Attention, Janet Napolitano: You keep looking for the political terrorism and violence in American politics!
Further proof that all of the real violence in American politics (as opposed to the imagined, “potential” or slanderously imputed) violence in American politics comes from the left.
(Via Gary at LFR)
Do I envy people in places like the Second District, where John Kline will win by forty points over whatever hapless stooge the DFL puts forth this November?
Or even the Sixth, where Michele Bachmann will endure a full court press from the national (also local) Democraticicicic party to win by (I predict) eight this fall?
Heck – I envy people who live in districts with functioning two-party systems.
I do not live in a place with a functioning two-party system, of course. I live in Saint Paul; Ramsey County; the Fourth Congressional District. The place is controlled with Cominternish efficiency by the DFL; so much of city and county is either employed by or dependent on the government, its unions, its contractors and its social welfare that it really is a company town.
And so we are “represented” by Betty McCollum.
I have in the past said things about Rep. McCollum that have been less than flattering; “the dumbest person in Congress” and that sort of thing. And as I’ve attacked that sort of ad-hominem when directed against conservative women (although, to be fair to me, ad-hominem is the first and largely only tactic most liberals have against conservative women), it’d be disingenuous of me to do it myself. So I won’t.
I’ll just let you listen to the person who “represents” me yourself :
She’s right in the thick of the BP disaster, doncha know:
“We need to be doing due diligence so that the taxpayer isn’t cleaning up British Petroleum’s mess, and we don’t have more job loss, more environmental loss in the Gulf that goes un-cleaned up…”
Ah. So BettyMac opposes the Administration’s various demands for moritoriums on drilling, then?
On the economy, Esme Murphy – who isn’t a DFL hack in the sense that Lori Sturdevant is, but whose sympathies seem generally pretty clear – asks about the economy. I’m not going to “fisk” McCollum – address each point in line – but rather let the full trascribed glory of her oratory stand on its own and answer each point afterward:
Murphy: There’s been some criticism from Republicans that the recovery isn’t enough, and what the president has done with the stimulus package, while it did make some improvements in thers of the economy, it’s pust us in the position of a trillion dollar deficit. Your thoughts about whether or not there needs to be second wave of stimulus spending.”
McCollum: “Well first, the defiict was caused by the un-paid-for Bush Tax Cuts, by two wars, both Afghanistan and Iraq, being put on a credit card with no shared responsibility for the American public to pay for the wars, as our servicemen and women have given their all and maxde huge sacrifices . So that’s the big bulk we inherited that mess. and then you add the Wall Street crisis, being unregulated for all those years, andt the failure of our financial institutions to protect consumers investments and peoples retirements and the rest. So if you look at that, that is the big part of our debt.
Now what do we do in the meantime? Well, stimulus, finunding to keep Americans working and keep the economy moving forward and create confidence is what the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was about, that’s what I voted for, and we’re going to see some big things happening for instance in Saint Paulfor example with Central Corridor being the largest work project in the state of Minnesota , with state and local and government funding, investing in our community um so I’m very pleased that people’re going to see more of those projects moving forward there’s a lot of the traffic inconvenience we’re all suffering, our investments make putting Minnesotans to work through the recovery act and um I’m not gonna be apologetic for making sure that americans have a chance get up annd go to work in the morning peole in Minnesota do, there’s still too many people without jobs.
Rep. McCollum:
Murphy on the potential Dem losses this fall, asking how many Bettymac thinks Dems will lose:
Well, I don’t have a crystal ball in front of me, I don’t know what’s going to happen, I’m working really hard for my seat, I take nothing for granted, I’m out doorknocking, visiting with condsitutients and heaging the direction they wan tot see the country go in, and what I’m hearing is that they don’t want to go backwards, they don’t want to to the failed policies uh that got us in this economic jam we’re in, that got us in the war we’re in in Iraq unjustifiably, they want to see our country moving forward. So what Democrats have to do here and nationally is talk about how we’re still on a road to recovery, we have a plan to put America first, to make America competitive, to educate our children to be the best and brightest in the world, and the voters will judge us on those messages. I’ve heard nothing from our colleagues about going forward, it’s all about going back, repealing health care, going back and putting the Bush tax cuts in place and we need to be moving forward, not backward.
Rep. McCollum:
Listen. And compare her to the smart, articulate Teresa Collett (whom Ed and I interviewed last Saturday – after the halfway point of this hour), running her underdog battle against McCollum in the Fourth.
