It’s been two weeks, almost, since Governor Dayton submitted his budget proposal.

The proposal, which jacks up taxes on “the rich”  by adding the highest state income tax in the nation on people who make over half a million a year, stil has no DFL sponsor in the legislature.

None.

Let’s make sure we’re clear on this:  in the wake of the Tea Party and the most glorious drubbing the DFL has ever sustained in its entire history, not a single DFL Rep or Senator has so far affixed their name to a bill that would jack up taxes on “the rich” (and, eventually, everyone – since “the rich” that don’t leave the state will pass on the tax burden to their customers, since most of them are small businesspeople).

Not a single DFLer, so far, seems to be enthusiastic to have their name tied to a vote on this job-killing, tax-jacking, inflation-pumping, tax-base-sapping budget (which would, by the way, leave the real rich, like Mark Dayton and his plutocrat supporters, untouched;their income is from dividends and capitol gains on their portfolios. Mark Dayton will never pay 13.95% on his income; the oncologist taking care of Grandma will, though).

I think a Republican – one from a very, very safe seat – should do the job for them.

I think a Republican from a bullet-proof rural seat should sponsor the Dayton budget (and spend the next year explaining why – and yes, I will drive to wherever he or she serves and go door to door to help, if need be – just to help avoid any complications).

And I think the GOP-controlled committees involved should pass it right through, so it can go to the floor immediately for a binding, highly-publicized, up-or-down vote.

I think we should let the DFL show their pride in and support for Governor Dayton.   I think they should show how unified they are!

I think we should let the DFL walk the walk.  I think we should let them all, every one of them, show how happy they are to make you pay for A Better Minnesota.

I think we should give DFLer the chance – indeed, the imperative – to explain why they voted to make their constituents work ’til they’re 70 so that government employees can retire at 55.

Whaddya say, MNGOP?  Anyone wanna make the DFL put all that HopeyChangey BetterMinnesota talk where their votes are?

The revenue forecast is in.

State tax revenues jumped by over a billion dollars.

Just like Tom Emmer said, over and over, on nearly every stop on the campaign trail.

Just like the DFL sneered at him, and every Republican, for pointing out.

The economy – notwithstanding the DFL/media (pardon the redundancy’s) long-running meme that “Tim Pawlenty was a disaster” – generated about 3% more tax revenue than was expected last year.

State budget officials announced the new deficit number Monday as part of a larger revenue and economic forecast. Minnesota’s deficit for the next two year now stands at $5 billion, according to those who were breifed on the economic forecast. The old projection placed the deficit at $6.2 billion.

While the new deficit figure shows a marked improvement, it still means, as expected, state lawmakers and the governor have a massive deficit to fill this year.

And, as always, that’s buncombe; there is no “deficit”; merely a “budget forecast”, essentially the budget wish list from the last, DFL-controlled session.  Dayton – and his enablers in the media – have focused on this number, since it allows an over-20%-hike in spending, accomplishing their primary mission, keeping government fat and happy at any cost.

Dayton’s budget proposal calls for more than $3.3 billion in tax hikes on high earners, a plan Republicans reject. Republican leaders have pledged to balance the budget solely through cuts, which if it holds, would be a depth of reductions never seen before in the state.

The article – by the Strib’s Rachel  Stassen-Berger – parrots a DFL meme, knowingly or not.  “Cuts Only” is a DFL chanting point, used to try to frame the MNGOP’s approach to this session in the most pejorative terms.  It’s a budget that seeks to promote growth and reform our state’s budget system, which is built to foster inflation.

The session got off to a testy start when the newly-elected governor vetoed nearly $900 million in cuts proposed by Republicans, saying the reductions would have indirectly raised property taxes.

And I’ve spent the last week looking for any part of the GOP’s bill that forced cities and counties to raise property taxes.

The governor has said he would consider curtailing some of his proposed spending cuts — particularly to programs for the elderly — or stocking up cash in the state’s reserve fund if the new deficit forecast showed improvement.

As opposed to, y’know, slowing down the spending.

And did you notice the reference to the “state’s reserve fund?”  That’s a favorite of the DFL; “Let’s tax you, the private citizen, a little more, so that the next time times get tough, the government can get through with less muss and fuss, even if it makes it harder for you and your family to ride it out”.

His budget plan, released earlier this month, closed a $6.2 billion deficit.

As we’ve shown in the past, that’ s nonsense as well; jacking up taxes on “the rich” never brings in the revenue it’s supposed to, and at least one of Dayton’s purported “saving” – cutting state contracting in  half – is pure voodoo budgeting.

Republicans, who have yet to design a complete deficit fix, have said they will not consider tax increases.

Not sure if Stassen-Berger is just writing sloppily, or actively carrying water for the DFL here; the GOP has not released a complete budget yet.  Stassen-Berger has no idea if there is or is not a plan waiting in the wings; if there is, it’s certainly  not in the MNGOP’s best political interest to release it yet.

It’s in the DFL’s interest to portray it as “the GOP doesn’t know what it’s doing” – just as they did with Tom Emmer’s lack of a budget (until he released one, on Labor Day).  If it were Stassen-Berger’s intention to help the DFL further the meme, she did a fine job.

