Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

If I am funding an agency whose mission is to promote home ownership among low-income clients but a substantial percentage of those clients are losing their homes and thereby ending up worse off than before they started – foreclosed, credit ruined and evicted – at what point should I conclude that the agency is a failure and stop throwing money down the rat-hole?

Joe is referring to the plethora of non-profits whose goal is to promote home ownership among low-income buyers – like this, and this and this.

It’s Economics 101;  you can not make something worth other than what people are naturally willing to pay for it without creating unintended, inevitably bad consequences.

Well, it was Economics 101.  In the era of Obama and Dayton, I think it must have been dropped from the curriculum to make time for GLBT economic sensitivity training.

Ixnay on the aidsmay:

Two weeks after Dominique Strauss-Kahn was held on rape charges in Manhattan, an Egyptian financier was arrested yesterday on charges of sexually abusing a maid at The Pierre (above), one of New York City’s most luxurious hotels.

He is Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar, a former chairman of the Bank of Alexandria, one of Egypt’s biggest banks. Omar, 74, is thought to have been visiting New York in his current capacity as chairman of the salt production company, El-Mex Salines.

The Egyptian is accused of abusing the 44-year-old maid after calling for tissues to be delivered to his tenth-floor room on Sunday evening. As soon as she entered the room, police say, Omar “touched her inappropriately” and locked the door – a charge also leveled at Strauss-Kahn.

International bankers have a worse record than the Twins, so far this season.

From ABC News This Week with Christiana Amanpour’s interview with Tim Pawlenty:

PAWLENTY: Any doofus can go to Washington DC and maintain the status quo or incrementally change things, for the country the hour is late.”

AMANPOUR: “Define doofus?”

And, with Goddess as my witness, I would not have been able to resist that high, hanging curveball.

Mark Dayton’s budget – and worse, what his budget would mean for the state’s long-term fiscal viability – is a disaster waiting to happen; the equivalent of going out and buying a new Beemer when you’re four months behind on the house payments.

Senator Roger Chamberlain of White Bear Lake has been an inspiration this session; he’s one of the freshmen firebrands that just plain gets it, the fact that if we don’t tame the beat now, there will not be a fiscal tomorrow.

He’s circulating the following email.  Read it, and forward it to your friends; it is that important.  I’ve added some emphasis:

This may be a bit unconventional but it is time to be heard. I know many of you have done much already, but we all need to do more. This will not be easy, it was always a possibility that we would be on this path. If we are to win this struggle with the governor and the progressives, we need all of you. We need to mobilize the troops to answer and counter the lies of our opponents. For 5 months the governor has not made a single difficult decision. He has had the luxury of standing on the sideline; doing nothing but criticizing and name calling. Now the ads have started. Much is at stake.

Our struggle is not only against a destructive progressive ideology but also against an entrenched bureaucracy and a complacent media.

Some facts:

1. $30.1 billion – Mn dollars spent during 2010-2011 biennium

2. $34 billion – Our balanced budget proposal to the governor. this is the amount in the checkbook.

3. $37 billion – the governors budget proposal

4. Revenue projected to increase by 8.5% next budget cycle

5. $400 million increase in K-12

6. Almost $600 million increase HHS spending

7. All other areas receive CUTS and reforms

8. I and other legislators will meet with any of you to discuss ideas, etc.

All of these numbers are supported by MMB, our spreadsheets and the governors published proposal. Those are the FACTS.

Share with your family, friends, co-workers; post on blogs, comment on blogs, letters to the editors, post on telephone polls and message boards, call MPR, call or write to the governor and his commissioners. Work with Taxpayers League, MN Majority, Free Market institute, et. al.

The governors plan will destroy this state. If we were to accept his plan, what will we do next year or in two years when expenses will increase another 10-25%?

Thank you and God Bless!

Sincerely,

Roger Chamberlain

The worst thing about the Dayton budget isn’t that it increases spending by the levels Arne Carlson did back during the cha-cha boom years of the nineties – although that’s bad.  The worst thing is that his budgets will continue the “autopilot” for budget increases, with no end in sight.

Which means that in the next biennium, “the rich” will be everyone earning over, who knows, maybe $75,000?   There will be no way for revenue to keep up with spending…

…and the spending is not , by and large, to benefits students or the poor, but to keep state government workers in benefits like most of our employers can’t afford.   The spending will require you to keep working until you’re 70 so they can retire at 55.

Stop the madness.

