Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism – as we finish eight years as the Twin Cities media’s sole source of honesty!

• Ed and I will be doing the voodoo we do from 1-3PM.  Today we’ll be talking about the second anniversary of Obamacare, Trayvon Martin, Santorum’s campaign-ending (sez me) gaffe, and everything else that happened this past week!
• Brad Carlson’s show – “The Closer” – is on from 1-3 on Sunday.
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I went to downtown Saint Paul this morning to rent a room for the evening.  I figured if I was going to be dealing with Minnesoita’s chanting class – the mass of chant-bots that the unions and astroturf groups like “Take Action Minnesota” can spawn to protest wherever needed – I’d need a drink or fifteen.  I’d no doubt be too hammered to take the bus, much less drive.

I went to the front desk to reserve my room.

The clerk – a chipper Hispanic woman named Rosa – asked me for my ID.

“That’s ironic, isn’t it?”, I chuckled.  “I’m here to cover people who think there should be no photo IDs to vote, and you’re asking me for a photo ID to get a hotel room!”

“Ha ha, sir”, Rosa answered through a half-hearted smile.

“Sorry about that”, I said.

“No, I’m sorry – it’s my fault.  We have some, um, difficult guests”, she said, sotto voce.   “They were up partying all night.  They don’t tip – they say tipping is “for the 1%”, and that the waitstaff and bellhops should do their job “out of solidarity with the 99%””.

“Oh, no.  Who are they…”

She shook her head as the door opened.  “Can’t talk now”, she said, looking at the group coming through the door.

A group of short men in bright pastel clothing with chemical tans walked through the lobby.  Curiously, they were chanting.  I recorded the chant, and present the transcription, unedited.

Oompa Loompa, Doopity Dounted

We demand every vote be counted!

Oompa Loompa Doopity Dipocrit

If you ask ID, then you are a hypocrite!

One of the men, in an intonation-challenged Irish tenor, then took a solo

The 99 percent can’t get an ID!

They’re for the one percent, not for you or for me!

What if you ask me to prove who I am?

That’s what I call…

[Bass voice takes over]

Intimidation!

The rest of the group came in:

Oompa Looompa Doopity Doblem

There never has been a voter fraud problem.

Oompah Loompa Doopity Remand

We insist on no IDs like the Oompa Loompa Doompa Scroompa Froompa Loompas Doompity Demand!

They marched up the hall to their rooms, except for one who ambled over to the desk.

“You don’t see that every day”, I said.  But Rosa had already turned her attention to the fellow from the group.

I turned, looked down, and recognized the fellow as Edgar Torvaldsbladson – better known by his Twitter handle, “EightballEdgar”.  He shoots a lot of pool, apparently.  At least, I don’t think he’s a crack user, and I’m pretty sure it refers to pool.

“Can I help you, sir?” Rosa asked.

“YES! PLEASE SEND BOOZE TO MY ROOM!” EightballEdgar exclaimed.

The volume startled me.  Rosa didn’t skip a beat.  “Er, that’d be a room service request.  Do you have a credit card on file…”

“WHAT ARE YOU, A 99PNJ?”

“A what?”

“NINETY-NINE-PERCENT NUT JOB!”

“Er, sir?  I just have to make sure the booze is paid for…”

“FINE!”, he bellowed, digging a card out of the oily  brim of his little green homburg.

“Hey, EightballEdgar, how ya doing!  Long time no see!”

He looked up at me.  “I AM HERE TO PROTEST THE DISENFRANCISEMENT OF THE POOR BY THE VOTER ID BILL AS PART OF A SPONTANEOUS DEMONSTRATION”.

“Ah.  Well, cool.  Hey – did you have to show the hotel an ID to book your room?”

“SO?  BOOKING A HOTEL ISN’T A RIGHT IN THE CONSTITUTION, LIKE ABORTION”.

“Um, yeah”, I answered as Rosa wrinkled her nose silently in distaste.  “I didn’t say it was; merely that society takes all sorts of prudent measures to ensure people are who they say they are”.

EightballEdgar looked at me.  “YOUR SUIT LOOKS STUPID”.

“Perhaps, but that’s not really the point”.

“YOU WERE PULLED OVER IN 2004 FOR DRIVING WITH EXPIRED TABS!”