But maybe it was just sloppy writing.

Wisconsin Democrats chide Republicans for…showing insufficient respect for Democracy?”

Democrats agreed before dawn [this past Thursday] to limit the remaining number of amendments they offer and the time they devote to each one. That [led to Friday’s vote] on the measure Gov. Scott Walker insists is necessary to ease the state’s budget woes and avoid mass layoffs.

“We will strongly make our points, but understand you are limiting the voice of the public as you do this,” said Democratic state Rep. Mark Pocan of Madison. “You can’t dictate democracy. You are limiting the people’s voice with this agreement this morning.”

“Yeah!  Like if you teabagging wingnuts nullified a legal election with a 6% mandate by packing up and leaving the state or something!”

The marathon session in the Assembly was grand political theater, with exhausted lawmakers limping around the chamber, rubbing their eyes and yawning as Wednesday night dragged into Thursday.

Around midnight, Rep. Dean Kaufert, a Republican from Neenah, accused Democrats of putting on a show for the protesters. Democrats leapt up and started shouting.

“I’m sorry if democracy is a little inconvenient, and you had to stay up two nights in a row,” Pocan said. “Is this inconvenient? Hell, yeah, it’s inconvenient! But we’re going to be heard!”

I think it’s about time the majority of Wisconsin voters said the same thing to these hamster.

Byron York tells the (national) GOP “Dont’ Fear The Shutdown“.

For starters, it wasn’t the “catastrophe” for the media that the GOP paint it as today:

One, if shutting down the government in 1995 was such a catastrophe, how come the GOP not only kept control of the House in the 1996 elections but remained the majority party in the House for a decade to come? The voter revenge predicted at the time did not happen.

That’s something wonks have a hard time with; probably 90% of voters don’t care about politics until mid-October before elections.

Two, even if the ’95 shutdown hurt the GOP — and there’s no doubt the party suffered wounds inflicted not only by Clinton but also by themselves — today’s voters are in a different mood. “We have fiscal crises at the federal, state, and local level, and voters understand that,” says Bill Paxon, a former Republican lawmaker and veteran of the shutdown. “Back in ’95, we were whistling into the wind — we were trying to preach fiscal discipline when voters were saying, ‘Hey, there’s not a problem.’ “

The 1990s were a cha-cha time when people could afford to be trivial bobbleheads; a time when Arne Carlson could seem like a serious leader, when Minnesotans could elect someone like a Jesse Ventura with a straight face.

Three, Republicans like House Speaker John Boehner have learned from their mistakes. “Our goal is to cut spending and reduce the size of government, not to shut it down,” Boehner said recently — a statement he has repeated many times. Contrast that to ’95, when, Paxon recalls, “We said we wanted to shut down the government, that it was a good thing, that it would get people’s attention, that it would advance our cause.” Now, it’s Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats who seem itching for a shutdown.

As far as York’s premise goes, that’s the dangerous one.  This point is all about image – and the media creates – to a great extent – the images.

I said “great” extent:

Fourth, today’s media environment is substantially different. “In ’95 there was no Internet, no bloggers, no Facebook, no Fox News,” says Dick Armey, who was House majority leader during the shutdown. “The discourse of politics today is carried out in a media world that didn’t exist in 1995.” That doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be negative coverage of Republicans if a shutdown occurs, just that the overall media picture would be more balanced.

Are blogs and social media enough to affect the perceptions of that 90% that doesn’t pay attention until October of election year?  This past Minnesota gubernatorial race was not encouraging.  The Twin Cities media followed the usual pattern; ignore the skeletons in Mark Dayton’s closet, give breathless coverage to Tom Emmer’s – and enough of it stuck (along with the Dayton-funded “Alliance For A Better Minnesota’s” toxic, sleazy campaign) to buy Dayton 9,000 votes.

Still, York’s point isn’t that things have changed 180 degrees; it is different.

The fifth reason: Barack Obama is no Bill Clinton. “In ’95, Clinton was at the table working hard, sleeves rolled up, everybody knew we were having meetings at the White House and the president was engaged,” says Armey. “This president is seen as disengaged and aloof from the process. Barack Obama is a rank amateur compared to Bill Clinton.”

We’ll see.

David “JournoList” Weigel, writing at Slate, wonders “Where Are the Thugs?“.

Michelle Malkin promises to do “the reporting the Tea Party-bashing national media won’t do on the rabid outbreak of progressive incivility and violence at Big Labor protests across the country.” Sounds promising! But here’s what she delivers.

– Protesters call Scott Walker a “Koch whore.”

– Two other protesters made crude sexual references.

I suppose you could call this…:

…a “crude sexual reference”.

I mean, come on – if a Tea Partier had been caught with a sign like this, ever, we’d still be hearing about it.

– Last month a liberal talk show host said GOP Lieutenant Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch had performed “fellatio” on other talkers.

And as we discovered during the 2008 campaign, no crudity is beyond the pale…when referring to conservative women.

– At a rally in Providence, one asshole shoved a cameraman and was arrested and taken away, union members cheering the arrest.

Well, good.

What do they want, a cookie?

– In Denver, a black conservative was insulted in racial terms.