Kwama Heaton of Richfield wanted to sign his kids up for basketball camp.  But when he got laid off from his job as a car salesman, due to a lack of used cars (due to Obama’s Cash for Clunkers program and cost cutting for Obamacare), he had to cancel those plans.

Cynthia DelAmitri of Woodbury told her family that their annual trip to visit her parents for a week of camping and fishing in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan were on ice because the small recruiting company for which she works is cutting staff (they can’t afford the taxes) and she couldn’t afford to take time off; the big national recruiters would eat her lunch.

Rey Jimenez, your grandmother’s oncologist, quietly decided that added onto the state’s confiscatory business tax rates and absurd healthcare mandates, the added income on couples who earn over $135,000 (he and his wife, your grandmother’s internist) was the last straw. He’s moving to Phoenix.

The media doesn’t cover those sorts of stories (and yes, mine are fictional, but only literally).

But let the government suddenly feel not all fat and happy, and “human interest” is the order of the day for the Twin Cities media:

Camille Miller hasn’t signed her daughter up for Girl Scout camp this summer. The state health care analyst from Woodbury is not sure she’ll have the $500 to pay for it.

Wow.

Not sure I ever paid $500 for kids camp…

Jim Ullmer has told his extended family to forget their annual July 4th get-together at Lake Itasca State Park. Ullmer, a state truck inspector from Crystal, is unsure if the campground will be open.

Because everyone knows family get togethers in local or national parks, or private camp areas, just aren’t the same.  There’s something about that patina of “state ownership” that brings people together, right?

They are just two of more than 54,000 state workers bracing for an uncertain summer as the Capitol budget impasse threatens to shut down government services on July 1.

To which the roughly two million of us in the private sector say “welcome to every day in our world, government worker”.

And half of us add “so quit electing obstructionist DFL governors”.  The GOP submitted a budget – one that’d keep government running, increase most spending that “needs” it and demand some new efficiencies.

Look for the same cavalcade of woe to accelerate; the Strib seems to be even more in the bag for the DFL this year than they did in 2005.

It’s Memorial Day today.

If you go to the south entrance to Como Park, along Lexington, you can see an unusual statue – an old torpedo on a stand.

It’s a memorial to the crew of the USS Swordfish – an American submarine, built in the waning years of the 1930’s, which fought throughout World War II.

USS Swordfish

Swordfish had been at Pearl Harbor on December 7.  It set off on its first war patrol weeks after the attack, sinking Japanese freighers in Filipino waters – the first ships sunk by US submarines in World War II – before helping evacuate the Philippines’ president, Manuel Quezon, and key members of his government and military staffs.

There were eleven more patrols before Christmastime in 1944, when Swordfish set sail for Japanese home waters, with  a side mission to reconnoiter invasion beaches on Okinawa.

Sometime between January 3 and February 15, Swordfish disappeared.  There’s evidence it struck a mine off Okinawa on January 12.

The torpedo in Como Park is part of a nationwide project to honor the men of the 52 submarines lost during the war with a monument in each state (New York and California have two each).

Nobody in my family ever died serving the country (a great uncle apparently came pretty close in World War I; my father found some dire-sounding letters from the Argonne); my ex-father-in-law served on a destr0yer throughout the war in the Pacific, but close calls notwithstanding (kamikazes, yes, but his biggest injury came when the return spring on an Oerlikon 20mm gun he was maintaining sprang loose, throwing him over a rail to a deck below, injuring his back) he came home.

So most Memorial Days, I stop by Como Park and pay homage to the sub’s crew of 89.  Three of the crew were from Minnesota, two from North Dakota, and one from South Dakota.

Anyway – remember those who died for our country today. There are an awful lot of them.

Suggestions for the new title of the Brad Carlson edition of the Northern Alliance?    Leave ’em in the comments, or on Twitter at #narn.

Once you’ve gotten into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where can you go?

If you’re James Hetfield of Metallica?  His high school hall of fame:

I mean, after that Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, the old high school alma matter’s induction was the next logical step.

Metallica frontman James Hetfield was inducted (last Friday) into the Downey High School 2011 Hall of Fame.

The school — located in Downey, California — started the Hall of Fame more than ten years ago, according to their site.

Rock on.

Huge news in the world of Northern Alliance Radio – we’re expanding again!

Starting Saturday, June 4,  Brad Carlson will join the Northern Alliance Radio Network, from 3-4PM on Saturdays following Ed and my show.

Brad’s been a guest, and guest-host, on the NARN for a couple of years now, and Ed and I are happy to welcome him to the NARN conspiracy.  Er, family.