It’s what “moving forward” really sounds like.
(Gary at LFR pointed the appearance out out to me, and hammers it too)
Brad Stine – sort of the conservative’s Dennis Leary (although you don’t see it in the clip, but I’ve seen him live, take my word for it) has an idea whose time has come:
And if it doesn’t work, I’d say “ditch the car”.
Contestanat #1
“We can build [a major freeway] from Michigan to [the candidate’s state] and widen major highways across the state.”
“Let’s get [the candidate’s state] and America back to work and move South Carolina and America forward,” he said.
Contestant #3
..>We’re going to see some big things happening for instance in Saint Paulfor example with Central Corridor being the largest work project in the state of Minnesota , with state and local and government funding, investing in our community um so I’m very pleased that people’re going to see more of those projects moving forward
Greene has, in the past, said that manufacturing action figures of himself would be a boost to the economy. If that is still part of his platform he did not mention it.
Your Answer (Pick one)
a) 1 is Betty McCollum, 2 is that crazy guy from South Carolina
b) 1 is that crazy guy from South Carolina – Alvin Greene, that’s name! And 2 is Betty McCollum
c) Who can tell?
Answer below the fold.
I’ll be on Rob Port’s “Say Anything” show on KZFG “AM1100 The Flag” in Fargo at 6:35 Monday morning to talk about the Alliance for a Better Minnesota’s role as a front for Dayton family money in trying to buy the election.
I’m including the UStream feed here:
Streaming live video by Ustream
And here’s the chat feed:
So tune in! You can also listen via the AM1100 website. Call in at 888-598-8464, or email rob@sayanythingblog.com.
I’ll be on Rob Port’s “Say Anything” show on KZFG “AM1100 The Flag” in Fargo at 6:35 Monday morning to talk about the Alliance for a Better Minnesota’s role as a front for Dayton family money in trying to buy the Minnesota gubernatorial election.
I’ll be running links to the live video stream and the chat room starting about 3AM Monday morning. Tune in via any means necessary (including AM1100’s live stream)!
Today’s swerve into history observes the birthday of one of the most incongrous figures of World War II and in the history of intelligence and military special operations. Today would have been the 91st birthday of Hardy Amies.
Famous as one of Queen Elizabeth’s designers from 1950 until his death in 2003, and owner of a famous couture line, Davies started as a designer in 1930 on Savile Row, after spending three years teaching English in France and Germany, and learning both languages in the bargain. As perhaps befits the stereotype of a clothing designer, Amies was discreetly gay.
His fluency – and love of outdoor sports – led to his being recruited by Britain’s “Special Operations Executive” at the beginning of the war. The presence of a dress designer in the hard-bitten world of intelligence “black operations” raised a few eyebrows; from the Telegraph’s obit:
Amies long suspected that the SOE’s Maj Gen Colin Gubbins and his staff, who had been charged by Churchill with setting Europe ablaze, did not regard a dressmaker as suitable military material.
His training report states: “This officer is far tougher both physically and mentally than his rather precious appearance would suggest.
“He possesses a keen brain and an abundance of shrewd sense. His only handicap is his precious appearance and manner, and these are tending to decrease.”
Amies went on to lead SOE’s sabotage operations in Belgium. From the Times of London’s obit:
Amies joined the Belgian section of SOE as second-in-command to Lt-Col Claude Knight, whom he later succeeded in command. Working with the various Belgian Resistance groups, he organised sabotage and arranged for agents to be parachuted with radio equipment into the Ardennes. In his spare time, he slightly redesigned his lieutenant-colonel’s uniform and had it made up by a civilian tailor.
Almost reads like caricature.
After organising the Brussels photo-shoot in December 1944 and showing Vogue’s Paris-based war correspondent Lee Miller around the re-captured capital, it appears that Amies had second thoughts about the project and warned London of the impending publication.
He had introduced Miss Miller to society figures as well as some of the rougher characters who had parachuted in on sabotage missions and their compatriots in the Resistance.
Miss Miller gushingly reported that she was introduced to Count and Countess d’Urssel in the bedraggled elegance of their Brussels home, where neglected treasures peered from the corners.
“A lovely young girl, Countess Therese, greeted us. Hardy introduced me, we chit-chatted and I kept watching her ‘baby face’ which had been such a perfect passport for her activities in the Resistance movement,” she wrote.