And here, Malkin was right; the media observes a very pronounced double standards.  Here was the attack on the black tea partier:

Even the faintest, most ambiguous perception of potential racism – from a conservative – can give the media the vapours.  The national media is still hyperventilating about a supposed racial attack against black Congresspeople that never happened.

– Two weeks ago, a black liberal columnist used racial slurs against Herman Cain.

– At a protest outside FreedomWorks’ office, a union member being filmed and interviewed got pissed and struck Tabitha Hale; someone else called someone a “bad Jew.”

Let’s be clear on this:  This guy…:

…allegedly punched her:

Where are the thugs, indeed?

But Weigel misses the point.  It’s not that there are thugs at a union action.  That’s like saying “that Mafioso just ate lasagna!”

No – the point is that the media observes a systematic double standard; leftist violence and thuggery is ignored, while the media goes out of its way to find, even manufacture, crimes on the right.

Weigel notes (as part of an apology for impugning Michelle Malkin’s journalism):

I just spent four days in Madison and the state Capitol, reporting, and saw absolutely no violence. There were no arrests on Saturday, when 80,000 liberals rallied and a smaller number of Tea Partiers counter-protested. There were no arrests last night when hundreds of angry protesters watched the GOP-led Assembly pass the budget repair act. There are no arrests, so far, in Madison. And Malkin cites actual violence in only two cities where protests have taken place.

And Weigel skips past the violence – the attacks in Providence and DC – pretty blithely…

…and it’s irrelevant.  Because thuggery isn’t just about hitting people.

By the way, David Weigel – the thugs are right here:

Stipulated:  SNL hasn’t been funny since Norm McDonald left the show.

Still – as everyone in the media noted during the 2008 campaign, when  you’ve lost SNL, it’s significant.  Or something.

Just saying:

Stereotypes?  Doy.

A stereotype that, for some unconscionable reason, a huge chunk of America buys into?

Question:  Is there a worse editorial cartoonist in America than the Strib’s Steve Sack?

No, not Ted Rall – while he’s more morally depraved than Sack, he doesn’t work for a paper.

No, not Ken “Avidor” Weiner – he’s not an editorial cartoonist.

Here’ s his latest excretion “creation”:

In addition to the tired “Bachmann is teh crazee” meme, we add “Pawlenty is crazy”.

Pawlenty?  Huh?

I’m just wondering where the DFL attaches the control wires.

A union thug with a bullhorn attacks a peaceful Tea Party protester at a “Work Til You’re 70 So We Can Retire At 55” rally in Sacramento:

As always – inevitably, without meaningful exception – the avalanche of violence is always, Always, Always, ALWAYS on the left.

Always.

The argument that public workers earn more or less than their private-sector counterparts is debatable but only done so honestly when their full compensation and benefits package is taken into account.

There is no evidence that public-sector workers in Wisconsin have higher total compensation than their counterparts in the private sector. It is true that a gross comparison shows many public-sector workers earn more, but they are significantly better-educated than most workers in the private sector. When one compares Wisconsin public-sector workers with their real counterparts, as the Economic Policy Institute has done, Wisconsin pays its public-sector workers 14.2 percent less than workers in the private sector.

Walker and other Republican leaders in the state have made a big deal of the “gold-plated pensions” of state workers, yet median state and local pensions in Wisconsin are less than $23,000.

As if that were a small thing.

This is an argument that resonates unless you consider the fact that nowadays almost no one in the private sector has a pension…at all.

…and a pension is no small thing to be entitled to and no small thing for taxpayers to fund.

The vast majority of private-sector employees rely on defined contribution plans for retirement, which is to say their retirements depend on what they and their employers contribute to the plan plus any growth in the account. Whatever balance is accumulated at retirement is what you have to work with to create income at retirement.

“Pensions” refers to defined benefit plans where a worker receives a promised monthly income at a given age at retirement, until death, and in many cases with an equal or reduced benefit for a spouse until their death. Often times these plans vest well before a defined contribution plan could ever possibly have enough saved into it to create the same income benefit at retirement.

Because the factors required for managing these plans, including life expectancy and market growth assumptions, are so difficult to anticipate and therefore tricky to calculate adequate funding levels, defined benefit pensions have long since been largely abandoned by the private sector in favor of defined contribution plans like 401k’s.

Governments not held accountable by shareholders, market forces or mathematics have ignored this trend and to make matters worse have underfunded these plans for years leaving the taxpayer on the hook for billions and billions and billions of benefit obligations. At the same time, many public-sector workers are able to “retire” much earlier than their private-sector counterparts, collect their guaranteed pensions and join the private sector to finish out their careers; double-dipping for as many as ten years.

How is the perpetuation of such a thing possible? Simple: public-sector labor unions empowered by liberal politicians in exchange for their vote.

So the next time you hear anyone making the argument that public-sector workers make less money than their private-sector counterparts, remember that the dollars that are (or should be) being put away for them to make good on the promise of their pensions, more than make up for any differences in salary and blow away anything available in the private sector.

Gary Gross’ coverage of the WEA Union Insurance racket.

Ed mentioned Shattered Peace (by David Andelman) A Peace to End All Peace and (by David Fromkin). I mentioned Imperial Grunts (by Robert Kaplan).