AM1280 gains another good local show.  The local conservative media gains a solid voice (who can do double duty as a sportscaster).  And the Twin Cities media now have another nemesis.

And there juuuuuuuust might be more good news still to come, with a little luck.

Stay tuned!

“Progressives” – or at least, way too many of them – hate the free and open interchange of ideas.

Over on this thread at MinnPost on the cancellation of “Sons of Liberty” on AM1280, a commenter sniffed “Freedom of speech has been stretched to the limit by “Patriot” radio”.  And I’d love to ask – what are the “limits” of free speech?   (And, by the way – for all of you who got the vapors over Brad Dean’s radio show or prayer in the house – are you OK with lefty host Randi Rhodes repeatedly calling for then-President Bush’s murder?  Or with Ed Schultz calling his talk-radio better Laura Ingraham a “slut”?  Just curious).

To many progressives, apparently, the limit is “whatever challenges what I believe“; students at Georgetown turned out to sign a (staged) petition to censor conservative websites:

“The undersigned hereby adamantly demand that the United States government shut down right wing hate sites. The hate speech propagated by sites like the Drudge Report, Hot Air, Instapundit, Big Government, and others must not be allowed to corrupt our political discourse any longer. These sites are dangerous not only to truth and freedom but also to our society as a whole. BAN THEM NOW!”

This is at Georgetown, mind you – incubator for our nation’s putative future elites.  And it’s not pretty; it might be time to look into getting some new “elites”.

Ed Morrissey – whose site was specifically targeted in the petition – quotes some of the new power generation:

“There has to be some control,” one young woman says. “I mean, freedom of speech is good, but, there is a certain modicum of control — I mean, look at the Tea Party.” Yeah, look at that freedom of assembly and freedom of political speech that garnered so much support that Republicans won more new seats in a midterm election than either party had in 72 years. We have to control that kind of thing! I particularly liked the one woman who signed the petition because sites like ours “cause a lot of debate.” Oh, heavens, no! Not debate! Why, then one might have to actually pay attention and think for one’s self!

Most common reaction to the question, “What do you think of the First Amendment?” was “I think it’s great, but ….” Maybe Georgetown should consider remedial Civics and American History classes.

I’d say Georgetown, and much of the public education bureaucracy, is thinking “Mission Accomplished” right about now.

It’s nothing new, of course.  Back in 1986, on my old graveyard-shift show on KSTP, I interviewed some members of “Women Against Military Madness” after their leader, Polly Mann, called for censorship of media that didn’t promote the “peace at any price” line.  With a straight face.

Next time someone tells you National Public Radio does a good job of being balanced and avoiding bias, give ’em this example from yesterday afternoon’s “All Things Considered”.  Robert Siegel was interviewin Nina “Jesse Helms Should Die Of AIDS” Totenberg about a new Arizona law that allows courts to shut down businesses that hire illegals.

Siegel asked if it was the same as last year’s controversial immigration law (emphasis):

“No. That law…requires law enforcement personnel to check up on the status of any individual they think on the street is illegally in the country and it says, you know, give me your papers…”

She’s lying, of course, or at least leaving out the bit about “illegals who have some legal contact with law enforcement”, as opposed to trawling the Home Depots looking for people with brown skin.

Joe Doakes from Como Park – who knows his way around a city budget – writes:

The Legislature failed to reach agreement with the Governor meaning no state aid money for cities. Mayor Coleman wants to know how many cops the Republicans want him to lay off to balance the City budget.

Of course, the rest of the city’s bureaucracy is off limits.  But we digress.

Sad to say, Mayor Coleman has a point. In the Obama Economy of straitened finances, local government may be forced to privatize some services including aspects of police protection. Citizens may need to assume responsibility for their own safety. But many people have found themselves unable to afford to do so, or have been prohibited from doing so, by onerous government regulation or market forces. How can we address this urgent public safety issue consistent with reduced city government revenues?

It’s a tough question.  But Joe has an idea:

I think Congress should pass a Community Re-Armament Act requiring gun dealers to sell pistols to people who traditionally have been underserved in the firearms market (felons, minors, the insane); establish a federal agency to subsidize the price of those guns at taxpayer expense; assign BATF to audit gun dealers to make sure they’re selling enough guns to children upon pain of losing their dealer’s licenses; have Community Organizers sue high-profile gun dealers for “redlining” by failing to make enough such sales; wait 15 years to view results.

Empowering those traditionally excluded from power: I’m astonished Barney Frank isn’t all over this idea. Hey, it worked so well in the housing market. What could possibly go wrong?