He went on to spend over fifty years as the gown designer for Queen Elizabeth.
Apropos not much.
Teresa Collett’s website.
Ed Matthews, running for Ramsey County Judge.
Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism from 9AM-3PM.
(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:
Join us!
(Title via the Mats)
The Dems have officially run out of stuff to talk about.
So they’ve gone back to reruns of earlier tempests in teapots.
A “Jim Horan” fobbed a “story” off on “Talking Points Memo” via Twitter:
RT @tpmmedia: Flashback: Emmer Had Past DWIs — And Sponsored Bills To Soften DWI Laws http://tpm.ly/a244GP
Now, if you’ve been paying attention, all the smart people dealt with this “issue” quite some time ago. The DWIs were in 1981 and 1991; Emmer sponsored legislation to make it possible for people who’d been convicted but kept their noses clean to get out of under some of the more onerous burdens of sentencing earlier. I wrote the first time this issue emerged, when the issue came out before the GOP convention…:
…regarding a couple of DWI-related charges, that…Tom Emmer, got 19 and 29 years ago – questioning not only his character due to the arrests, but some legislation he backed that’d have had the effect of treating drunk drivers as innocent until proven guilty and making DUIs private information after ten years of good behavior – in other words, allowing people who’d made a dumb mistake to function and get their lives back. Drunk driving is an emotional issue – made all the more so by groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the rest of the drunk driving lobby. It’s understandable; anyone who’s lost a loved one to a drunk driver is justifiably motivated to seek change. But the .08 blood alcohol level limit is a ludicrious waste of resources, and the resources spent on hammering on first-time, only-time offenders with low levels of intoxication are largely a complete waste.
Question: Does saying the above mean I “support” or am “soft on” drunk drivers and drunk driving?
But it’s ludicrous to treat attempts to make the system fairer and more rational as “sympathy for drunk drivers”. Almost as ludicrous as assuming two mistakes made a generation ago are defining traits about a late-fortysomething guys’ judgment.
All the smart people dealt with this issue three months ago.
But DFL propaganda is never aimed at smart people.
Oh, yeah – who’s pushing the story? Who is “Jim Horan?”
He’s working for Independence Party candidate stealth DFLer Tom Horner:
Screenshot from LinkedIn
That sound you hear? It’s the sound of Tom “Weasel” Horner’s campaign scraping the ground below the bottom of the barrel.
So far in this campaign, as the DFL hammers its way toward its primary next month, most of the attacks against Tom Emmer have come from a shadowy group, “Alliance for a Better Minnesota”.
I’ve busted them repeatedly stretching the truth and/or lying; Channel Five followed suit earlier this week.
But who are these people? And where did they get the money to run all these slick (if utterly truth-free) ads, and all these posh (but amateurishly-designed) websites?
Because they run through a lot of money!
2006 Campaign – We first heard of “Alliance For A Better Minnesota” (A4aBM) during the 2006 campaign. During that outing, A4aBM spent $2,545,162 – about $2.3 million of it in ads against Governor Tim Pawlenty.
Where did that money come from?
Their donor list is as follows:
Unions and Native American gambling interests so far; no big surprises.
So – out of two and a half million dollars spent, about 20% – about $449,000 – came from those whom I thought were the most likely suspects, the unions.
And nearly 2/3 came from two sources – “Alida Messinger”, and a group called “Win Minnesota”.
We’ll come back to both of them.
2010 Campaign So Far – To date in the gubernatorial campaign, A4aBM has raised $93,386 (as of this past Tuesday). They’d spent $72,383 of it as of Tuesday (on ads that were, as we ascertained earlier this week, wall to wall bullcrap). Of that $93,386, 79.636 of it came from the “Win Minnesota PAC”.
So that’s two election cycles in a row (so far) where “Win Minnesota” has been the leading funder of scabrous hit pieces against Republican candidates.
Win Minnesota? Seems pretty innocuous, doesn’t it?
Who is “Win Minnesota”, And Who Funds Them? – Here’s the list of major contributors to “Win Minnesota” during the 2006 campaign. I’ll be adding the emphasis for reasons that’ll become fairly obvious:
That was a lot of Daytons, and people linked with the Daytons…wasn’t it?
So how about this year?
So far in 2010, “Win Minnesota” lists the following donors to “Win Minnesota”‘s current warchest (currently worth $1,173,500), again with emphasis added by me:
So of the $1.1 and change million warchest, $851,000 came from Daytons, and Alida Messinger.