February 2011: Shade your boss and his company, thereby euthanizing your cash cow..

April 2011: 22 nightly appearances on TMZ.

May, July and October, 2011: Serial hospital stays.  For “exhaustion”.

December, 2011: Check into Hazelden, Betty Ford, Headwinds, Kumbaya or a similar celebrehab factory.

Later That December, 2011: Check yourself out of celebrehab.

January-July, 2012: [Fill in salacious-yet-pathetic headlines of benders, hookers and arrests]

August, 2012:  Lindsay Lohan says she thinks  you’re going to destroy yourself.

October 2012: Spectacular bankruptcy filing.

November 2012: Another stint in celebrehab.

Not Nearly As Much Later In November 2012 As It Was In December of ’11: Check yourself out of celebrehab.

March 2012: Booked to appear on “Celebrity Apprentice”.

April, 2012:  Make headlines as you are fired from Celebrity Apprentice.

June 2012: Ink deal to make a pr0n movie. With Omarosa.

A Week Later In June 2012: Fired from pr0n movie with Omarosa.

December 2012: High on paint fumes and crack, you crash a stolen moped into a bus full of Japanese tourists driven by John Cryer.  TMZ dedicates a week of broadcasts to your life.

The other day, I passed along a question from “Terry”, a regular in my comment section:

Why should I be required to work until I’m 70 so you can retire at 55?

Polls, incidents, and other ephemera aside, that really is the only question that matters, in Wisconsin  or, really, anywhere.  It’s a moral question; is your life, your job, your time on this planet worth so much more than mine that I should be required to pay for you to have that benefit?

Government union workers, for the most part, do the same sort of work all of us in the private sector do.  A teacher doesn’t have any voodoo that a corporate trainer doesn’t (indeed, most of the corporate trainers I’ve met started as teachers); a public works employee does the same things a carpenter or block layer or pipefitter or a few dozen other trades do in the private sector.  So when one of them asks the rest of us “Could you do my job?”, it’s not like society at large can’t respond “we already do”.  Cops and firemen are exceptions – at least partly.

And it’s not like government workers still make the traditional trade-off – lower pay for better benefits.  That was the case, not too long ago – but fifty years of union organization have have given unions members pay equal to or better than their private-sector equivalents (in the lower to middle income brackets, at the very least) along with the defined-benefit pensions that add the lifetime salaries for 20-30 years’ work.

So the question remains: why should I have to work until I’m 70 so you can retire at 55?

Someone on Twitter the other day told me “they’re not mutually exclusive”, although he couldn’t say why.  The fact is that right now, in this economy, and likely for the rest of my working life, they are mutually exclusive; as my “pension” – my IRA and the value of my home – have shrunk your pension remains a “promise”.  And if I can’t pay for that “promise”, the IRS and MN Department of Revenue will make my life hell.

So all you Wisconsin union supporters – please make the moral case:   Why should I be required (by the force of law, with tax agents and sheriffs with guns) to work until I’m 70 to (be able to afford, maybe, if I’m lucky) to retire so that you can retire at 55 (and life the rest of your life on money that the full force of the state will extract from me, and my children, and my grandchildren?  While I scramble to try to make up the losses of this last three years, likely for the rest of my working life?)

The comment section is yours.

(more…)

Via David Brauer, I see former governor Arne Carlson has a blog.

Well, don’t get too excited; he’s done four posts so far.  But the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, as they say.

Carlson dislikes being called a “backstabber” in “Politico” for his tireless work against Tim Pawlenty (and of course Tom Emmer) over the past nine years.  Carlson doesn’t like being criticized, naturally; he tells us so.

Now, the Minnesota GOP tossed Carlson, and a bunch of other former GOP officeholders who actively campaigned against Tom Emmer and, by extension, the party’s nascent conservatism, this past election.

Now, Carlson has the right to his opinion.  And he knows it, naturally: he makes no bones about his not liking the current crop of conservative Republicans, including Pawlenty:

It is no secret that I have serious qualms about the candidacy of Governor Pawlenty and do not believe his claims of prudent financial management come anywhere close to the truth. Hence, the scrutiny will continue……….

He even told Politico that he’d go on the road, pay any price and bear any burden to try to keep Pawlenty out of the White House (emphasis added):

“I will go to Iowa and New Hampshire and have press conferences, if it comes to that,” he told POLITICO in an interview. “With Tim Pawlenty, I’m outraged that his record is one of the worst in Minnesota history, and he refuses to answer any relevant question.”

Now, Carlson is entitled to his opinion.  Of course, his own record is one of a governor who ruled in generally good times; 1990-1998 was a pretty cha-cha time in Minnesota, barring a brief recession early on as the Defense industry retrenched and the Iron Range went through its usual, eternal spasms.  The booming economy gave Carlson repeated budget surpluses – which he promptly turned into permanent entitlement spending, which promptly turned into deficit-fodder when times turned tough in 2000 and again in 2008.   State government zoomed in size.   His own record is that of someone who spent money like a crack whore with a stolen gold card.  We, The People of Minnesota, financed his spending spree with a healthy cut off of our take from the good times in this state.  Had he governed in tough times – as Pawlenty did, through two recessions – he’d have presided over a California-like collapse, in all likelihood.