“I was indeed.  Now, about the topic of voter ID.  You’re right.  Hotel rooms aren’t constitutional rights.  Voting is.  But we demand ID as a reasonable restriction on many constitutional rights.  For example, my Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is spelled out in the Constitution, and is defined as an individual right which was incorporated in very literal form on the States by the Heller and McDonald decisions.  But as a reasonable restriction – to ensure that I am who I say I am – I have to present an ID to buy ammunition or rifles, and show an ID and pass a background check to get a permit to purchase a handgun, to actually buy the handgun, and to apply for a permit to carry that handgun, not to mention to rent time at a shooting range to actually practice with the thing!”.

His eyes opened wide, and he started hopping up and down.  “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  WHAT PART OF “WELL-REGULATED” CONFUSES YOU, YOU IDIOT!  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!”

“It meant “can hit what they aim at”, but that’s neither here nor there.  Let’s say I want to carry out my first amendment right to petition to seek a redress of grievances…”

“YOU AND YOUR FANCY LAWYER TALK!”

“Er, what it means is, I went to court to file a lawsuit against this guy that slandered me last summer – long story.  Anyway – I filed my petition.  I gave them my cash.  They asked to see a photo ID, to make sure I was who I said I was”.

“BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TEH CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO SUE!”

“Er, that’s what “petition for redress of grievances” means.  It’s a constitutional right.  An important one, as it happens”.

EightballEdgar looked at me.

He looked at me some more.

“YOU WERE PULLED OVER IN 2004 FOR DRIVING WITH EXPIRED TABS!”

“O…K…” I said as Rosa stifled a chuckle.

“EXPIRED TAB NUTJOB!  EXPIRED TAB NUTJOB!”  He waved his little arms around, trying to get the attention of other passersby in the lobby.

I turned to Rosa and handed her my credit card.  “Make that two bottles of Glenlivet in Room 821″.

“Thank you, sir”, she said, smiling as I signed for a 25% tip.

I walked to the elevator, with EightballEdgar walking behind me, chanting “EXPIRED TAB NUTJOB!  EXPIRED TAB NUTJOB!” until I dropped a piece of aluminum foil on the ground, which diverted him.

A few minutes later, I was off to the Capitol.

To: All you Government Union people heading down to bum-rush the Legislature
From: Mitch Berg, your DJ for the day
Re: Mood Music

This one’s dedicated to you and your effort to cheapen democracy:

No, it’s not a compliment. If you listen to it anyway…

(And no, it doesn’t matter that “Joe Strummer was a socialist”; the song is pretty acerbic about unions…)

Since the Dems have their undies in a knot about “model legislation (when it comes from conservative think tanks, anyway), I think it’s time we mere citizens took our shot at the practice.

With that in mind, I’m going to submit a couple of model bills of my own.

———-

HF. No. 0001,  as introduced – 88th Legislative Session (2013-2014)   Posted on Mar 23, 2012

A bill for an act relating to public safety, specifying certain behaviors from legislators and appointed officials who referred to the “Stand Your Ground” act as a “Shoot First” bill.

As this post appears, the unions and the Twin Cities astroturf community are gathering at the Capitol to bellow, shout and chant for the right to have Minnesotans’ votes counted as many times and places as the DFL needs them to be counted.  They are going to try to sway the Senate, which will vote this afternoon on putting the Voter ID Amendment on the ballot for this November, where it will likely pass by a huge margin, making vote fraud and DFL hegemony juuuuuust a little more difficult. They want to keep Minnesota a Cold Chicago.

If you’re reading this blog and you’re not one of the occasional liberal sock puppets who chimes in occasionally, you probably have a job.  You may be thinking “I can’t make it to the Capitol at noon for a rally”.

Baloney.

Call your Senator.  Even if you have a DFL marionette for a Senator, they count the numbers of calls, and they pay attention to them.

Let them know that the droogs that are stumbling around the Capitol today don’t speak for you.

And if you are represented by a good conservative?  Encourage and thank them for standing up for democracy with integrity.

We can win this one, and win it big.

I was going to respond to Bill Maher’s “I’m Sorry You Overreacted To What I Said” op-ed, dutifully re-run by pretty much every left-of-center paper in America yesterday…

…until I asked myself “why?”

It’s what he wants. Maher is like a trained zoo monkey, paid well to throw poop at people and then sit on top of his cage and giggle at all the rubes who are angry at having poop on them.

And if I were in his position, I might do it too. Let’s take a walk back in history.