But wait! There is another fund registered with the state, with a different account number but with the same email and street addresses, that has $850,000 socked away but has spent no money.
And where did that $850,000 come from?
And who is this Alida Messinger who has contributed so mightily – over $1.46 million over the past four years! – to the cause of disinforming Minnesotans about Republicans? Other than the youngest daughter of John D. Rockefeller III?
The ex-wife of candidate Mark Dayton.
So “Alliance for a Better Minnesota” is essentially a front for a group of unions and, to the tune of millions over the past four years, Mark Dayton’s family, friends and ex-wife.
They are paying millions of dollars to advertise – and hiding it from casual view behind two layers of astroturf.
Mark Dayton is trying to buy the election, but he’s taking great pains to make sure you don’t know about it.
Tom Conlin was, for many years, the sole voice of responsibility and sanity in Ramsey County, as the only elected Republican in office anywhere in the county. Outnumbered, he could only do so much – but at the very least there was someone on the board pointing out the madness of the majority.
Tom ran for State Auditor, but dropped out at the convention; he would have done a great job, but there’s no way to beat the Anderson machine (and she’ll do a great job too).
There’s some bad news…
We had no paid staff, but nonetheless incurred campaign expenses beyond what we raised during the campaign.
…and some good news!:
I am hoping to recover some of that debt with your help. I am also preparing for a 2011 St. Paul School Board race, a seat I held for 17 years and have won successfully in 5 elections as St. Paul’s lone Republican-endorsed elected official. I intend to seek Republican Party endorsement again for this seat in February.
Check out the website.
Obama’s “financial reform bill” is full of paybacks to Obama constituencies
Principal among them is a measure to make it easier for unions, environmental groups and other activist organizations that hold shares to put their representatives on the boards of directors of every corporation in the United States.
The so-called “proxy access” provision, which activist groups say they will use to try to improve oversight of corporate financial practices, has provoked a backlash from the Business Roundtable, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other major non-Wall Street business groups.
This is one of the “reforms” that threw Britain into a tailspin in the fifties through the seventies; institutionalizing the control of unions and other pressure groups over other aspects of British society; it ensured the acceleration of Britain’s decline.
Other provisions of the financial legislation, which goes before the full Senate on Thursday for a vote and likely passage, favor Democratic constituencies directly by requiring banks and federal agencies to hire and do more business with them.
The bill would create more than 20 “offices of minority and women inclusion” at the Treasury, Federal Reserve and other government agencies, to ensure they employ more women and minorities and grant more federal contracts to more women- and minority-owned businesses.
The agencies also would apply “fair employment tests” to the banks and other financial institutions they regulate, though their hiring and contracting practices had little or nothing to do with the 2008 financial crisis.
“The interjection of racial and gender preferences into America’s financial sector deserves greater media exposure” before Congress debates and passes the massive 2,400-page bill, said Kevin Mooney, a contributing editor for Americans for Limited Government’s daily newsletter.
Right – but to “expose” it would “expose” them to the same charges of “racism” that greets every voice of dissent.
Flip through the leftyblogs (or don’t; I mean, I pretty much have done it for you; you can thank me later).
Check out how many of them are chanting variations on “WaiterGate is the defining moment of the campaign” and/or “Emmer will never never evah! recover from WaiterGate!”
Huh.
OK, so it was a rough week.
It’s July. Four months ’til the election. The DFL doesn’t have a candidate yet – and when they do, it’ll be Time magazine’s “The Worst Senator In America“, 2005 edition. Half of Minnesota doesn’t even know who Tom Emmer is – yet. And the DFL’s “third party” gambit, Tom Horner, has backfired, drawing three DFLers for every two Republicans – and that’ll get worse as the realization sinks in that Mark Freaking Dayton might be governor.
Issues, you say? We’ve got immigration; we’ve got job creation; we’ve got economic growth and resposible government; we’ve got education reform and school choice and Local Government Aid reform and the DFL’s deep, enthusiastic links to everything that sucks about Barack Obama’s administration. They’ve got lies and contrived controversies that’ll be forgotten on August 11.
So if you’re one of those lily-livered GOPers who’ve spent the last week wringing their hands over the denouement of “TipCreditGate”, stop. Sack up, people; the real race doesn’t even start for a month, and media stunts like the faux outrage over the tip credit is the best they’ve got.