That’s fine.  Again, he can have his opinion.

But the regional media would have you believe that we, the current MNGOP, have to continue paying obeisance and honor to someone who not only spits on what we believe, but actively tries to use his old (ancient!) party credentials against us, and our candidates, and our most successful alumnus so far!

What would the DFL do to someone like that?  Ask Randy Kelly!

Forget about calling Arne Carlson a “Quisling”, as Tony Sutton did – accurately, if a bit hyperbolically.

We’re not supposed to criticize him in any way – as if having been a spendthrift governor in cha-cha times gives him papal-esque infallibility.

The other day, Nancy LaRoche – of Freedom Dogs, True North and many a great Protest Warrior send-up – reported on a conversation she’d had with a state senator about Mark Daytons’ office, which the Governor has had moved into a closet:

One of the most remarkable comments the Senator made was how Governor Mark Dayton has transformed his office. He installed cubicles into his office space for staff, and moved his office into… a closet.

“Sally Jo Sorenson” of the leftyblog Bluestem Prairie responded with the usual tools of the leftyblogger’s trade: name-calling…:

Pity poor Nancy LaRoche, the latest victim of slow loris syndrome, both thinking it clever to engage in a pathetic fallacy,

…the ofay ad-hominem…:

while breathlessly reporting idle chatter from a senator in Michael Brodkorb’s caucus as breaking news.

…and, as a noxious little “bonus”, a gratuitous reference to Nancy’s employer.

Oh, and a smidgen of factoid – that Rachel Stassen-Berger had “reported” the story a month earlier in the Strib:

The new governor has taken the reins of state, but he’s letting go of the some of the trappings. When visitors come into the ornate, spacious corner office traditionally reserved for Minnesota’s head of state, they will find three staffers.

Now, Sally Jo Sorenson not by a long shot the most noxious leftyblogger out there – that would be worth a poll, but I’m not going to be the one to throw it.  Still, her post has the three things on which most – too much – Minnesota DFL-blogging relies:

• Snark
• Insult
• A muted threat (to Nancy’s livelihood, in this case.  Seriously – what is the purpose of dragging someone’s day job into a stupid political discussion?  Is her goal to get her readers to call Nancy’s boss to try to get her fired, or what?  That’s so classy!

…and not a whole lot else.

Sheila Kihne, being a conservative blogger, goes the extra step – cutting to the real story:

With Mark Dayton and the Minnesota media establishment, where there’s smoke….there’s a fire extinguisher.

Now, let’s combine Nancy’s closet story with another conservative blogger’s find from the Strib. – Crystal Kelly asked “Is Mark Dayton Really Sober?” just a few days before the 2010 election. She wrote:

I ran across an article from the StarTribune, published July 4 2010, which lead me down a path that questions Mark Dayton’s sobriety. The article was titled, “Mark Dayton: a topsy-turvey ride.” In the second paragraph, something caught my eye. It said, “Sipping from a bottle of kombucha, a fermented tea that has become a campaign trail staple, this former U.S. senator is trying to revive an up-and-down political career at age 63.”

Crystal’s post provided research that recovering Alcoholics like Dayton SHOULD NOT be drinking Kombucha tea and the FDA is investigating the product labeling because of the alcohol content.. The Strib reported that the drink is a “campaign trail staple,” but never managed the same intellectual curiosity about the habits of a man who wanted to be our Governor. “Ha, ha! Can I try a sip?”

The media’s fabled curiosity shut down, of course – as it did with all things related to Dayton’s history – his “alternative teaching license” (a story Sheila led), his very dubious employment record with the New York Public Schools (ditto), his infamous bolt-and-run from DC while a Senator, the treatment history for his alcoholism, his mental health state and medications…

…as opposed to…:

What’s that you say? Tom Emmer’s son posted what on Facebook?

If I were a reporter and some liberal politician told me they worked in a closet, or I got a packet of information that seemed to indicate a past political payoff, or I noticed a recovered alcoholic drinking Kombucha tea all day long, or I found out that Dayton had lied about his resume……well, I might have some follow-up questions.

But of course, I’m not a reporter. I’m a partisan blogger…..and Mark Dayton’s a liberal. Herein lies the problem.

So there’s the relentless search for fact, and the exercise of the kind of courtesy to which the likes of our Capitol Press Corps practice (in re Republicans)…

…and then there’s snark, insult and threats.  Or as Bill Clinton’s staff called it, “Delay, Deny, Destroy”.

My point?  Oh, I dunno – Sheila Kihne is a better writer and blogger than Ms. Sorenson?   I can run with that.

So the remaining question is – what animal will Sally Jo Sorenson name Sheila Kihne?

I’m gonna bet it’ll be a real burn!

(more…)

Wisconsin’s “labor movement” protesters have adopted a couple of new symbols.

The first, of course, is the very word “Solidarity”, although to be fair its use by radical left-wing labor activists long-predates the Polish “Solidarity” movement.  Since nobody retired the number, I suppose they can put it on their jersey.