In the mid-nineties, Maher had a show on Comedy Central. I forget the name. Who cares.

It got picked up by ABC for the late-night line-up, one of many attempts to put something, anything, up against the Tonight Show and Letterman.

It bombed.

No, bigger than that.  Seriously.

And it became clear to Bill Maher that it was neither his personality nor his comedic chops that was going to keep him in hookers and blow.  (Cue outrage that I’d so insult a public figure.  Go ahead.  Be outraged.  It’s the Maher way).

He’d have to supplement that with periodic bouts of publicity-mongering “controversy”.  He, like that monkey, will have to throw just a little more poop next time, and giggle just a little harder at those poo-coated rubes.

And he’ll get away with it, until most of us realize that Bill Maher is nothing but a monkey with a hand full of poop.

I hope I’ve settled that for everyone.

Esther Cepeda, from the WaPo (reprinted in the Strib) thinks she sees the problem:

Folks, I hate to break it to you, but even though it seems to have been grinding on for years already, this presidential election is on pace to drag on forever.

Why? One word: enthusiasm — a serious lack of it.

On the one hand, it might appear that way – especially in the mainstream media (who, let’s be honest, will do what they can to tamp down Republican and Conservative enthusiasm).

On the other hand?  “Enthusiasm” is perhaps the biggest problem in politics today.

I’m not talking about genuine tidal waves of grass roots responses to real problems – like the Tea Party.  I’m talking about the big, astroturf personality-cult orgies like the one that got Barack Obama elected.

The media – and I’m going to use Ms. Cepeda as a surrogate for the entire institution – seem to think that Americans need to view their politicians like kids view baskets of puppies, to keep them interested.

So for all you Obama supporters, here you go:

There you go.  Divert your “enthusiasm” to baskets of puppies.  Let’s keep government nice and boring.

…but I’m going to repeat myself.  It’s a paragraph from a post I wrote last night for this morning.  As I wrote it, I thought the paragraph stood up as a post on its own.

Mark Ritchie claims that something like a fifth of all Minnesota adults lacks an ID for one reason or another.  (He’s referring to driver’s licenses.  Which is its own bit of misleading rhetoric; the DFL is trying to convince the not-so-savvy – the DFL base, really – that voting would require some ID above and beyond a driver’s license).  The numbers are BS, of course.

Still, I’m wondering if I am alone among all of the people in Minnesota who has to have an ID to drive a car, open a savings account, enroll my kids in school, buy a firearm or ammunition, buy alcohol, open a safe deposit box, get medical treatment, pick up a prescription, turn oneself in for an outstanding warrant, adopt a pet, get your pet out of the pound, pay a traffic ticket, use a credit card, write a check, rent an apartment, carry out any business with the government, withdraw money from the bank, deposit money in the bank, cash a paycheck, get a passport, start a new job, enroll for a class, get on a plane, buy a lottery ticket, get a hotel room, get a marriage license, rent a car, file a court action, apply for a loan, close a mortgage, collect bail paid for erroneous arrests, enroll your kid in daycare or buy Sudafed to want to say shut up, quit your whining and get a free freaking ID?

And do Mark Ritchie’s legions of phantom, ID-less Minnesotans – 20% of the adult voting population – somehow get around in this state without driving, saving, spending, schooling, getting jobs, dealing with banks or governments, marrying, traveling, sueing, borrowing, buying or sniffling?

How do they do that?

…the GOP is focused on jobs.

The “MNGOP’s “Reform 2.0” agenda moved forward yesterday with the passage of the “Tax Relief And Job Creation Act”, which passed in the House.

I wish every working Minnesotan could see this bit from yesterday – Rep. Matt Dean tearing chunks out of Ann Lenczewski, who’d just finished demigogueing against the bill:

Pass it around.

This is going to come up in the Senate soon. And while it’s not as sexy and sound-biteable as the Marriage Amendment or Voter ID, it’s much more important for Minnesota’s long-term future, especially for the parts of Minnesota that actually work.

We’ll keep you posted.

Redistricting didn’t treat Speed Gibson kindly:

It just occurred to me that with my home being redistricted from CD 3 (Paulsen) to CD 5 (Ellison) I now have no representation whatever in Washington DC. My Representative, both Senators, and my President are all hard Lefties, none with any record of generating serious thought.

