To:  Betty McCollum

From: Mitch Berg, your unwilling constituent

Re:  You are a tool in the literal sense of the term.

Rep. McCollum:

When Members of Congress compare health care protesters and spending dissidents to ‘mass-murderers,’ ‘militias,’ or ‘extremists’ – in the hopes of scoring political points is like pouring gas on the fire of repression.

The Members of the House, Democrats and Republicans – have a duty and an obligation to end the dangerous name-calling that can only inspire the extremist media and your not-very-bright supporters who keep crashing planes into buildings, shooting professors, and beating people up in the streets.

Put another way, Rep. McCollum – I’m not saying you’re a totalitarian.  I’m just saying that real totalitarians need lots of people like you running society to make their job easier.

That is all.

Well, no, it’s not.  You also said:

“Only last month a Fox News commentator, with Members of Congress next to him, rallied a Tea Party crowd by disparaging Congress and calling the crowd ‘all these Tim McVeigh wannabes here’ to the crowds cheers and applause.

Rep. McCollum:  certainly you – a member of a party who’s leading intellectual light is Jon Stewart – can’t tell me you don’t “get” satire and sarcasm?

“When Members of Congress compare health care legislation to ‘government tyranny,’ ‘socialism,’ or ‘totalitarianism’ – in the hopes of scoring political points is like pouring gas on the fire of extremism.

“The Members of this House Democrats and Republicans – have a duty and an obligation to end the dangerous name-calling that can only inspire the extremist militias and phony patriots.

“In the most free, prosperous and greatest democracy on earth it is time to return to a civil, decent debate of public policy.

“I don’t want another ‘Oklahoma City’ to ever take place again.

Dear Representative Idiot.  You are comparing protesters to mass-murderers.  When it comes to civil debate, you are the problem.

Civil debate will return to Washington when you are chased from office.

And lest you and your idiot enablers in the local leftymedia are still trolling looking for more “extremists”, I mean “chased from office this November”.

As part of my continuing examination of my extremism – because Janet Napolitano believes that as a conservative pro-life low-tax second-and-tenth-amendment activist, I must be an extremist – let’s look at our culture.

“Culture” is a huge topic, and it’s hard to even define where the left and right diverge, or on what each side actually believes, to say nothing of what their opponents believe.

For example, one of the putative big battles in the “culture war” twenty years ago was the campaign by Tipper Gore, wife of then-future lisping fraud and Vice President Algore, to put warnings on music that had “offensive” lyrics.   Was it conservative?  Was it liberal?

Perhaps a little bit of both – and who cares?  Because while that particular argument, like many, mixed elements of both sides of the aisle – conservatives fretting about the downfall of civilization, liberals  about the system that’d make young males write the kind of rap and metal lyrics that’d make them be so antisocial in the first place – it was fairly irrelevant.

Because while there are many facets to what both conservatives and liberals believe what our culture is, and what is should be, it really boils down to two major differences of opinion:

• Conservatives believe that our society is a free association of equals who create a government that governs by consent of the people, and should generally operate within restrictive boundaries – the Tenth Amendment, for a quick example.  Liberals believe that society is – I’ve heard an amazing number of liberals use this exact description – a parent, riding herd on his/her unruly or needy children, trying to help them grow up to be good citizens, kissing their owwies and putting them in time-out and keeping them out of trouble until they’re ready to take over for themselves.
• Conservatives believe that while mankind is deeply imperfect and utterly imperfectible, the concept of the United States is in and of itself one of immense nobility; it is a “shining city on a hill”, a place where government is a useful subordinate to the nobility of the individual.  It’s an ideal toward which most of the world – the sane part – aspires.   Liberals tend to believe that our society is perfectible, through the graces of a benevolent government rather than any intrinsic virtue in the American system.

Now, the battle is usually expressed through an endless series of group ad homina; liberals slur “Tenthers” as advocates of slavery; conservatives see liberals as hive creatures, Borg with no identity outside the larger organism.

At any rate – I believe that America works best when we not only do see ourselves as a free association of equals, but act like it.  And when government limits itself, rather than  you or me.

Yep.  I’m a radical!

April 19 may be the most fraught date in American history – for good or evil, instruction or paranoia, right or wrong.  And its’ stacked-up layers of symbolism are going to be popping out from the news, spinmeisters and commentary all day long, and beyond.

The pants-wetting class is knotted up about a couple of marches planned for today; one, a group of armed Second Amendment activists, plans to hold a demonstration at a park in Virginia – the closest point to America’s political and traditional murder capitol, Washington DC, at which a law-abiding citizen can legally carry a gun.  And another group, the “Second Amendment March” or SAM, plans a march (unarmed, unfortunately) on the Capitol.

And that’s got the gun-grabbing left’s paranoia and mania for specious symbolism cranking overtime:

[“Second Amendment March” founder Skip Coryell] claims he chose April 19 “because it is the 235th anniversary of Lexington-Concord.” However, the date also carries a rather unfortunate significance: the day militia sympathizers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Let’s stop right there.

“Militia sympathizers”?  That’s chipped from the same block as Andy Birkey’s swerve into collective guilt by association last week, when he (and, one presumes, the editors at the Soros-funded Center for “Independent” Media, which former Mindy staffers themselves noted actually call the shots and want the site to be a  flak organ for centrally-driven propaganda) used an irate, profanity-riddle phone message from someone who claimed to be a Tea Partier to try to impugn the entire Tea Party.   McVeigh and Nichols were criminals; if they “sympathized” with the Oakland Raiders, “Iron Chef” and “Twilight”, it wouldn’t mean that football fans, foodies and dozey teenagers had some dark inner secret.

“The Militia” in the US is everyone.  “A well-regulated militia being necessary for the preservation of liberty, the right of the people to keep and bear arms…” is what the Constitution says, in that little bit right after the part about freedom of speech that seems to be the only part most liberals ever read.   And the Supreme Court said “The People” means all of us in the Heller decision, two years ago.