Joe Doakes

Como Park

Leave out the “felons, minors, the insane” bit, and it could work…

“Compromise”.

That’s what the Dayton Administration says it wants (when it’s not calling the GOP “extremists” – which is kind of funny, “extremists” getting the majority of the vote last November, but I digress).

Of course, the GOP did compromise; it hiked the budget, adding the money from the upgraded February revenue forecast to the budget, rather than leaving it in the economy where it might have done some good.  That’s all the compromise the GOP needs to do.

Dayton – or, more accurately, “Alliance for a Better Minnesota”, the attack PAC funded entirely by Dayton, his family, his friends, and the unions who are renting him until 2014 with an option ’til 2018 – are doing their best to cow Minnesotans into believing “cutting government” means “attacking the middle class”.

Dayton and his minions are lying, of course.

Here’s how it really works:

2011:  “Compromises” with the MNGOP to lower a 22% increase down to something a little less immediately catastrophic.  Somehow, he bullies the GOP into acquiescing.

2012:  Minnesota’s economy falters, as small-business hiring flags.  “It’s because of the GOP budget thefts!”, every single media outlet and DFL blog (pardon the redundancy) opines.  Disgusted by the GOP’s budget cave-in, swing voters stay home in droves, cutting the GOP’s majority in the Legislature.

2013: Emboldened by his “success” in cowing Minnesotans into taking a tax hit and pinning it, putatively, on “the rich”, Dayton proposes another “my way or the highway” budget, with another 20% increase to over $40 billion, to “pay Minnesota back for what the extremists stole”.  To pay for this, “the Rich” are redefined as anyone with an Adjusted Gross Income of over $90,000.

2014: Minnesota’s economy falls still further, as mid-sized businesses flee the state in accelerating numbers.   Dayton, having vetoed Voter Id, wins re-election by a 5 million to 1 million margin.

2015: Dayton’s budget rockets up another 20%, to $48 billion; “you must be happy to pay for a bigger Minnesota”, he mumbles, as he notes that “the rich” are now any Minnesotan with an adjusted gross income of over $60,000.

And so on.

Pass the word to your neighbors; all they have is fear.

I get a lot of questions here at Shot In The Dark.  Periodically, I like to answer them.

Let’s start at the top!

“Hey, Merg!  You worked on a special election campaign.  And it lost!  Hahahahahahahahaha!” Yeah, who’da thunk it, a Republican losing in Saint Paul.  That’s not even “dog bites man”.  That’s “Dog sniffs Dog”.    We gave it our best shot, and we came up waaaaay short.  More later.

“Hey, Merg!  You promoted Bradlee Dean!  I got the screen shot!” Well, yeah, genius – it was on my blog every weekend for two years.  And in the last segment of my show, every Saturday; “Sons of Liberty up next, for those of you who want your Constitution straight up with no chaser!”, or some such.

That’s what you do when you work for a radio station, or any broadcaster, or narrowcaster for that matter, if they depend on ratings; you cross-plug the other shows.  If, I dunno, Eric Pusey and Diane “Minnesota Observer” Gerth were to buy air time after the Northern Alliance on Saturdays, I’d give them a jaunty cross-promotion, too – because that’s what you do in radio.  It’s called being a professional.You promote the station’s other shows – because if they’re doing well, the whole station does well.  And if the station does well, Ed and I stay on the air.

Does it mean I endorse everything Bradlee Dean said on his show?  Of course not.  I’m not going to comment on the Sons of Liberty’s departure from AM1280 – but the General Manager who lets us use his air time, Ron Stone, did, right here, and I really don’t need to add much to that.  Of course I will add that much of the Twin Cities leftymedia’s “coverage” of Dean was really, really bad; he never advocated killing gays, for starters, and his “association with the GOP” is even thinner gruel.  But hey, they need to break eggs to make omelettes, right?

“But Merg!  You lost!  Hahahahahahaha!” Well, as Abraham Lincoln said, “The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.” And bringing a multi-party democracy to the “progressive” cesspool that is Saint Paul is nothing if not just; Saint Paul Republicans follow in the footsteps of Lech Walesa, trying to crack the rotting facade of a single-party autocracy.  It’s a tough job…

“Hey, Mitch – how’s biking going?”:  It’s not, yet.  My commute jumped from six to 20 miles.  Which is not to say I’m not going to start riding to work, at least part-way, pretty quick here – probably by throwing my bike on my bike rack, driving part way, leaving my car at a park and ride, and biking in the rest of the way.   Soon, here.