The jury is out on my new State Senator (Eaton) who replaced the late Linda Scheid, who could think. My State Representative (Hillstrom) went hard Left in 2007…Mike Opat is my County Commissioner and Official Bagman of Target Field…[my] School Board (281) comprises seven Democrats, all committed to living in the past whether they know it or not.

My only bright spots are my Mayor and City Council. Two are new, so again, the jury is out. All are Democrats, but the three veterans think Brooklyn Center first, DFL second. Partly it just proves again why local decision-making works best. Partly these happen to be three great incumbents. But it’s also that as a mature first ring suburb with limited resources, we just can’t afford the flights of fancy that celestial suburbs and core cities think they can afford.

Well, he’s got that.

Me?  I think I’ve reached less than zero representation at any level.  I share Speed’s opinion of The One, Stuart and A-Klo.  In the House, I’ve got Betty McCollum, who is even dumber than Ellison.  What’s the difference between Betty McCollum and a  pile of mulch?  The mulch doesn’t have Nancy Pelosi pullilng its strings.

In the State House?  I didn’t think it could get worse than Mary Jo McGuire (who just replaced Ellen Anderson) and Alice Hausman.  I was wrong; I am now “represented” by the loathsome Sandy Pappas and Rhea Moran, whose mouth is connected to a microphone in Javier Morillo and Elliot Seid’s offices.

Ramsey County?  I’m juuuuuust across the street from the utterly defensible Janice Rettman’s district.  Which means I’m in Toni Carter’s district.  And she’s utterly not defensible.

For Mayor?  Chris Coleman, who’s like a teenager who keeps coming up to you saying “I know you gave me money to buy lunch, but I spent it on Pokemon cards, and I’m still hungry”, and Russ Stark, who yells “Off What?” when Cathy Lantry says “Jump!”.

If I were starting a blog today, I’d call it “Midway Samizdat”.

The DFL has faced three big existential threats this year.

A truly accurate redistricting would have reflected the fact that so many people have fled incompetent DFL governments and moved to GOP-controlled areas.  While the judges couldn’t avoid reflecting that on some level, they bent over backwards to preserve the DFL; all the Soros money spent on astroturf groups like “Draw The Line” and huge-money liberal lawyers like Darth Lillehaug was well-spent.

Of course, the Legislative GOP caucus is apparently trying its darnedest to back down on “Right To Work”, afraid that the unions will spend tens of millions of dollars attacking pro-Right-To-Work legislators in swing-y districts. Of course, now the unions will spend the money anyway.  Oops.

And finally, Voter ID.   I’m not going to say that Minnesota elections are invalid in a wholesale way.  I am going to say that the evidence points to an awful lot of people voting who shouldn’t be able to, and plenty of vouching fraud, and that it’s been enough to tip close elections.  Enough to give Mark Dayton an 8K vote majority?  Don’t know.  Enough to tip Franken/Coleman?  I don’t doubt it.

Anyway, the Voter ID Amendment goes to the Senate on Friday.  And the unions – freed from having to protest against “Right to Work” (see?) are calling in the clans on Voter ID (emphasis added):

Dear [whomever],

Stand with us as Photo ID moves to the Senate floor

Over the past two months, our campaign to stop the Photo ID amendment made calls, followed the money trail to the doors of Wells Fargo, stood at the Capitol to make our voices heard, and successfully raised over $3,000 in 24 hours.

On Friday afternoon, the Minnesota State Senate will vote on Photo ID. If we are going to keep the amendment off the ballot, we’re going to do it here in the Senate. That’s why we need you there with us, and that’s why we need your help to pack the Capitol:

WHAT: Photo ID Amendment Senate Floor Vote

WHEN: Friday, March 23 — 12:30 p.m.

WHERE: Minnesota State Capitol, 75 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, St. Paul, MN 55155

Click here to RSVP and let us know we can count on seeing you at the Capitol this Friday.

Of course, it’s at a time of the day when most of us people who work for a living – unlike, it seems a lot of unionized government workers – can’t make it to the Capitol.

We’ll come back to that:

Over 215,000 Minnesotans who are are registered to vote do not have a current government-issued ID. The elderly, students, people with disabilities, the working poor and people of color will be especially affected by the amendment if passed. But really, anyone who has ever registered on Election Day, moved, or lost their wallet will have a harder time voting.