The “militia” that the pants-wetting class is exercised about is not “the militia”.  It is a tiny collection of people with unfashionably acerbic views on society that the media and the pants-wetting class have set up as a boogeyman to scare society into place.

But let’s not stop with the significant anniversaries.  There are two more:

April 19 also marks the end of the weeks-long siege of the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, TX. Dan Casey of the Roanake Times reported that “[s]ome activists in the gun-rights movement have tried to talk Coryell out of organizing” the march, fearing that the “political timing is bad” or that it “might lead people to believe the gun movement is a paper tiger with a few loud voices.”

It’s also the date of the Warsaw Uprising – which should be the story that people keep in mind when they think of “militias”.  The Jews of Poland had been herded into huge, miserable, starving ghettos while the Nazis built their extermination camps.  By April 19, 1942 many of them were already dead, of starvation or disease or murdered by their guards.

And a small band of Jewish patriots – “extremists”, as someone like Andy Birkey or ThinkProgress might call them today – decided it would be better to die with dignity and have a chance, however thin, at liberty than to quietly be sucked into Hitler’s death machine.  With a few stolen pistols and molotov cocktails, they rose, threw the Germans out of the Ghetto, and for a few weeks became a speed bump to Hitler’s “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem”.

The media and left (ptr) focus on the April 19 of Oklahoma City (where a couple of cartoon characters that belonged in a movie about fringe lunatics managed to kill 168 Americans) and Waco (where a group with very unfashionable religious views ran afoul of their own leader’s delusions, a deeply-stupid government raid, and some very bad luck with chemicals) because it fits their narrative; the big mass of people between the Hudson and the Sierra Madre need to be controlled, lest they hurt themselves.

But the April 19 of Lexington and Concord is a symbol of the power of We The People – which disturbs that other narrative.  And the April 19 of Warsaw shows why it should be the duty (in the patriotic sense, if not also statutory) for every law-abiding American to own and be proficient with firearms – so that the next batch of Nazis can’t show anyone how very much more powerful than the pen the sword really is.

Of course Coryell’s fears are completely baseless. Obama has no intention of taking any anyone’s gun rights. In fact, during his campaign for president, Obama said, “I believe in the Second Amendment, and if you are a law-abiding gun owner, you have nothing to fear from an Obama administration.”

And why would Obama say that, after a career spent in gun-grabbing governments and working for gun-control-advocating non-profits?

Because of Americans who march to show Congress and the states that we are here, we’re better citizens than most, and we’re not going away.

Citizens like me.  Not Timothy McVeigh.

I wish I could be in DC.

State Rep. Randy Demmer won the 1st District endorsement on Saturday, beating out Alan Quist and two more conservative candidates.

Demmer, a four-term state representative and business owner from Hayfield, a town southwest of Rochester, vowed to paint Walz as too liberal for his southern Minnesota district.

“We know Tim Walz is working with Nancy Pelosi,” Demmer said. “He’s right there doing everything she beckons him to do.”

For all his talk in 2006 of being independent and representing his district – which ranges from rock-ribbed conservative farmers, doctors and businesspeople in the south and the Rochester area to mewling liberals in and around Mankato – Walz has been nothing but a lapdog for Nancy Pelosi (although rumors that he actually ran and fetched a stick thrown by Madame Speaker are apparently false).

Demmer beat back a challenge from longtime conservative activist Allen Quist and two other contenders, who couched their bids in even more heated rhetoric.

…

Demmer, 53, took eight ballots over about five hours at the convention held at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

And that’s a good sign; while I prefer the more conservative candidates in general, Demmer is no Arne Carlson; his Taxpayers League rating is 64, which could be better, but it beats Walz sitting down.  And while abortion is not my litmus test issue, it does my heart proud to see that NARAL has give him a long string of zeros.  Put it this way – if he wins, it’ll be like Gil Gutknecht never left.  Perfect is the enemy of plenty good enough.

Downside?  Walz is sitting on $600,000; Demmer has about $10K in the bank.  He’s got a lot of ground to make up; even with a conservative tailwind, it’s going to be a busy year.

Any of my readers in the First – please sound off!

On 9/11, I was 38, with a bad eye and a bad knee and a couple of kids.   The thought flashed through my head not a few times in the next year or three; “I wish I was ten years younger, had two kids’ fewer obligations, and was in the kind of shape I was in before I got married and had kids”, so I could have done something in the war that had just come to us.

Seeing  this bit here, I see that in fact I can:

The Demos think tank recommends that shows – such as Jihad! The Musical or the film Four Lions, by the Brass Eye satirist Chris Morris – should be used to highlight the failings of violent philosophies.

“Hey, Abu – I had a keffiyeh like that – til my dad got a job!”

To: Rep. Betty McCollum

From: Mitc Berg, peasant in your realm

Re: Campaign

Rep. McCollum,

You’ve been in office for ten years, winning most years by huge margins.  Of course, this past few cycles have been great years for Democrats everywhere – so here in the Fourth District, it’s been just ludicrous; you’ve won by the same margin Brezhnev got in the 1970 Soviet elections.

And you’ve developed a bit of a reputation for dodging debates.  The rumor has it that it’s because you’re just not able of holding your own against anyone past about sixth grade.   But in a normal year, that’s OK – this is the Fourth District. In a normal year, the Fourth District DFL could endorse Ed Gein, Crispin Glover or a bag of Snausages and get 55% of the vote.

But this isn’t a normal year.  The GOP has a tail wind this year; you might not be a walkon this year.  Teresa Collette won endorsement with a pretty good head of steam.

So here’s the question; are you going to scamper like a scared kitten away from a debate and hide behind your friends in the media again?

That is all.

Last week, we discussed what to do about the Minnesota GOP Platform.