But the “raised fist” is a pretty loaded symbol.  It’s been used by (according to this Wikipedia bit, with me adding a few bits of emphasis):

* Albanian National Liberation Front

* American Indian Movement

* Anarchist Black Cross

* Black Panther Party

* Democratic Labour Party of Brazil

* Earth First!

* Women’s Liberation

* Food Not Bombs

* International Brigades

* International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers

* Italian Radical Party

* Jewish Defense League

* Kach

* National Equality March

* Otpor

* Parti Sosialis Malaysia (Socialist Party of Malaysia)

* Revolutionary Socialist Workers’ Party (Turkey)

* Red Front Fighters’ League

* Saor Éire (1967-1975)

* Socialist International

* Socialist Party of England and Wales

* Socialist Workers Party (Britain)

* Socialist Youth Front

* United Farm Workers

* Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front

Not to mention, if I recall correctly, Mussolini’s Camicia Neri, the “Black Shirts”.

Now, they can pick any symbol they want.  It’s a free country.

It’s just that with all the nation’s media and self-appointed social consciences having the victorian vapours over the most tangential symbolism among the Tea Party, it’s kinda odd that there’s no comment about a symbol that is linked on the one hand with a lot of violence, even terrorism (not that the unions seem averse to that, if only rhetorically)…

…and on the other with various Civil Rights movements – as if the “Right” to demand others pay for a standard of living they themselves cannot afford is on par with the right to vote and be considered equal before the law.

Just saying.

(Via Torin K at the TPL)

To: The Twin Cities mainstream media

From: Mitch Berg, Regular Schnook

Re: Double Standard

Dear Madames and Sirs,

Remember the spring of 2010?  When you furrowed your stately brows and tut-tutted about the ugliness, “vitriol” and “incipient violence” in American politics, when some of you noticed some questionable signs among a tiny fringe of Tea Partiers?  Many of which were shown to be either beyond the fringe, out of context, or complete false flags?

I’m wondering where the indignation, the brow-furrowing, the concern is over this:

Or this?

The left and media (pardon the redundancy) yakked a lot about purported racism at Tea Party rallies, especially the rally at the Capitol last March.  You fretted and phumphered and worried about our nation falling apart.

Any comment about this?

Not to rush you, but are you planning on furrowing your brows anytime soon over this?

If not – is it because you are, as your colleagues in Milwaukee are reported to be, in the bag for the protesters?

Or is it because your union pressman or cameraman will break your knees?

Let me know, OK?

Thanks.

That is all.

Saint Paul at Fraters Libertas has the scoop:

Another formerly respected education professional disgraces himself.

Go and read.

And let the outrage out.

Arvada Colorado school adminstrators asked for the arrest of the 11 year old boy who drew the non-threatening “threatening” stick figures in class the other day…

…even though the boy had been told to do this by his therapists as an alternative to disrupting class – an alternative that was apparently working  fine.

Well, it was, anyway (I’m going to add the odd bit of emphasis):

Arvada Police are defending the way they handled the arrest of an 11-year-old boy.  The Arvada boy was arrested and hauled away in handcuffs from his home for drawing stick figures in school – something his therapist told him to do.

His parents say they understand what he did was inappropriate, but are outraged by the way Arvada Police handled the case…They say “Tim” is being treated for Attention Deficit Disorder and his therapist told him to draw pictures when he got upset, rather than disrupt the class. So that’s what he did.

Last October, he drew stick figures of himself with a gun, pointed at four other stick figures with the words “teachers must die.”

No, he was not a budding trenchcoat mafioso…:

The boy drew the pictures to let out angry emotions…He felt calmer and was throwing the picture away when the teacher saw it and sent him to the principal’s office.

The school was aware that the boy was in treatment, determined he was not a threat, notified his parents and sent him back to class.

But once your kids are in the hands of our school systems’ idiot administrators, you really can’t count on anything:

His mother, “Jane” was shocked when Arvada Police showed up at their home later that night.

She says she told her son to cooperate and tell the truth, but was horrified when they told her they were arresting him and then handcuffed him and hauled him away in a patrol car. His mother says she begged police to let her drive her son to the police department and to let her stay with him through the booking process but they refused.

They put him in a cell, took his mug shot and fingerprinted him. He says he thought he was going to jail and would never be able to go home again.

Anyone wanna guess the kid’s therapy bills for the next ten years?

At first school officials did not want to press charges, but changed their mind when police called them later that night. A juvenile assessment report shows he’s never been in legal trouble before and is at low risk to reoffend.

He’s charged with a third degree misdemeanor, interfering with staff and students at an educational facility. The system says it’s doing what’s in the best interest of the child. But Tim’s therapist says handcuffing an 11-year-old and putting him in a cell over something like this is “quite an overreaction” and does much more harm than good.

Do you think?

I have a little background with the comatose, unreasoning stupidity of the schools’ “zero tolerance” policies.  Good luck getting redress in the courts – the laws pretty well protect schools from any sort of accountability for their actions – the laws were written by Democrats in the pocket of the Teachers unions and the Administrators associations; also, they’re the freaking government.

Do you think a charter school, responsible to a board elected by the school’s parents and stakeholders, just might have come up with a solution that wouldn’t have embarassed a Soviet komissar?