Bag the panic, folks. This is when the fun part begins.
Amid the scrum of personal and political news of this past week or so, I almost missed this one; the apparent self-defense shooting late Saturday night at a northeast Minneapolis bar involving a bouncer with a carry permit:
Tirso Cruz Gomez, 24, of Columbia Heights was found bleeding to death from a gunshot wound when police arrived at Grumpy’s Bar, 2200 NE. 4th St., shortly before 1 a.m.
Police have spoken to the bouncer, who was detained at the scene and later released. The investigation will be passed on to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, which determines whether charges will be filed.
Minneapolis Police Sgt. William Palmer said, “It does appear from our investigation that the bouncer was attempting to defend himself against an attack with a knife.”
The whole thing smells like booze, as it were – at least, on the part of Mr. Gomez:
It wasn’t clear why they were fighting. Gomez had apparently been at the bar earlier that evening before the confrontation, a witness said.
The bouncer has a legal permit to carry a pistol, police said, though they declined to make his name public.
According to witnesses, Mr. Gomez apparently left, and – against his mother’s wishes – came back to the bar, got into a scrap with the bouncer, and pulled a knife.
[The bouncer] tried to take the knife away from Gomez, and he required stitches for hand wounds, Palmer said.
The police – notwithstanding that the Minneapolis cops will generally “arrest the gun” in any sort of shooting incident where they can find a shooter – did not arrest the bouncer at the scene. However, the Hennepin County Attorney’s office – a famously anti-gun institution – still has the option to try to prosecute. And when anti-gun, DFL-linked organizations want to squash a legitimate shooter, they’ll find a way.
Remember – if the Henco Attorney wants to file charges, self-defense in Minnesota is considered an “affirmative defense”; in effect, the shooter, no matter how justified, admits “Yes, I shot the “victim”, but the shooting was justified” – and then takes on the burden of proving it was justified. And when you see the phrase “takes on the burden” in a legal context, what that means is “get ready to spend months in court and tens of thousands in legal bills”, because you are fighting the County.
As we’ve noted in this space in the past, there are four criteria for this affirmative defense: one must reasonably fear death or great bodily harm, must not be a willing participant in the squabble, must make a reasonable effort to disengage, and the lethal force must be reasonably appropriate. And when you see “Reasonable”, above, that means “would convince a jury”.
So let’s break it down:
Fear of Death or Great Bodily Harm: Dude. Knife. Done deal.
Lethal force is appropriate: Dude. Knife. Done deal.
Must make reasonable effort to avoid use of lethal force and must not be a willing participant: these two scare me – not because I believe the bouncer was wrong (given what I’ve seen – and the story seems to be pretty thoroughly reported), but because I can easily see a Henco Attorney, operating at the direction of a city administration that actively tries to discourage the law-abiding from defending themselves, telling a jury “bouncers get paid to fight with people! He should have run away!”, and “See? He tried to grab the knife! He was a macho guy who mixed it up, and then pulled a gun and shot when he got the worst of it!”. And I can see a jury, sitting in a nice, well-lit jury room with hours to make the decision, being inveighed to decide that the twerp attorney has a point.
This is why Minnesota law needs to be changed to allow the system to decline to charge obvious cases of self defense (if, indeed, that’s what this case is – and I will assume it is until I have reason to believe otherwise) – to remove the prosecutors’ discretion to prosecute the otherwise-impeccably-law-abiding purely to advance an administration’s political policies.
Minnesotans support immigration reform:
8* Suppose the new Arizona immigration law was being considered for your state. Would you favor or oppose passage of that law in your state?
53% Favor34% Oppose
14% Not sure
9* Suppose a police officer stops someone for a traffic violation or a violation of some other law. If the police officer suspects that the person they stopped might be an illegal immigrant, should the officer be required to check their immigration status?
62% Yes
27% No
11% Not sure
Like most people, Republicans have always supported letting people into this country the same way most of our anscestors, from all countries, came here; through the door. Legally. With the full expectation that they would assimilate into American culture – learning the language, the history, and what made this country important.
Like most Americans, Republicans believe that immigrating to America is an opportunity, not an entitlement.
So yes,
Wanna talk policy?
Or you wanna dump pennies on candidates?
Here is the attention-whoring, self-promoting face of the Minnesota DFL.
It’s “Robert Erickson”, and we’ve run into him before, of course:
He’s convinced himself that Minnesotans want open borders, and that making sure immigration is safe, available and legal is for squares.
