tiny space in the basement. I imagine there is no privacy down there at all for individual reporters and they rely on a sort of code of personal decency (among themselves) and a highly developed sense of personally assured mutual destruction if somebody should blab about something overheard from another member of the press about a source, or an impolitic opinion let loose in an unguarded moment that would shatter the illusion of non-partisan media.

I never learned the secret handshake among Capitol newsies, although I’ve known quite a few of them over the years (going back to Cathy Wurzer in 1986).  For people from such a range of fiercely-competitive companies to get along in such a small space, there must be some kind of rule, written or not.  Or so I’d suspect.

The uptake intern with her gossipy, gushy twittering is a menace to them all. No wonder they want to give her the boot. I have a little sympathy for them, but not much. Most of them are unsparing about politicians and would not hesitate to publish something unflattering about a politician they don’t like. Especially Republicans, and no matter how how the info came to them.

Yep.  It’s absurd to think that journalists don’t have political biases of their own; the crushing majority vote DFL; a staggering number of them go on to work for the DFL, for left-leaning think tanks, or for one government bureaucracy or another when they leave the news business.

But if you’re, say, Laura Brod or Dave Hann, and you have a “journalist” asking you for the straight conservative scoop on some issue or another, are you truly going to talk straight with someone that you more-or-less trust to detach their feelings, or one that you know is looking for the partisan angle?

It’s bad for business.

The Tea Party is all about idle unemployed people!

That’s the NYTimes’ big discovery:

Tom Grimes lost his job as a financial consultant 15 months ago, he called his congressman, a Democrat, for help getting government health care.

Then he found a new full-time occupation: Tea Party activist.

In the last year, he has organized a local group and a statewide coalition, and even started a “bus czar” Web site to marshal protesters to Washington on short notice. This month, he mobilized 200 other Tea Party activists to go to the local office of the same congressman to protest what he sees as the government’s takeover of health care.

I can tell you from experience; having a hobby helps when you’re out of work.

And it’s a fact that Obama’s policies are making an awful lot more people unemployed.

But I’ll tell you what: when I speak at the 4/15 Tea Party at the Capitol, I’ll ask how many are unemployed, and how many are working but not looking forward to getting financially flensed by Obama’s tax orgy.

What happens when John Hinderaker meets Paul Krugman?

Lots of pieces of Krugman flying about the place.

Er, wait.  Krugman will probably call that an incitement to violence, too.

Hinderaker eviscerates Paul Krugman’s “Violent Republicans” column. You need to read it, if you’re a Republican who’s shaking his/her head at the constant slander, and especially if you’re a Democrat who still believes Krugman is anything but a Lori Sturdevant-style shill for the Democrats.

Once upon a time, as I eviscerated Krugman’s idiotic “Red States Are Welfare Queens” column (wherein he noted, devoid of context, that “red” states take in more “federal money” than “blue” states), I said that I’d love to debate Krugman on the subject.  Leftyblogger Charlie Quimby sniffed – partaking, I suspect, in the liberal delusion that credentials equal merit – that he’d “pay money” to watch a debate between Krugman and I.

On that topic?  I’d do it.  And mop the floor with him.

First the Obama administration blasts Wall Street for not following the rules…and also when they do. AT&T discharges it’s duty to shareholders by quantifying the hit they will be taking as a result of Obamacare.

This wholesale destruction of wealth and capital came with more than ample warning. Turning over every couch cushion to make their new entitlement look affordable under Beltway accounting rules, Democrats decided to raise taxes on companies that do the public service of offering prescription drug benefits to their retirees instead of dumping them into Medicare. We and others warned this would lead to AT&T-like results, but like so many other ObamaCare objections Democrats waved them off as self-serving or “political.”

…when in fact what they are is simple math.

Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism from 9AM-3PM.

• Volume I “The First Team” –  Brian and John or some combination thereof kick off from 11-1.
• Volume II “The Headliner” – Ed and I are up from 1-3.  We’ll be talking about what we do now in the face of healthcare reform.  We also will be interviewing Randal O’Toole of the Cato Institute on transit and taxes.
• The King Banaian Show! – King is on from 9-11 on AM1570, Business Radio for the Twin Cities!  We’re broadening the franchise; two stations, now!
• And for those of you who prefer your constructionism straight up, no ice, don’t forget the Sons of Liberty, on AM1280 from 3-5.

(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 by Monday
• Good ol’ telephone – 651-289-4488!
• And make sure you fan us on Facebook!

Join us!

A South Korean navy/coast guard ship has sunk in an area that both Koreas have been fighting over for the past sixty years.  Nobody’s ruled out a North Korean torpedo attack yet:

The ship, on a routine patrolling mission with 104 crew members on board, began sinking off the coast of South Korean-controlled Baengnyeong Island close to North Korea around 9:45 p.m. (1245 GMT, 9:45 a.m. EDT), an official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported an explosion in the rear of the 1,200-ton ship and said the military had not ruled out the possibility of an attack by North Korea. However, the military official said the exact cause was not immediately clear and said he could not confirm the Yonhap report.

As this is written, only half the crew is accounted for. 

Rumors that the Obama Administration is planning to respond by apologozing for the arrogant landings at Inchon are strictly unconfirmed.