It’s time to bring back public humiliation – stocks and pillories – for public officials who so utterly transgress the boundaries of sanity, decency and morality itself.

And if the Arvada, Colorado school board doesn’t fire every single party involved, and the voters don’t in turn erase every single member of that school board from any contact with children forever, and the people can stand for that sort of priggish idiocy from their police department, they deserve what they get.

I’m pretty sure “Tim” does not.

No punishment we can legally give is severe enough for these walking sacks of “human” pus.  If I were face to face with these scumbags, I would punch them.

Damn right I’m “vitriolic”.

New bill in Texas would provide a destination for illegals:

This should get their attention.

A measure filed by State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) would allow any law enforcement agency that has custody of an illegal immigrant to take the illegal to ‘the office of a U.S. Senator or Representative’ and leave them there.

1200 WOAI [San Antonio] news reports the measure also allows county sheriff’s deputies or city police officers to ‘request an agent or employee of the United States Senator or United States Representative to sign a document acknowledging the release or discharge of the illegal immigrant at the senator’s or representative’s office.

The measure covers individuals who are ‘not a citizen or national of the United States’ and who is ‘unlawfully present in the United States.’

Kolkhorst concedes the measure is a ‘cry for help’ to convince federal officials to secure the border, but she says she is serious about getting the measure approved by the Legislature.

That might work in Texas.

Here in Minnesota, Keith Ellison or Betty McCollum would register them as voters.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel – which seems to have done a fair job of covering the Wisconsin Fleebaggers – has busted an SEIU hack bragging that the Milwaukee media was complicit with the union in trying to smear then-candidate and now-governor Scott Walker.

Using his cell phone, a Walker campaign staffer recorded a 15-minute talk in which Morgan laid out what he said were his union’s plans to tie the problems at the O’Donnell Park garage and the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex to the Republican nominee.

The Walker aide, Michael Brickman, didn’t disclose who he was during the one-on-one chat. He gave a false name and occupation at the end of the conversation… The union staffer bragged about his ability to garner news coverage of his anti-Walker events from local TV stations, which he called “willing partners” in his endeavors. He also disclosed that he secretly runs an anti-Walker blog at www.scottwalkertruthsquad.org, which prominently features Weishan and SEIU’s criticisms of the county exec.

Via Dan Riehl, a partial transcript (full transcript available in PDF form here):

2: I work for a union. I work for the Service Employees Union.

1: S…E?

2: SEIU. It’s a big janitors union based in Chicago.

2: Yeah, I do political lobbying, communications work, research and media.

1: Oh, so you’re like big time in this thing.

2: I’m kinda at the center of like a maelstrom right now in terms of kicking Scott Walker’s ass. I’ve been

kicking Scott Walker’s ass for two months now. We’ve been on TV; we’ve done all kinds of stuff.

1: You guys did TV?

2: No, We just get Channel 4 to come down with their news cameras and just a …. do news.

1: They seem like they do a pretty good job covering you guys.

2: Pretty good. You’ve seen that stuff?

1: Well just like the anti-Walker stuff.

2: Yeah, they’ve been really willing partners in it. They come in with the TV cameras and (channels) 58,

12 come, and 6 doesn’t always. But yeah, they’ve been really helpful. They think it’s fun.

1: Do they get the message? Do you think they agree with you?

2: Sometimes. It’s not perfect, but yeah, they get our message across.

1: [inaudible]

This, if it pans out, should be placed alongside “JournoList” as prime evidence in the indictment of the mainstream media on charges of liberal bias from the top down.

Nothing in state government is so sacred that you can’t link it to a drinking game.

Although we urge our actual state legislators not to be doing the game-drinking while working.

At any rate – since the DFL has a legislative minority and an incredibly weak governor, their best shot at eking a victory out of this session is to convince The People that 2+2=”Blue”.  And so the DFL has unleashed a wave of DFL propagandabots in the media, the alt-media, the press and in government itself, repeating the same series of lines, and lies, over and over and over – not so much repeating the Godwin-fodder “Big Lie” often enough as repeating a wide swathe of little lies – along the lines of “Tom Emmer tried to lower penalties for drunk drivers” – until the dim-witted and not-very-savvy (aka “The DFL’s swing voters”) start to think they’re true.

And we might as well have fun with ’em!

So it’s time to turn all the bile, the ire, the vitrol and the waterboarded context into…

The Chanting Points Drinking Game!

You need the following to play:

• Three or more people – the more, the merrier!
• Alcohol
• One drinking glass for each contestant, suitable for the alcohol (beer glasses for beer, shot glasses for booze, wine glasses for whine).  Alternate: empty jars will suffice.
• A Mark Dayton bobblehead doll.
• A TV or computer  tuned to any political discussion – the session, TPT Almanac, “At Issue”, Esme Murphy’s show, whatever.  If no suitable TV program is on, someone can read from MNPublius, Minnesota “Progressive” Project, mnpACT!, MN2020, Alliance For A Better Minnesota, Bluestem Prairie or any other combination of Twin Cities leftyblogs.