And he interrupted yesterday’s town hall meeting to dump a bag of pennies on Tom Emmer.
So you wanna talk about immigration, DFL?
I think we’re more than ready for that discussion.
Make sure you send that oh-s0-special lad Robert to have that discussion with us, DFL.
Let’s talk!
Most of the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers’ blogs are actually in, y’know, Minnesota.
But Regular Folks United is a group blog featuring a wide variety of conservative writers – the best known being Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher, but also featuring Twin Cities conservative activist Todd Kruse.
And he’s got some good stuff:
Mesa, Arizona resident Tanya Nareau, age 33 was arrested this week by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department for allegedly “trading her 2 year old daughter for a gun.”
Apparently Nareau traded her daughter to a family friend in return for a gun because Nareau thought the friend would do a better job raising the child. Perhaps that is the only correct assumption Ms. Nareau made in her life since clearly she does not have the moral code and sound mind needed to be a loving parent.
As an active participant in our right in the USA to keep and bear arms let me call on the gun control advocates out there — then again I am certain they don’t read Regular Folks United — to explain to me how even stricter gun control laws would have prevented this “family friend” from giving Nareau a gun. Both parties in this unholy ‘trade” clearly do not value life nor do they appreciate the original purpose of the Second Amendment so why should law abiding citizens pay the price via burdensome gun control laws generated by complete idiots such as Nareau? No amount of “gun control” would have prevented Nareau from getting this gun since clearly no “background check” was conducted by the family friend willing to accept the baby as payment.
And what of the baby’s future? At two years old a child is old enough to remember who their parents are so pause for a moment to consider this child’s fate — a mother in prison, a family friend with a mere “claim of ownership” due to this gun trade, and a likely life of being shuffled along the government social services network until age 18.
It is enough to make me consider adopting this child.
Check out RFU on your daily blog wandering!
I’ve lived in the Twin Cities for almost 25 years, now. And for most of that time, being from North Dakota has meant I’m my entire social circle’s connection for Everclear (the full-strength 195 proof stuff, not the pantywaisted 175 proof swill they sometimes sell in Minnesota), fireworks (the NATO-graded stuff) and cheap cigarettes.
But never let it be said that Terry Keegan will miss a trend. Apparently noting the hottest economy in the land, Terry is pandering to the people with the money next week…:
The pub is holding our first ever “NODAK NIGHT” on Friday, July 23. We are encouraging everyone with a North Dakota conection, of any kind, to come in and mingle with other North Dakotans. We are offering the first drink free for anyone with a connection.
…perhaps to curry favor and make connections for an expansion to Minot or Dickinson or someplace else out in the oil patch with low taxes and high beer consumption rates? We dont’t know, but Terry’s no dummy. (Marty is, but since he’s from NoDak too, I keep that quiet).
It starts at 7PM.
I’ll be bringing my JHS ’81 annual…
(via one-time temporary Grand Forksian Chad at Fraters Libertas)
Tom Emmer is having a town hall meeting with restaurant and bar workers today. It’s at Ol’ Mexico in Roseville, and the doors open at 2:30. If you’re a restauranteur or publican, it’d be a great idea to be there early with bells on. I’m trying to find if anyone is live-streaming the event.
Here’s what’s cool about the event; despite the fact that the whole “Tip Credit” kerfuffle is a manufactured controversy as the media tries to help the DFL run out the clock until Mark Dayton wins the primary, and that the whole fracas is a red herring (focusing on a virtual non-issue at a low level to ignore the larger point – that the Mininum Wage is a job killer, especially in hospitality, one of Minnesota’s most important industries), Tom Emmer isn’t shuffling away from the issue; he’s not trying to sweep it under the rug.
He’s attacking it head on, like a defenseman checking the snot out of a winger.
And if I know Tom Emmer, 100 people may walk into Ol’ Mexico unconvinced – and 75 will walk out converted, or at least saying “hmm – the guy’s got a point and, by the way, all that stuff Alliance for a “Better” Minnesota has been saying is crap“.
Because that’s Tom Emmer’s big strength; while he speaks in terms of principles – big-picture ideas that are easy for the DFL’s professional deceivers to pervert – he’s also the best politician in the state explaining to people, regular schmucks in the street, why those principles matter to them. Why they keep jobs in their towns and money in their wallets.