Am I alone among all of the people in Minnesota who has to have an ID to drive a car, open a savings account, buy a firearm or ammunition, buy alcohol, open a safe deposit box, get medical treatment, pick up a prescription, turn oneself in for an outstanding warrant, adopt a pet, use a credit card, write a check, rent an apartment, carry out any business with the government, withdraw money from the bank, get a passport, start a new job, enroll for a class, get on a plane, get a hotel room, get a marriage license, rent a car, apply for a loan, close a mortgage, collect bail paid for erroneous arrests, enroll your kid in daycare or buy Sudafed to shut up, quit your whining and get a free freaking ID?

These aren’t just numbers — they are your neighbors, your friends, your family, and quite possibly, you.

All my neighbors and family that don’t drive, save4, shoot, drink, go to the doctor, adopt pets, use plastic, bank, travel, live indoors, go to school or work?  Yep.  It could be any of them.  Or me.

Ya never know.

But I digress:

Like so many bills we’ve seen at the Capitol this year, the Photo ID Amendment is an national attack on our democracy by the 1%. Join us as we raise our voices to protect Minnesota’s democracy for the 99%.

See you at the Capitol on Friday!

Liz Wasserman-Schultz [OK, I changed the name; it’s “Loeb”]

Democracy Campaign Manager

TakeAction Minnesota

P.S. Can you help us pack the Capitol? Ask five friends to join you by forwarding this email, sharing the event page on Facebook, and spreading the word on Twitter.

So there it is.  The DFL is calling in its packs of droogs to bellow their little lungs out tomorrow at the Capitol.

You’re a real Minnesotan.  You work for a living.  You can’t make it to the capitol – and you’re not a “Stand around with a sign” kind of person anyway.  What can you do?

Call your Senator.  Even if you have a mindless DFL hamster (I’m still “represented” by Mary Jo McGuire, which seems bad until you remember that redistricting has put me into Sandy Pappas’ district for the next session), they need to know that opinion is against them.  And the GOP needs to know that that 4:1 margin of Minnesotans who support Voter ID is really out there.

So call.

And remember their vote in November.

From the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department page on “Turning Yourself In“, if you have an outstanding warraint:

Individuals with an active arrest warrant can turn themselves in 24 hours a day, seven days a week at the Adult Detention Center (425 Grove Street, Saint Paul, Minnesota).

Individuals turning themselves in are encouraged to provide the Sheriff’s Office with as much information as possible related to why they are wanted.

When turning yourself in, please bring the following items:

• Valid state or federal issued photo identification, such as a driver’s license
• Current prescription medications in original sealed and labeled packaging
• Clothing appropriate for the season
• Cash for bail (if appropriate)
• Necessary personal assistive aids, such as glasses, hearing aids, or orthopedic devices

Has anyone told Mark Ritchie?

Of all the facile DFL chanting points sluicing outward from Media Matters For America the Alliance For A “Better” Minnesota this session, perhaps the most galling is “The DFL is focused on jobs, while the GOP is obsessing over constitutional amendments over social issues”.

For starters, it’s absurd; the GOP as a rule doesn’t believe government “creates jobs”.  And as we noted at the beginning of the session, the “jobs plan” contained in Dayton’s bonding bill is really just a “Jerbs Plan“, creating a bunch of temporary – ahem, “Shovel-Ready” – construction jobs (for DFL-up-sucking unions and the state workers that supervise them, naturally).  As we saw last January, the job numbers themselves make no sense.

The fact that Minnesota’s unemployment is as low as it is is, in fact, testimony to the GOP’s real jobs plan; keeping taxes as low as possible (given an irresponsible and dogmatically partisan  DFL governor for the past year, and DFL legislatures for the four preceding).

As to the “social legislation?”  The Legislative can walk and chew gum at the same time (the fade on “Right To Work” notwithstanding).  They can do both just as easily as Tom Bakk can propose legislation on the State Beer and whatever else it is he does every day.

But the real difference is this:  while the DFL and Governor Dayton propose to “create” temp jerbs, the GOP is out to make Minnesota a place where business can get established, grow and thrive.

Claudia Rosett on the real story behind the Obama daughters’ vacation:

It’s not actually about the First Daughter, per se, who according to serially vanishing stories has been vacationing with a group of friends in Mexico — a country for which the State Department just last month issued a new warning to all U.S. travelers.

It’s about the judgment of the White House, which apparently deems there is “no vital news interest” to this story.