“But Merg!  Your candidate got beat!  Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Teh DFL owns this town!”. In 1982, the Chicago Bears went 3-6, in a strike-shortened season.  It was a terrible year, and a terrible team.   But it had some elements – Walter Payton and some other great players in waiting – that would, when combined with a new coach, Mike Ditka, lead that same team, three years later, to become the greatest team in the history of pro football.

The Saint Paul GOP, and the Fourth District GOP for that matter, are going to need more than three years to recover from decades of the beaten-down indolence that is the result of decades of defeat and oppression.  I say ten years.  Others think it can be done faster; I hope they’re right, but I figure ten years.

What, we’re supposed to just give up?

You don’t know me very well, do you?

“Say, Mitch – why do you still call the show the Northern Alliance Radio Network?  It’s just one show, on one station!” Oh, stay tuned.

Mark Dayton, from a bit on the TV news yesterday, on his veto of the GOP’s budget bills:

“The problem…apparently…seems to lie with some of the extreme right wing members, especially the new ones, who don’t seem to know how government works”.

So Tom Bakk’s stupid remark about the GOP freshmen not being part of the government club…

…is the official DFL party line?

Along with the whole “everyone who opposes Dayton is an “extremist”” schtick?

(SCENE:  Liam Branbert and his wife Slainte, midly disheveled, under the covers, smoking cigarettes).

LIAM: “So did the earth move for you?”

SLAINTE: “Sure, a little”.

LIAM: “But did it move in a progressive way, or kind of a conservative way?”

SLAINTE: “Um – I dunno?  Why?”

LIAM: IT’S IMPORTANT, DAMMIT!”

(And scene).

——————–

Absurd?

Well, on the left, nothing is too absurd.

Which brings us to Brian Lambert’s little poison-pen blog post about Scott Johnson’s observance of Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday.

Other than the melodies, I always wonder how conservative ideologues (ir)rationalize the work of people like Bob Dylan? (Likewise, T-Paw claiming to be a big Springsteen fan.)

Serious?

For starters, because a great piece of art – I’m talking everything from Bach to Darkness on the Edge of Town – connects with people on a way that is much, much deeper than politics.  Although with some on the left, maybe nothing goes deeper than politics.

But I digress.   Scott, my friend and former NARN co-host, is as articulate a music critic as there is:

“In his outstanding City Journal essay on Pete Seeger (“America’s most successful Communist”), Howard Husock placed Dylan in the line of folk agitprop in which Seeger took pride of place. Husock’s essay is an important and entertaining piece. Dylan is only a small part of the story Husock has to tell, however, and Husock therefore does not pause long enough over Dylan to observe how quickly Dylan burst the shackles of agitprop, found his voice, and tapped into his own vein of the Cosmic American Music. Looking back on his long career, one can discern his respect for the tradition as well as his ambition to stand at its head. On 1964’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ album, Dylan foreshadowed his break from the folk movement in ‘Restless Farewell,’ the album’s closing song.”

Lambert – for whom Randy Rhodes (the host, not the guitarist) may be the most evocative artist:

By his next birthday I’m guessing Johnson will have transformed Bob into the poet laureate of The Heritage Foundation.

Or – here’s a radical notion, albeit not a Radical one – he’ll enjoy it.

Governor Dayton vetoed all the GOP  budget bills, casting his vote for continued autopilot budget increases, an eternal burden on the state’s productive class, and forcing the rest of us to work ’til we’re 70 so that Dayton’s union supporters can retire at 55.

But at least Minnesota’s brewers got their money’s worth:

On the same day he vetoed most of the GOP-backed budget bills, Gov. Mark Dayton signed a bill allowing beer sales at a proposed new brewery and restaurant.

Minnesotans; broke, getting broker, force to be “happy to be paid for a better Minnesota” – but at least we can drink.

Keep ’em drunk and dependent.  Could be a state motto.

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

At least the administration is even-handed and non-political in its internal communication with employees facing layoff when the government shuts down in a few weeks. No preaching here, just the facts. That’s a comfort.

Joe supplied an email to DOT employees:

From: *DOT_NoteMailer

Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 1:15 PM

Subject: End of Legislative Session Update

To all MnDOT employees:

After five months of hard work and progress in some areas, the 2011 legislative session has concluded without a budget deal. While it is deeply disappointing to not have a resolution, there is some space for optimism. Over the last week, the Governor and Legislative leaders had substantive, constructive meetings. They identified common ground in many areas, and the Governor and legislative leaders will continue to meet and seek a solution to the budget in the days ahead.