I’m looking for Emmer to stomp the tip credit issue into history today (not that the DFL, media and leftyblogs won’t try to keep flogging it); more important, I’m looking for him to start showing people the truth behind the kerfuffle; cutting taxes, regulations and other bureaucratic overburden creates jobs, makes entrepreneurship viable, and brings more wealth to individual Minnesotans.
The sort of thing Chris Christie is doing in Jersey today. The kind of thing Norm Coleman did in Paul and Brett Schundler did in Jersey City in the 1990s. The kind of thing Ronald Reagan did for the whole nation thirty years ago. The kind of thing that leaders do to make their cities, states and nations great.
Look for the DFL and media to bend over backwards to try to keep the word from getting out.
Just a side note for any Jamestown College alumni, especially from the early-mid eighties, who might be reading the blog.
Drop me a line – either in the comment section or at the Yahoo dot com email address “Feedbackinthedark”.
There’s a little Twin Cities get-together planned next week. Nothing fancy, and it’s not associated with JC, so it’s not a fund-raiser.
Drop me a line if you get half an urge!
Dog Bites Man: DFL-linked pressure group lying like a bunch of crack addicts caught with a stolen Lexus.
Man bites dog; Twin Cities media checks the facts against objective reality.
If you read the Twin Cities center-right alternative media, you know that “Alliance for a “Better” Minnesota” is the most honesty-challenged roomful of bags of suppurating demi-human byproduct since Wes “Lying Sack of Garbage” Skoglund was still on peoples’ rolodexes.
But if you get your news from the Strib, the PiPress, MPR, WCCO or KARE11, you’d never know.
But KSTP5? Glory be – truth matters to someone! Channel Five’s “Truth Test” segment went over A4aBM’s latest TV ad effort and, well, probably lost the A4aBM account for Channel Five.
The ad tries to link Emmer … to Governor Tim Pawlenty. It claims Emmer sided with Pawlenty and opposed a plan that would force CEOs and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.
This claim is false, at least according to the date of a house vote cited in the ad. On May 10th, Emmer did vote against a bill that would have increased income taxes by $443 million through the creation of one of the highest tax rates in the nation. But it makes no mention of CEO or corporate taxes. Every house Republican voted against it, along with 16 Democrats.
And it gets better:
The ad also claims the two supported a plan that created a huge deficit and cut funding for items such as health care, education, and job training.
This claim is also false. It’s a reference to the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Pawlenty’s 2009 unallotment plan the legislature did not vote on. The ruling did have the effect of reinstating nearly $3 billion from the previous year’s deficit, but it didn’t create a new deficit.
And that man is getting down and gnawing that dog’s leg to the bone:
Based on the series of misleading or false claims, this ad gets an “F” on the Truth Test.
The center-right blogosphere has been catching A4aBM in lies ever since their web site, Twitter and Facebook accounts and ads all went on the air, two minutes after Emmer won the nomination last May.
So why does the DFL and its minions try such transparently, stupidly, sloppily deceitful propaganda?
Because it’s not aimed at smart people. It’s aimed at the people the DFL counts on for winning elections; people who don’t pay attention; people whose understanding of issues stops at the last slogan they heard; people who bring nothing to democracy but a vote for the DFL.
It doesn’t have to pass scrutiny, if they know their audience won’t scrutinize it.
Our liberal elites in action: liberal talk host Bill Press says Obama’s polls are collapsing because Americans are a bunch of spoiled brats; Brian Maloney transcribes:
I think this says more about the American people than it does about President Obama. I think it just shows once again that the American people are spoiled. Basically, spoiled– as a people, we are too critical. We are quick to rush to judgment, we are too negative, we are too impatient. Especially impatient. We want it all solved yesterday, and if you don’t, I don’t care who you are — get out of the way.
And again, basically spoiled. To the point where it makes me wonder if it’s even possible to govern today. I gotta tell you, I don’t think Abraham Lincoln — who certainly didn’t get everything right the first time — could govern today. I’m not sure Franklin Roosevelt could govern today, the way we are again. Just about like spoiled children. And it’s Americans, and it’s the media, and if we don’t get instant gratification, then screw you is basically our attitude.
Bill Press: Get a grip.
You think Ronald Reagan got carried to success on the shoulders of the entire American people right after his election? Please – the media certainly sniped at him nonstep (then as now).
And yet he succeeded (not that you can tell that to people like Bill Press).
Competence helps.
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