It wasn’t just idle talk.  Last weekend at the 3rd CD GOP convention, Derek “Chief” Brigham of Freedom Dogs and True North brought the draft result of the work of a small group of us who wanted to see the platform change to a vote:

Rick Weible who is a Co-Chair at CD3 and I were talking at the SD45 convention and I learned that he also wanted to see this happen, and that the idea was popular with others in leadership. I told him I knew a few guys that would be good to bring in to help draft this thing and so it began. Mitch Berg (CD4), John LaPlante (CD2), Jan Schneider (CD3), Rick and I started a drafting a file that after many, many revisions eventually became the document you see below. Today at the CD3 convention, it passed by a nearly unanimous vote (I only heard one nay from the floor).

It’s very similar to the one I posted here last week:

Proposal from Third Congressional District Republicans of Minnesota

Guiding Principles and Values

Individuals, businesses and the country succeed and prosper when government stays out of the way of those who lead the way with integrity, responsibility, charity, hard work, humility, courage, gratitude and hope.

Government has a role in our society – but that role is carefully enumerated in the United States Constitution. The Republican Party of Minnesota believes that a good government does not eclipse roles that are best carried out by individuals, families, houses of faith, charitable organizations or businesses.

1) America is a great nation; we are the “Shining City,” an exemplar of virtues for all other nations and their people. The greatness of the American nation, the virtues of its people, and the success of the American experiment are a beacon of hope for the entire world.

2) Liberty is essential for our society to advance and prosper. The freedom to explore advances in culture, business, faith, science and government improves all of our lives; on the other hand, excessive government regulation and control hinders that development. The ability and freedom to disagree with each other and our government must also be protected; any hindrances to the free market of ideas will sap the ability of America to advance and to better herself.

3) We believe in the ability of the individual, by themselves or through families, businesses, groups and non-profit organizations, rather than the government to solve the problems of today and lead us into the future.

4) Faith is where we derive our moral compass and come to understand the eternal rules of order and rights which God himself has ordained. We believe each person needs to be free in order to explore his/her Faith.

5) Human Life is sacred; it must be protected at all stages.

6) The Family is among our society’s most important institutions. Government must not be allowed to infringe on the sanctity of the family.

7) The Pursuit of Happiness is essential to our existence; we support equal opportunities not equal results.

8 ) Charity comes best from the heart of individuals and cannot be forced or coerced via taxation and regulation.

9) The law must be applied to everyone equally; no one is above the law.

10) Law abiding citizens must be trusted to defend their life, family and property.

Drafted and submitted April 2010, by Rick Weible (CD3), Derek Brigham (CD3), Mitch Berg (CD4), John LaPlante (CD2), Jan Schneider (CD3)

So what’s the fuss about?  Mostly, it’s about giving the people of the party a succinct, clear statement of principles and values.

That’s good in itself, especially should the state party go through some sort of resolutions fight at the state convention and the platform ends up as even more of a beast. Don’t tell me it’s not possible.

As anyone that’s ever been to a MNGOP convention at any level knows, it’s the resolutions fights that drag on and on, as activists – who may or may not be especially experienced at how conventions, parties and platforms work, debate the finer points of resolutions whose sole intent…

…is to go into an already-overlong platform, to make it over-longer.

Now let’s consider a possible future for this document. CD3’s resolutions committee, can now take a vote tested and nearly unanimously approved document to the state resolution meeting to present it as a state party document to consider. They may make changes, or it may get totally shot down by the other CDs, or it may just make it through to the floor of the state convention for a vote as an approved party document.

I hope it comes to State.  It’d be a good statement to the delegates and the voters.  The GOP’s biggest problem in the past four years, besides dynasty fatigue, was the perception that they’d become a big part of the problem.

As the party goes through the ordeal of cleaning up its act, what could be better than cleaning up its defnining statement?

I’m out at Jimmy’s Convention Center in Vadnais Heights at the 4th CD Republican endorsing convention.

I’m kinda impressed that I found Vadnais Heights.  So the morning’s off to a good start.

Well, it was; Bev Aplikowski tells us that we have a long list of speakers.   That’s just fantastic.  I have to duck out of here at 11:45 to go do the show.

8:47 – Phil Herwig is kicking things off.  Phil Herwig is the gubernatorial candidate that makes Tom Emmer go “Yow – he’s far-right”.  Wondering if Leslie Davis is planning on showing up…

9:09 – Credentials report.  Speaking of credentials, I managed to check the MN Criminal History database, per Phil Herwig’s request.  No records for Emmer or Seifert.  What was he talking about?

Herwig’s big “bombshell” – “go on your computer and google your candidates and see that I haven’t knocked over a 7/11”.  Is he saying something we don’t know about Tom Emmer and Marty Seifert that Google (at a quick glance) doesn’t seem to know about?  (Funny – there are three of us in the 66B row of seats madly googling away trying to figure out what the flaming hootie-hoo

8:51 – Bill Haas is next.  He’s a former legislator from Bemidji.  Super-likeable guy, great business chops.  May get to the first ballot…

8:54 – Randy Gilbert, State Auditor candidate, up next.  I’ve interviewed him on the air.  He’s a sharp guy; I think that if Pat Anderson weren’t in the race, he’d have a great shot.  But I’m also thinking Pat is a 900 pound gorilla, figuratively speaking…

Is that Teh Andee Appelkowskie I see?   Why yes, it is!

Straight up 9 – Jeff Wiita, another Auditor candidate.  He makes a bit of hay with the fact that he’s a CPA.  His speech shows it; he talks like an accountant.  That’s not a bad thing, but it’s very much in contrast with Gilbert and Anderson.  On the other hand, he brought his daughter, who has the cutest delivery you’ve ever seen.

9:04 – And Pat Anderson rounds out the group.  She’s got the room pretty well organized, I think.  Good speech; I’ve heard it before, of course, but it’s a good one.

Talking with my BPOU chair Tom Lageson.  It’s the first time either of us can remember having all our primary delegates show up for a CD convention; we have all seven, plus probalby eight alternates.