How so?

Read the whole thing.

Think “patricians versus plebeians”, and the media that props our Patrician President up.

Get back to me.

You’ve probably seen this story in the past day or so – Bristol Palin calling out the President’s and, especially, liberals’ hypocrisy in re the “war on women”:

You don’t know my telephone number, but I hope your staff is busy trying to find it. Ever since you called Sandra Fluke after Rush Limbaugh called her a slut, I figured I might be next. You explained to reporters you called her because you were thinking of your two daughters, Malia and Sasha. After all, you didn’t want them to think it was okay for men to treat them that way:

“One of the things I want them to do as they get older is engage in issues they care about, even ones I may not agree with them on,” you said. “I want them to be able to speak their mind in a civil and thoughtful way. And I don’t want them attacked or called horrible names because they’re being good citizens.”

And I totally agree your kids should be able to speak their minds and engage the culture. I look forward to seeing what good things Malia and Sasha end up doing with their lives.

All very, very true.

But here’s why I’m a little surprised my phone hasn’t rung. Your $1,000,000 donor Bill Maher has said reprehensible things about my family. He’s made fun of my brother because of his Down’s Syndrome. He’s said I was “f—-d so hard a baby fell out.” (In a classy move, he did this while his producers put up the cover of my book, which tells about the forgiveness and redemption I’ve found in God after my past – very public — mistakes.)

If Maher talked about Malia and Sasha that way, you’d return his dirty money and the Secret Service would probably have to restrain you. After all, I’ve always felt you understood my plight more than most because your mom was a teenager. That’s why you stood up for me when you were campaigning against Sen. McCain and my mom — you said vicious attacks on me should be off limits.

It didn’t work, of course; the hog trough that is the lefty “alternative” media spawned an entire movement of “Triggers”.

Yet I wonder if the Presidency has changed you. Now that you’re in office, it seems you’re only willing to defend certain women. You’re only willing to take a moral stand when you know your liberal supporters will stand behind you.

But…

What if you did something radical and wildly unpopular with your base and took a stand against the denigration of all women… even if they’re just single moms? Even if they’re Republicans?

Y’see, that’s the thing; the President could do it.  He’s got his Daily Koses and Bill Mahers and NPR and a herd of George Stephanopouli to do the actual dirty work for him; the Prez  could take the high road!

But he won’t!

Because Bristol Palin, and Alan West, and 4th CD candidate Tony Hernandez, and every black, hispanic, asian, gay or female Republican conservative that you see is the single biggest threat the Democrats face; they’re the apostates.

As the Democrat parts of this country shrink – mostly due to the pathologies that come from Democrat mismanagement – the Dems big long-term hope is “demographic shift” – the idea that as “minorities” become the majority, the Dems will eventually be unstoppable.

That is, of course, entirely predicated on minorities staying on the plantation. and voting in lock step for Democrats forevermore.  And those that don’t – the apostates – are the greatest threat that exists to that vision.

Centuries ago, as the Catholic Church’s struggling and corrupt bureaucracy struggled with change, they sent out the various Inquisitions to find and convince the various heretics and apostates to get back in line – by killing them for their own good, if necessary.

It didn’t prevent half a billion unforced turnovers as the Protestant movement established itself – but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Bristol Pallin may not have expected the Chicago Inquisition.  But her mother, and Alan West, and Laura Ingraham and every Asian and Latino conservative that showed up at caucuses this year certainly should.

Because they are the visible signs of the Democratic party bleeding to death.

Janet Dailey, writing in the Telegraph, notes British Minister of the Exchequer George Osborne’s visit to the US, along with Prime Minister David Cameron.

“George who, minister of what?”

George Osborne.  The “Minister of the Exchequer” is what they call their “Secretary of the Treasury” over there.

Anyway, Dailey – who is a center-right columnist at the center-right Telegraph (yaaay, Europe, for at least having a journo culture that’s honest about its biases!),  notes something that eludes our entire media and one, and sometimes both, of America’s major poitical parties:

This brings me to my original theme: why America’s recovery – which will eventually come, as night follows day – cannot be an instantly usable model for a British one, which is not inevitable. It is not federal governments that bring about economic revival in America: it is the country’s people.

From Daily’s pen to God’s ears.