Here’s how you play:

1. Before viewing, give the bobblehead to a random particpant.
2. Turn on the TV.
3. Whenever anyone says any variation of the following, everyone take a hit from your glass…

• “We have a $6.2 Billion deficit!”
• “The only choices we have are tax hikes or layoffs!”‘
• “The GOP wants to force cities to raise property taxes!”
• “Minnesotans won’t stand for this departure from our government tradition”
• “The GOP needs to reach across the aisle” / “Mark Dayton has done an admirable job of reaching across the aisle”
• Any reference to Orville Freeman, Arne Carlson, or any former governnor named Anderson
• Any use of the term “tipping point”
• “Where is the GOP’s no-cuts plan?” (If accompanied by a knowing smirk, make that two hits)
• “Government spending is essential for a healthy economy!”
• “We inherited this from Tim Pawlenty” (Take an extra sip if the word “disastrous” is used)
• “If the GOP says they want jobs, then why are they laying off state workers?”
• “The [GOP/Tea Party/any opponent of the DFL]’s plan is ‘extreme’ and/or ‘wrong for Minnesota'”

4. After each drink line, the holder of the Dayton Bobblehead passes it to the next person in the circle.

5. If anyone says “The GOP plan will [throw Grandma into the street/freeze the children/etc]”, the holder of the Dayton Bobblehead must drain his/her glass immediately before passing it on to the next person.

Feel free to add “house rules” for other Chanting Points – mentions of “Wall Street”, “Koch Brothers”,  variations on the term “Neocon” or “Mubarak”, or whatever works for you!

Your entire party will be passed out in puddles of vomit within the hour.

Just like the Senate DFL caucus on the last night of the session, come to think of it.

The latest Rasmussen Poll shows  likely voters are backing Walker:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters agree more with the Republican governor in his dispute with union workers. Thirty-eight percent (38%) agree more with the unionized public employees, while 14% are undecided…

…Thirty-eight percent (38%) of voters think teachers, firemen and policemen should be allowed to go on strike, but 49% disagree and believe they should not have that right. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure.

Naturally there’s stark partisan divide.

Thirty-six percent (36%) of all voters say that in their state the average public employee earns more than the average private sector worker. Twenty-one percent (21%) say the government employee earns less, while 20% think their pay is about the same. Twenty-three percent (23%) are not sure.

With states across the country finding that benefits for public workers are becoming difficult to fund in the current economic climate, support for public employee unions has fallen.  Forty-five percent (45%) of Americans favor them, and 45% don’t. These findings include 21% who Strongly Favor such unions and 30% who are Strongly Opposed to them.

This can’t be good news to all the droogs in Madison.

Like Muammar Gaddhafi and Hosni “Rico” Mubarak, some of America’s leftists in places like Minneapolis and Madison are having a hard time twigging the fact that they don’t control everything anymore.

“Phoenix Woman” from Mercury Rising, is one of them.  One of her readers is upset that National Public Radio isn’t entirely their personal toy anymore:

The following is from an e-mail received from a reader of MR. Said reader has given me permission to reproduce it here, with spelling edits [I’ll just bet there were – Ed.]:

Just tried to call in to Talk of the Nation while they were doing a program on Wisconsin.

Back in the old days, the show used to allow various comments so long as they were on topic.

Er, no.  NPR programs are always tightly screened, and always have been.

But today, the FIRST thing the screener said was “With a state budget deficit of $2 billion, what should public employees be expected to give?”

When I tried to say “They’ve ALREADY given sixteen furlough days in the past two years!”, the screener cut me off, saying that they wanted only people who were going to answer their (loaded) question.

It wasn’t a (loaded) question.  The program had already noted the concessions Wisconsin’s unions have made (listen for yourself).  The subject was not “Let’s let Wisconsin union members on the air to bitch about their lives”.  It was “what is it right to ask?”

Talk of the Nation gets dozens, maybe hundreds, of calls an hour.  They put maybe 7-8 on the air in a typical hour.  It’s the screener’s job to make sure those few calls are the ones that make for the best, on-topic radio possible.

A good screener knows that there are four kinds of callers; great ones, average ones, boring one and crazy ones.  Listening to people carping, off-topic, while not addressing the show’s topic is boring and off-topic.

She was quite brusque, too.

Screening is a tough job. And I’m gonna bet that there were more than a few “seminar callers, like the person “Phoenix” is quoting, from Wisconsin.

Also, the screener was a government worker.

NPR: not even Nice Polite Republicans any more.

“Everyone who doesn’t kiss our butts must be a Republican”.

I think I get it now.

Remember last year, when the regional media furrowed its stately brow and pondered whether the Tea Party was “racist”…

…because of an ambiguous sign?

Apparently the media isn’t curious about mass movements any more, since conservative bloggers have been documenting enough reprehensible, repulsive signage in Madison to re-side every shanty in Port-Au-Prince.

Here’s the latest, via Dana Loesch:

Note:  Someone at a “progressive” rally is calling for gang rape of female Tea Partiers.

It should go without saying that if this were at a Tea Party rally, it’d be getting dissected this morning on every news show in the country.

UPDATE: Everytime I see the left’s “civility for we, but violence/gang-rape for thee” vibe in action, I think about this post here.