9:12 – Marty Seifert and his wife are onstage now.  He’s hitting the right notes; “I’m the chief zookeeper; I’m looking for elephants, not RINOs”.    “We need to stop the influx of thousands and thousands of people who come here to take advantage of the welfare system”.    Bangs hard on the Minnesota Federation of Teachers, calling for spending cuts, shouts out for the military, and their defense of liberty.  “The second line of defense is you in this room”.  The small-l libertarian message is alive and well; the moderate Republican seems to be dead.   Good friggin’ riddance.

9:18 – Tammy Pust, candidate for Ramco Attorney, is asking to speak.  It’s a “non-partisan” race, but he’s believed to be a DFLer.    There’s about five minutes of speakers (myself included) on both sides of allowing her to speak.  She eventually won a vote to allow her a couple of minutes.  She notes that she’s the only DFL RCA candidate who’s not running for the DFL endorsement.  She’s speaking now; she’s stating a decent nonpartisan case, more or less; she notes that on the Roseville City Council, she was one of two that didnt’ vote for a tax increase.  I’ll give her points for cojones, walking into the lion’s den when it’s in high conservative dudgeon.

9:30 – David Schultz, another Ramco Attorney candidate addresses us.  Notes he’s a “very politically moderate Democrat”.   Notes he’s never run for office, and that Ramco Attorney isn’t a stepping stone for him.  Notes that he’s never been a party activist, and he hasn’t a chance of getting the DFL endorsement – but is asking for votes in primary and general anyway; notes he has “real legal experience”.

Some of the delegates are audibly upset we’re allowing non-GOPers to address the convention; they make a good point.  It’s an endorsing convention, not a campaign stop.   I hope CD4 revisits this at some point.

9:36 – Greg Wuersel, judge candidate, is on now.  He’s been out front on the issue of political judicial endorsements.  He’s a very entertaining speaker, with some great points about reforming the judiciary.  He’s speaking against the proposed amendment to bar endorsements; “tell them not just no, but hell no!”  Drew quite a round of applause.

9:41 – Tom Conlon, former St. Paul School Board member, now running for State Auditor again . Another great candidate; for many years he was the only elected Republican in the city of Saint Paul.    Really sharp guy, and he’s got great experience at winning quixotic quests; he’s running down his bona fides as a small-government warrior; the guy earned his stripes on the SPPS board.  In a race without Pat Anderson, he’d be a very strong candidate.  The GOP needs him to be in the game, somehow, somewhere.  Notes that Rebecca Otto, the DFL incumbent, is basically a wind-up chattering toy for the DFL; not a bad line to take in this room.  Also true.

9:46 – Bob Carvey – a “moderate progressive Republican” – addresses the group.  He’s running for governor.  Looks like a quaker minister.  I’m going to get some coffee.   So, it seems, is everyone else.  He’s bagging on unallotment.  Let’s just say this room won’t be carrying him to the governor’s mansion on their shoulders.  Says he’ll be running in the primary against whomever gets nominated.  His big platform item – bicycle skyways.   I repeat; enclosed, elevated bicycle (and Segway) skyways.

Oy.

9:52 – Tom Emmer is on stage now.  Seats are full again.  “It’s a good sign that Democrats are coming to GOP conventions to ask for votes!”  That draws a nice round of applause.  Introduces wife Jackie, “my best friend in this world”.  In two weeks, notes, we will be endorsing a candidate; notes we must all get behind that endorsee.  Huge round of applause.  Notes our party must be about perception of integrity.  Standing O.

9:57 – Andy Cilek of MN Voters Alliance gives update on Voter ID.   Tom Emmer still working the room – it’ll take him half an hour to get out of the place.

10:02 – Twila Brase from the Citizens Council on Healthcare speaking for the petition on infant DNA privacy.

10:06 – Bev Aplikowski notes that her novena got answered – her call for CD4 candidates was answered with seven candidates to run against Betty “Rubble” McCollum.  Field is down to probably three right now, and we’ll be deciding the endorsement today – but it’s a huge change in the Fourth.

10:12 – credentials report; it looks like almost all the primary delegates have shown up.  This is kinda big news, actually.

10:14 – Janet Beihoffer is looking for election judges.

10:20 – Dan Severson, SecState candidate, former Navy fighter pilot, and sitting House Minority Whip, is on now.   “If you don’t think SecState is important, i gotta name for you; Al Franken.  We elected a comedian; the joke is on MN!  MN didn’t elect Al Franken; Mark Ritchie did”.    Aggressive.  Good play in this room.   He presents a searing indictment of Mark Ritchie’s regime at  State.  He will be supporting voter ID.  Look for scabrous claims of “racisim” from the DFL long before any issues raised.

10:26 – Chair moves to push the gubernatorial straw poll up ahead of the Constitution Committee report.  Resounding approval.

10:29 – Michael Brodkorb, deputy chair, addresses the convention.   Notes that on May 1, all GOP candidates will leave unity breakfast as friends, all on same team.  This is a huge thing.

10:40 – My computer just in time for Leslie Davis’ speech.  I’m not kidding.

11:00 – We’ve spent the last 22 hours discussing some arcane point of CD4 central committee procedure as part of the Constitution Committee report.

11:04 – I’m told it’s only been 22 minutes.

11:09 – Finally calling the question for the Constitution Committee.  Maybe.  It was a report that was supposed to take three minutes.  Blah.

11;20 – Straw poll happening now.  Informal verbal poll of my tiny district (66B) – Emmer 5, Seifert 2.    Waiting for lunch.   I guess I’m not gonna get to vote for CD4 Rep endorsement.  Bummer.

11:28 – Tony Sutton, State GOP Chair, is onstage now.  “All districts are winnable…but it’s going to take work.  Can’t just watch Fox News and listen to Rush”.

11:35 – I had to take off to do the show.  Hopefully I’ll have results to pass along…

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 is out on assignment, so I’m up from 1-3.  We’ll be talking with King Banaian at 1:30 about his House bid, and then James Lileks joins us!.
• 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!