John McCain got pounded by the media and America’s Stupid Class for saying, in 2008, that the fundamentals of the American economy were strong.  As wrong as he was, and is, on so many issues, he had that one as right as anyone ever has.

Because the only relationship our economy has with our government is a negative one.  Government action inevitably harms the economy (in the long run, if usually but not always the short).  It’s only when government butts out that it does no harm, which is the best it can do.

Even Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal has finally been demythologised. All those works projects and federal programmes may have done something for national morale, but the hard economic evidence shows that the worst effects of the 1929 crash had begun to abate under Herbert Hoover, and that the Great Depression (which was arguably prolonged by FDR’s policies) did not properly end until the US entered the Second World War.

That’s the elephant in the American economic room.

We’ve got four generations of economists, now, who pay obeisance to the flawed notion that Keynesianism worked, once.

It’s wrong, of course; as Dailey notes, it was a morale booster that arguably did more harm than good, and certainly prolonged the period of extended private unemployment.

No – America’s nine economic lives come from its private sector.

Read Dailey’s entire piece.

Send it to a liberal friend.  Make a liberal friend to send it to, if you need to.

The Democrats have been waging a war for the English language.  Part of that war is harping on how the Republicans are…well, waging a war for the English language.

Rhetoric – using language to try to control how people think about issues – is as old as politics itself.

And Jill Klausen – writing at Kos, Re-Elect Democrats and Alternet and, no doubt other members of the big leftyblog cluster-cuddle – has some suggestions for the left on how to do it more effectively, with her list of five terms Democrats should never use.

But not before explaining a bit about how the Republicans have learned a thing or two:

We talk about the “Death Tax” and not the proper term, “Estate Tax.” Two little words—”Death Panels”—were capable of nearly derailing the best thing that’s happened to health insurance in this country in decades.

Um, yeah.

That was a good one, actually.  Smart Democrats went “wow – that WAS effective”.  Democrats with intellectual opportunities said “there’s no such thing!”, ignorant of how managed care has always worked.  Too much explaining for them to do; it was a great term.

Misleading?  Well, not really, not the way Republicans actually used it; in managed care, you do have a group of doctors, attorneys and administrators figuring out what treatments would and would not be cost-effective.  Is it a death panel?  If you were 95 and had liver failure and the group figured a liver transplant wasn’t the best use of a donor liver, yes, it could very well be.  What DO you call that group?  Is it different when it works for the government, as opposed to an HMO?  Of course!

But this isn’t about real explanations; this is about language:

Harvard-educated President Obama is universally considered “elite,” while Yale-educated George W. Bush is considered “down home.”

Give it a rest, Dems; not only did you spend eight years chanting that Bush was stupid, you’re the ones who claimed an Ivy League education one of Obama’s great qualifications!  Bill Maher – the exposed intellectual id of the Democratic Party on the national level, in the same way that “Two Putt Tommy” is for the Minnesota DFL – once “joked” “you hate Obama because he went to Harvard, and you resurface driveways for a living”.

So while this article is about using language to frame things, you sort of did his one yourself.  Just saying.

And it’s all a diversion, because the article actually is a useful primer on how framing is done.

As Progressive Democratic linguist George Lakoff explains it, this “framing” is crucial to how they’ve managed to win so much of the debate…This sleight-of-tongue has managed to manipulate at least half the country into believing things that simply are not true.

Well, yes and no.  Rhetoric – “framing” – is never about truth, and it’s never not about truth; it’s about using language to get people to believe things.

It can be a big, clumsy club, designed to woo the stupid – like Alliance For A Better Minnesota, whose “Tom Emmer Favorited Lowering DWI Penalties” gulled 43% of Minnesota’s less-gifted.  Or it can be incredibly subtle.

Ms. Klausen has some suggestions of her own – the aforementioned “five things” Democrats shouldn’t say:

1. Never say Entitlements.

–Instead, say Earned Benefits.

Which, worst case, would send Republicans into a frenzy of explaining that those benefits are almost never “earned”, while Democrats cash in all those votes from the dumb people whose egos they’ve stroked.

2. Never say Redistribution of Wealth.

–Instead, say Fair Wages For Work.

By which they mean “Fair Wages For Other Peoples’ Work”.

3. Never say Employer Paid Health Insurance.

–Instead, say Employee Earned Health Insurance.

That’d be a tough one to reframe.  My suggestion would be “unicorn-paid health insurance”.  That’s where Dems think money comes from.