I’ll add emphasis:

In the absence of a state budget, we are deeply aware of the limbo and uncertainty all of us working for state government face. In the days and weeks ahead, the Governor will do everything in his power to find a solution to the budget. In the meantime, MnDOT and other state agencies will move forward with contingency planning for a potential shutdown of state government. This is a complicated, challenging process, and everyone will have many questions and concerns. In a few days we will give you more information about how this contingency planning process will work. Thank you for your patience.

Budgets are about dollars and cents. The Governor has made it clear that he cannot support the all-cuts budget that has come to his desk. He believes the negative impacts are just too great with a cuts-only approach and he is prepared to meet the other side halfway. The Governor has identified a solution that combines increasing revenue and making strategic cuts.

As the Governor and the Legislature work towards a budget solution, I want you to know that I and my staff will do all we can to keep you informed. We will provide more information in a web cast on Thursday, May 26. More details on that web cast will be provided tomorrow.

I greatly appreciate your patience and your professionalism. This agency has weathered many storms because of the strength of you, its employees.

Thank you for all you do. Tom

Thomas Sorel

I’m not sure if this qualifies as a political campaign communication.  But I do know that if it were a Republican administration, it would be…

Commissioner

Minnesota Department of Transportation

(651) 366-4800

“Your Destination…Our Priority”

For the ninth straight season, I don’t care.

Bob Dylan turns 70 today.

I’ve been rediscovering him lately; I’m pretty literate on some of his first-generation descendants, but for various reasons I never really marinated my head in Bob Dylan.

Yet.

So – may it please the unjustifiably-self-righteous Brian Lambert, here  he is.

Included mainly because I couldn’t find a Dylan version of “Ballad of Hollis Brown”.

(Lambert’s bout of madness? I’ll dispose of that tomorrow).

To: GOP Legislative Freshmen  Freshpeople Freshlegislators Newbies

From: Mitch Berg

Re: Good job.

Dear…you know who.

Good job.  You took your unprecedented mandate and held the line against a governor who was never anything but hell-bent to uphold his special interest agenda.

So far so good.

Now – do something about your upperclasspeople.  Keep ’em on the beam.  Some of ’em make me nervous.

That is all,

Mitch Berg

Well, it’s May 24.  No stadium deal.

So I guess it’s off to LA for  you, then, huh?

(With a nod to AAA)

Dutifully, the Strib carries the short version of the DFL’s current party line; it’s the governor who’s being the “moderate”:

“Here I am in the middle, and they haven’t moved,” Dayton said of Republican lawmakers.

It’s BS, of course; the GOP started the session committed to holding the line at 2010-2011 budget levels; as projected revenues rose, they increased the spending to match – keeping us “within our means”, against the wishes of some conservatives who pushed to cut services back to 2009 levels.

That – when you’re dealing with a legislature with a decisive mandate, as opposed to a governor who backed into office with the tiniest plurality since Jesse Ventura – is more than enough.

So what we have here is…:

• A legislature that’s done exactly what they were sent, and sent in overwhelming numbers, to Saint Paul to do, up against…
• A Governor who is willing to risk a government shutdown to support the only policy initiatives he has; stick it to the state’s most productive citizens, and force us non-government employees to work ’til we’re 70 so his union supporters can retire at 55.  He can do this, because he can count on…
• …the media.  Part of which is actively carrying water for the DFL (I”m looking at you, Esme Murphy and John Cronan), and the rest of which worships at the Cult of Process, believing that negotiation and compomise themselves are the overriding goals of all legislative government, worthy of frittering away all manner of princple and, for that matter, fiscal common sense.

Let the spinning begin!

Session ends and, if you believe the the media, the MNGOP spent the entire time sightseeing:

All that and more must now await a special session this summer, as the Republican majority and DFL Gov. Mark Dayton ended an acrimonious five-month session with very little business done and a $5 billion projected shortfall mostly untouched.

There’s no sign more time in St. Paul would spark a deal to avoid a bruising government shutdown. A long season of legislating only hardened and widened the deep, bitter divide between Dayton and the new legislative leadership.

Read: The Governor used the only tactic he has: stalling, and counting on the media to shape public opinion for him.

Expect a “Minnesota Poll” showing Minnesotans favor “compromise” 60-40, with a 3:2 oversample of DFLers.

And probably a “Humphrey Institute” poll showing it’s more like eleventy-teen to one.

Here you go, Star Tribune and KARE11 and Esme Murphy; it’s your moment to shine.