(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,
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• UStream video and chat (at HotAir.com or at UStream).
• Podcast at Townhall, usually by Monday
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Join us!

…that my two not-so-little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the media’s bobbleheaded droogs by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

So I not only got to attend the Tea Party at the State Capitol yesterday, but it was my immense privilege to be the lead-off speaker; mine was the first in a long stream of excellent speeches, including that of my NARN cohost  Ed Morrissey, whose speech I videotaped and is currently up at Hot Air, and Twila Brase, and Katie Kieffer, who will no doubt post video, also gave an excellent speech.  There were more.  Many more.

Lil’ ol’ me. Courtesy Peter Anderson.

I estimated about 1,500 people at the event at its peak around 6:30 or so.  It was good-sized, jovial crowd – but not quite as big as last year.  Some people were worried about this.  I’m not; last year, people were upset, and wondering what the hell to do, and the Tea Party was like a psychological life ring to a whole lot of people whose political activism had never gone beyond going to the polls, maybe, every couple of years.  Over the past year, though, conservatives have changed; we turn out for rallies; we call Congresspeople in vast numbers; better yet, of the 11,000 who attended last week’s Bachmann/Palin rally, over 1,000 volunteered to be election judges.   We saw similar results last night.  Conservatives are doing what they need to do to turn the spirit of the Tea Parties into the action this nation needs.

One group that was not in evidence were the “crashers”; this wasn’t the case everywhere, and the Saint Paul Tea Party was ready with a sizeable group of volunteers armed with orange vests and cameras to handle security – but other than half a dozen “Tax Me More!” activists who stood across the street for about half an hour, and a “Thanks To Taxes” billboard-truck that desultorily circled the capitol grounds (the billboard seemed to imply that we have children, sunshine and sex because of taxes), there was really no “opposition” at all.

And while last year I saw a few signs that made me cringe, I didn’t even see much of the far-out fringe in the crowd this year, either.  I mean, if you’re one of those lefties who gets the victorian vapours over references to John Galt, then yeah, I suppose the crowd was big and scary.  But the far-out, Alex Jones fringe was mostly absent from the rally itself.  I saw not a single “Birther” sign, much less anything I”d call racist.  Indeed, almost all the far-out fringe contingent…

…was up on stage.   For some reason, one of Toni Backdahl’s co-MCs was a guy from AM1710, a little 15 watt AM station in Maple Grove that could be charitably said to be out there on the Alex Jones fringe of the movement.   And one of the opening “musical” acts was a kid in an “InfoWars.com” t-shirt (these are the folks that make the radical Randers shake their heads and go “good lord, how wierd”) who did a pseudo-rap rant that might have fit in at an anarchist rally and whose message would have made me cringe even had the kid not considered “intonation” part of a socialist conspiracy.  There were also a few speakers that sputtered about the unconstitutionality of the income tax, which is pretty much the norm at these things.

Now, I don’t fault the Tea Party’s organizers for including a lot of people that I, personally, disagree with strenuously – because that’s the whole point of the Tea Party.  It’s a group of people, some of whom would not normally agree about anyting, gathering together for a common cause; making government smaller, more responsible, and less frivolous with our rights and liberties.

And so I say “Yay” to all; the mainstream-of-the-mainstream Republican, the disaffected Democrat, the Ronulan, and everyone in between, and all of us who are united behind the idea that we are all created equal, and that people aren’t free until government is limited; let’s all kick ass in November.

Indeed, the only problem I heard about involved a reporter from “The Uptake”.  He’s a local leftyblogger who usually blogs anonymously; he went by “Steve” on the Uptake’s video.  Now, he interviewed me briefly last year; I never saw his final product, although I was told either his voiceover or his editing really mangled the context of my interview; I wouldn’t know – I don’t watch the Uptake much.  I did another standup with him after I got offstage – I figure if he and the Uptake want to Maye what I said, it says more about him and them than it does about me.   He referred to the people around him as “tea-baggers”; I gently corrected him, but I got a sneaking hunch it was a tell as to “the Uptake’s” overall tone of “coverage”.

But shortly after that, a few of the orange-clad security guys came up to me and said they’d been getting complaints about the Uptake’s crew.  I asked them for specifics; they took me to a couple that that said the Uptake’s crew hadn’t identified themselves as a “news” crew that was going to publish an interview online, and that they seemed to be trying to get them to say something stupid, to make them – Tea Partiers in general, it seemed – look stupid.    The woman said that the “reporter” seemed to be trying to pick a fight with her, trying to one-up her on her knowledge of issues; “I”m not an encyclopedia, I can’t answer all the questions he has right away”, she said, still visibly exasperated.   Her husband, a Vietnam veteran, echoed his wife’s thoughts; “he was trying to pick a fight; he was harassing us”.

I walked away, wondering – is “the Uptake” still trying to be an actual news organization, or are they down to trying to do bogus Jon Stewart-style “attack” man-on-the-street interviews?   It’s entertainment, I suppose, watching a self-professed “smarter-than-thou” taking pot shots at those he and his viewers consider inferiors for cheap yuks.  But is it “news?”

Now, I haven’t contacted The Uptake about this, and I doubt that I will; when it comes to “reporting” on the Tea Parties, even the mainstream media seem to find waterboarding context acceptable.  But I think it’s curious that an organization that is fighting for its standing on the Capitol Press Corps would seemingly take such gratuitous liberties with the whole idea of “journalistic ethics”, whatever they are, with this kind of behavior, if true.

Bill Salisbury at the Pioneer Press, and Jessica Mador of MPR both did good, balanced jobs of reporting on the event; or at least I got no complaints from security about either of them (except from the guard that Salisbury bowled over in his rush to interview Katie Kieffer).

I’ll be looking forward to next year.  Goodness knows there’ll be work to do.

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The conservative blogosphere – at least the A through D lists – have been really reticent about assigning blame in the »  beating of Bobby Jindal aide Allee Butsch and her boyfriend last weekend at the Southern Republican Leadership conference in New Orleans.  Conservative bloggers, for example, led the way in showing that the couple weren’t wearing Sarah Palin pins, which was an initial story about the crime:

Allee Butsch suffered a broken leg from the beatdown outside to the SRLC dinner at Brennan’s Restaurant in New Orleans. She had her leg operated on over the weekend and it will take her months to recover. Her boyfriend Joe Brown suffered a broken nose, a broken jaw, and a concussion. They were attacked after leaving the Southern Republican Leadership Conference dinner at Brennan’s Restaurant.

Police have no suspects, and are doing their best not to release uncorroborated information to the public.  And conservative bloggers aren’t jumping the gun in any numbers to call this a political hate crime – something that Steny Hoyer, Rep. Lewis, Rep. Cleaver, Nancy Pelosi and the Twin Cities AFSCME should try.

Now, I’m not going to jump to any conclusions, and I’ll say up front that the following execise is purely conjectural.

But do me a favor and turn on your stereotype radar when you read the lone description available among the five attackers:

Police are looking for a Caucasian male who appeared to be dirty, in his 20’s, 6′1″ tall, thin build with a thin face. He had a beard and auburn color hair in a pony tail. He was wearing a light color T shirt and dark color pants. Up to 5 men beat the couple after they left the GOP event on Friday night.

A dirty twentysomething white guy in a ponytail.  I mean, if it were a dirty fiftysomething in a ponytail and a beard, you’d think  “a bunch of meth addicts jumped the kids”.  But most twentysomethings have to spend a lot of time, money and effort to affect that kind of look.

The Twin Cities AFSCME has not yet told us whether they consider this  a threat to them from the Tea Party.

A volcano in Iceland is is erupting:

An Icelandic volcano is still spewing ash into the air in a massive plume that has disrupted air traffic across Europe and shows little sign of letting up, officials said on Friday.

The Twin Cities AFSCME has not yet told us whether they consider this  a threat to them from the Tea Party.

Wednesday, Andy Birkey at the Minnesoros “independent” wrote about an episode involving an angry caller leaving a profane, uncivil message at a local AFSCME office.

Birkey:

[AFSCME’s flak] forwarded audio of the call along with the identity of a person she says the calls were tracked to.  That individual, a local business owner, she says “claims to be an organizer of the Tea Party protest at the State Capitol tomorrow.”

Birkey ran the “organizer” claim uncritically, without any fact-checking; apparently AFSCME flaks are considered unimpeachable sources.

But since I was on the stage with every single one of the Twin Cities’ Tea Party’s “organization” last night, I asked around if anyone had heard of the alleged caller, “Ed Motch”.  Was he an organizer?  Was he even prominent enough among the Twin Cities’ small community of non-major-party tax activists that anyone even knew the guy’s name?

Nobody had ever heard of the guy.  A casual google of “Ed Motch” shows that most of the references to him come from…the Mindy.

To be fair to the Mindy, the rest of the Twin Cities media – Fox9, WCCO and MPR – repeated AFSCME’s claim that this…:

“Hey you [expletive] piece of [expletive]. Your days are [expletive] numbered sucking at the public tit. This [expletive] is over. I saw that [expletive] ‘Tax the Rich’ ad again. We don’t you come and visit tomorrow at the [expletive] little party we’re going to have on the 15th at the capitol. Why don’t you show up there with your [expletive] union signs. That’d be just [expletive] wonderful. Come you you gutless [expletive] wonders, show up!”

…was a “threat”.   An uncivil. profane tirade, certainly, and not an invitation in good faith to the event, but “threat?

Apparently it is, if AFSCME, like Steny Hoyer, Rep. Cleaver, Rep. Lewis and Nancy Pelosi, say so.

Drunk driver  Mpls. slams into a lightpole outside a Minneapolis police precinct:

The perilous scene took place just outside the department’s Fifth Precinct headquarters at Nicollet Avenue S. and W. 31st Street. A driver slammed into the light pole outside the precinct office at 3:45 a.m.

A second driver – perhaps gawking, perhaps too stewed to know better – happens on the scene:

Sgt. Dudgeon and another officer left their office to investigate the crash, but as Dudgeon circled around the car to see if it contained any passengers, a second driver veered over and hit her.

Sgt. Dudgeon had minor injuries, but was left in a state of high dud…no.  Too easy.

Both drivers are arrested for suspicion of drunk driving, and a grab bag of other charges.

The Twin Cities AFSCME office has not yet issued on a statement on whether the incidents constituted a threat to them.

Our friend Katie Kieffer has entered a video in a US Chamber of Commerce contest to promote free enterprise.

Part of the contest is she needs to get lots of views on YouTube.

Check out the vid.  Pass it around.  It’d be cool if the home team won this one.

UPDATE AND BUMP:  Today’s the last day for people to view the vid.  The top 25 in terms of hits go on to the finals.  Vote early and often!

Please, by all means bring videocams and cameras to the Tea Party; if you see someone with an objectionable racist sign, get a picture and send it to your favorite blogger.  More importantly, ask them questions.  Find out who they are, why they are doing what they’re doing.  The left is actively planning to send stooges with racist signs to try to discredit the Tea Parties; this is the sort of thing that deserves to backfire.

And keep it to questions and pictures.  Let the other guys, per usual, do all the violent stuff. 

(But if you are possessed to beat someone up, it’s be so poetically just if you’d wear an SEIU T-shirt when you do).

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…and I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to find a “coffee party” today?

Anywhere?

Anyone?

Let me know. 

Mmm.  Coffee and debate.

I just got a message:

I am [name redacted]: I am a big DFLer, who was a key player in our 2008 legislative landslide, and who is working on one of the front-running DFL gubernatorial campaigns.  I am on a first-name basis with every single DFL leader; I am welcomed into every DFL legislator’s and candidate’s office with my first name.  I am, in DFL terms, the shizzle.

I hate you, Merg, and I am going to kill you; I am going to shoot you in the face as your friends and relatives look on in mute horror.  And then I’m going to steal a helicopter and drop a huge firebomb on the Tea Party, killing all you Teabagger wingnuts.

By the way, hundreds of my public-employee union friends helped me write this email, and want you to know they’ll be there to defile the corpses afterward. 

Please don’t print my name.

Since this key DFL player (seriously!  That’s what his message said!) asked me not to print his name, I must respect his wishes. 

But wow – it’s a threat!  Honest!  From someone claiming to be a huge DFL organizer!   At the head of an angry mob!

Wow. 

So will the DFL and all liberals repudiate this violent threat?  Or do they approve of death threats?

Hey, if Andy Birkey can impugn an entire movement based on his blithe assurance that a crank caller claimed to be a key Tea Partier, really, what’s the problem with the above?

[Note to the dense; the above is pure satire; unlike Steny Hoyer, Reps. Lewis and Cleaver, I make no claim that these slandrous claims are true.   And unlike Andy Birkey, I’m not going to insult your intelligence by asking you to generalize about an entire party, union or movement based on – let’s be bluntly honest – transparent bullshit).

Someone left some naughty messages at the local AFSCME headquarters.

Andy Birkey at the Minnesoros “Independent” notes that AFSCME and the police know who it is, but…:

[An AFSCME spokesperson] revealed the caller’s identity, and states that his business is on record as a vendor for the state of Minnesota; she shared documentation of that fact with this site. The Minnesota Independent’s call to the individual was not returned, so we’ll refrain from revealing his or her identity at this time.

But, all of that aside, Birkey will reveal [I’ll add emphasis] that…:

A local chapter of AFSCME, the national public workers’ union, says it received three expletive-laced phone messages from a person claiming to be a Tea Party member in response to the union’s new ad urging support for fair taxation in Minnesota.

Wow.  That’s a pretty damning conclusion!  And on what does Birkey base this?

[AFSCME’s flak] forwarded audio of the call along with the identity of a person she says the calls were tracked to.  That individual, a local business owner, she says “claims to be an organizer of the Tea Party protest at the State Capitol tomorrow.”

So let’s summarize; Andy Birkey, apparently at the assurance of a PR flak from a group that has a vested interest in attacking the Tea Party, not only claims on the eve of the national Tea Party protests that an “organizer” (we know this because he claimed it on his phone message!) is threatening a local union (???), to the point where he headlined his story “TEA PARTY SUPPORTER THREATENS AFSCME OFFICE“…

…but won’t say who it is, so that we Tea Partiers can find out who has allegedly so sullied the honor of our movement?

Hmmm.  The hell you say.

And what exactly was the “threat?”

“Hey you [expletive] piece of [expletive]. Your days are [expletive] numbered sucking at the public tit. This [expletive] is over. I saw that [expletive] ‘Tax the Rich’ ad again. We don’t you come and visit tomorrow at the [expletive] little party we’re going to have on the 15th at the capitol. Why don’t you show up there with your [expletive] union signs. That’d be just [expletive] wonderful. Come you you gutless [expletive] wonders, show up!”

Um, what’s the threat?  I get it, profanity is unpleasant and all, but the only “threat” seems to be sympathy for cutting government jobs, and an acid invitation to come to the Tea Party with union signs to see what people thought of ’em.

As to the AFSCME flak?  Well, the union can be happy they’re getting their money’s worth; she’s certainly on message…:

“The tea party has a history of inciting angry mobs, so given that, we filed the report…

I’d ask her to provide examples of “angry mobs”, but I’m sure she’ll be on a contractual coffee break when I call…

I’ll be calling the AFSCME office for clarification.  Let’s see if that gets reported as a “threat”, too.

UPDATE:  Welcome, Politics in Minnesota readers.  I update this story in this piece.

The second annual Minnesota Tea Party is coming up this afternoon on the State Capitol grounds.  It’ll start at five, and run well into the evening. 

Last year, at least 7,000 Americans turned out in Minnesota – among a turnout of at least 600,000 nationwide that stunned the nation’s newly-installed “elite”.  It turned out that for a good chunk of America, Obama didn’t bring the change they’d really hoped for. 

Let me say that again; 7,000 Minnesotans (or, as the media said, “dozens), working people with families and lives, turned out on a work day, Tax Day besides, to…protest.  Something that “conservatives” have never done as a group.

It’s going to be much bigger this year.  Polls show more people support the Tea Party’s ideals than those of the President and his administration. 

And the Parties have the Liberals running scared.  They tried to ignore the movement last year – which lasted until the headcount crept into six figures.  Then they tried mocking them – the constant, thud-witted “teabagger” references that have become a sign of a sandblasted intellect among smart people.  Finally came the attacks – literal ones, like the SEIU thugs who put the black conservative protester in the hospital at a town hall meeting in Saint Louis, and figurative ones like the tsunami of defamation in the past month.

More substantive signs of their fear?  If the Tea Party were not a harbinger of a wave of discontent, Pelosi and Reid could have relaxed a bit, and not jammed Obamacare down with the Chicago-like ruthlessness they had to use.  They are scared out of their wits.

I’ll be speaking first at the rally today.  I’ll hope to see you there.

I was enjoying an all-too-rare hour of listening to Jason Lewis the other day.

I was driving through the teller line at the bank, when he chimed in with an oldie but goodie:  “Bikers don’t pay taxes”. 

And the teller looked at me, perplexed, when I shouted “you are wrong for two reasons!”.

First:  I do pay taxes.  City and county taxes.  Some of which go to paying for bike lanes – the odd strip of asphalt around the lakes, and a stripe lane on the occasional street.  Not every street mind you; one street about every mile or so, generally, usually not the high-traffic ones.  (And by the way – Minneapolis’ re-work of Hennepin and First Avenue North, putting the bike lane between the parking lane and the curb?  Reekingly stupid.  It smacks of equal parts revenue generation plan and green-über-alles arrogance).   While there may or may not be state transportation dollars mixed in there, I most certainly do pay taxes for them. 

Now – in their infinite wisdom, the powers that be decided not to make bike paths a user-fee-based system, paid for by tolls or bike licenses or whatever.  Got any ideas?   I’m down with ’em – although we all know it’ll just mean more property tax revenues for government to spend.  But that’s a larger problem on which we all agree.

Second (ironically, inasmuch as I was in a car when I thought this):  Like 99% or more of bikers, I pay gas taxes.  I drive.  Six months or so a year, though, I commute by bike (as well as all sorts of recreational riding).    For longer trips, or trips where I have to haul groceries, I drive. 

And you can ask any engineer, but five five-mile trips cause more road damage than one 25-mile trip; the longer trip is likely to be on the highways (which my gas taxes pay for), with fewer starts and stops and turns, the kind of thing that wears down roads.  So since a higher percentage of my gas-tax-generating car travel is longer, more efficient, less-damaging trips, while for half the year most of my short-hop trips cause no damage to roads at all (because I”m on a bike!), the state taxpayer is actually getting less damage per gas tax dollar out of me, the driver who bikes a lot, than out of someone who drives all of the equivalent mileage.

By the way –  while I drive, I buy less gas – which means less demand pressure on the market, which lowers the price for the rest of you. 

On all counts, you’re welcome.

I was enjoying an all-too-rare hour of listening to Jason Lewis the other day.

Years ago, when I ran an annual “State of Twin Cities Talk Radio” feature, a solid year before the Northern Alliance Radio Network went on the air (I discontinued the series when the show started, due to my obvious bias); in it, I noted at least once that “Jason Lewis is the host I’d like to be when I grow up”.  And that day was one of the broadcasts where I realized exactly why.

I’m not one of those people who bays “politics is the worst it’s ever been”; it’s not.  1928 was bad; 1828 was worse (albeit for many of the same reasons it’s bad today, only on steroids).   But it is getting pretty bad these days.

And not because people aren’t “bipartisan”.  “Bipartisanship” is a chimera; taken to an illogical extreme, it is antidemocratic. 

And in a multipolar political world, people are going to disagree – on issues, and on lesser things.

To paraphrase Lewis, we need to avoid bagging on the lesser things – especially personalities and personal attacks. 

Conservatives: Barack Obama was born a US Citizens.  Even if he wasn’t, it’s really too late to do anything about it; but it’s a moot point, because he is.  Get a grip.  And he’s not a Marxist or a communist, and won’t be until he opens re-education camps somewhere in Utah.  He’s a cut-rate Richard Daley, not Josef Stalin.   He’s a fabian statist, all right – and he got elected President.  He’s doing the job that 52% of your most gullible neighbors sent him to Washington to do, for now.  Let’s see if we can fix that in 2012.

And yeah, the left is doing it, too.  Unable to fight the Tea Party and the resurgent grassroots right on the issues, they’re going for the ad-homina, the name-calling, the fearmongering and slander, and the yellow hackery – all standard drills for people who are running on intellectual empty, and need to count on their opponents to react to an ofay provocation to dig themselves out of the hole they’ve dug.

Americans need to be smarter.  Conservatives, in particular, need to be smarter than the opposition; we’re fighting against a full-court media press that is at present fully in the bag for the President.

And this president is so easy to attack on the issues; he’s really been an incompetent disaster, so far, except inasmuch as he’s copied Bush’s policies that worked.  There is no need to barber on about his birth certificate, his religion or his labels; he is so weak on the issues that there’s no excuse for it.

Because when he’s essentially destroying, in the long run, everything that ever made this nation great, who really cares where he worshipped as a child?

It’s hard being a Republican in the Fourth District.  The Fourth is one of those places where the DFL could nominate a set of those novelty wind-up chattering teeth and get 55% of the vote; much of the district is first-tier DFL constituencies, government workers and union labor and people who depend on government in one way or another.  To be fair to the wind-up teeth, they’d be better representatives than Betty McCollum…

…but it makes it hard – some might say “mind-numbingly frustrating” – to be a GOP candidate.  I’ve seen excellent candidates get into the race, throw everything they had into it, and walk away happy to have been only 15 points off the pace; in the past few bids, it’s been more like 50. 

Now, I don’t believe in karma – but I do think what goes around comes around.  And just to the south of the Four, the DFL gets a piece of the same medicine.  They endorsed a candidate to run against John Kline.  And the Strib is so underwhelmed that they couldn’t even be bothered to copy-edit the story on the subject.

The lede:

Democrats chose a 45-year-old construction worker to challenge U.S. Rep. John Kline in the 2nd Congressional District.

That’s the lede.  And who is this “45-year-old construction worker?”

Powers, a newcomer to the state’s political scene, defeated former state Rep. Shelley Madore, DFL-Apple Valley, at a Saturday endorsing convention in Chanhassen.

Powers.

Powers?

Like, Powers Boothe?   Does the guy have a name?  Or is he like “Prince”, a guy with a one-word name?

That’d be a slick marketing gimmick, really.  Maybe Leslie Davis will try it.  He’s tried everything else. 

But seriously – does he have a first name?  Or a last one, maybe? 

Any hint in the Strib story?

“We plan on making hundreds of phone calls a day…” Powers wrote in blog post celebrating the announcement on his campaign’s home page.

Nope…

…despite Democratic difficulties at the polls, Powers said the Lakeville congressman can be defeated…Powers will campaign in a GOP-leaning district that has not known Democratic victory in a decade.

Even the Strib’s picture (in the online edition):

Powers

You have to go all the way to the story’s last paragraph to learn that Powers’ name is Dan.

Now that’s lonely.

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