4. Never say Government Spending.

–Instead, say The People Are Investing.

They’ve been trying this one for decades.

5. Never say Corporate America.

–Instead, say Unelected Corporate Government.

Now, this is the first genuinely dumb idea in the article, and I do hope the Democrats run with this one hard hard hard.

So as I’m working away at my day job today, paying for other peoples’ earned benefits and fair wages for my work, wondering what rathole the people elected by the dumb people are “investing” my money down, I’ll be watching for the Unelected Corporate Government Press Department doing this sort of framing for our good-heavens-not-elite President.

…that capitalism causes inequality between the very rich and the very poor, and that economies with higher degrees of government intervention don’t have that “problem” – right?

Arguing that government policy can too affect income distribution, TNR‘s Tim Noah writes:

“If you omit government redistribution from the calculations in the previous paragraph then four countries that previously were more equal in incomes than the U.S.—Portugal, Italy, Israel, and Germany—become less equal than the U.S.”

Wait. You mean that social-democratic, union-heavy, solidaristic Germany has worse income inequality, before taxes and transfers, than the cowboy capitalistic U.S., with its large underclass and out-of-control Wall Street greedheads? Don’t tell the narrative. …

Everybody just knows it.

Long-time Strib publisher John Cowles passed away over the weekend at 92.

Brian Lambert at the MinnPost carries the lengthy list of paeans to Cowles and his regional media legacy, which includes ponying up money to help found the MinnPost.

Of course, if you follow politics in Minnesota, Cowles’ legacy is inescapable; he ran the Star Tribune, from an institutional perspective, as a prime mover for the Strib’s own interests – Cowles was a key lobbyist for putting the original Metrodome downtown, and was a vital player in the “Downtown Brotherhood” that has has such a disproportionate impact on state politics these past forty years – and for the DFL.

The Strib didn’t become a cheerleader for the left on Cowles’ watch – although one could make a case that that cheerleading became more institutionalized and ingrained in the paper’s culture (the results of the Strib’s “Minnesota Poll” started swerving into left-leaning fantasy land in the eighties, after Cowles merged the Star and the Tribune).   And Cowles’ personal and financial support for the DFL and the the left was a matter of record.   In the Twin Cities mainstream media, support for the center-left is so institutionalized that it’s considered “balance” and the norm; Cowles and his generation of business and news staff did as much as anyone to make it that way.

Which is not to belittle his accomplishments – giving the Strib a legacy worth squandering, creating a media and business-political powerhouse notable enough that its decay and retrenchment over the past 15 years would be of national note.  Far from it.  Cowles, along with the seniors of the Hubbard clan, was a throwback to the long-lost golden age of Minnesota media.

My condolences to Cowles’ friends and family.

…will all be Dodge City or something.

By the way, these county attorneys will get the same training each and every one of us 94,000-odd civilian, un-blessed carry-permittees get.

Exactly the same.

(Via Joe Doakes)

…desire to create an Orwellian hell…

…take a moment to remember that the real thing exists on this earth today.

Via Breitbart, video of Eric Holder in 1995 claiming we need to “Brainwash” the citizenry when it comes to guns:

Holder was addressing the Woman’s National Democratic Club. In his remarks, broadcast by CSPAN 2, he explained that he intended to use anti-smoking campaigns as his model to “change the hearts and minds of people in Washington, DC” about guns.

“What we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns, especially young people, and make it something that’s not cool, that it’s not acceptable, it’s not hip to carry a gun anymore, in the way in which we changed our attitudes about cigarettes.”

Holder went on, of course, to run one of the most egregiously, disastrously corrupt programs in the history of American government, “Fast and Furious”, a program hatched entirely to trade Mexican (and American) lives for points against the dreaded “gun lobby”.

Local political leaders and celebrities, Holder said, including Mayor Marion Barry and Jesse Jackson, had been asked to help. In addition, he reported, he had asked the local school board to make the anti-gun message a part of “every day, every school, and every level.”

Despite strict gun control efforts, Washington, DC was and remains one of the nation’s most dangerous cities for gun violence, though crime has abated somewhat since the 1990s.

Note to Attorney General Holder:

I shot about 300 rounds over the weekend.

It was cool.

Spread the word!

Always, always, always – when you see stories in the mainstream media about conservatives’ moral crimes and misdemeanors, remember two things:

• Berg’s Seventh Law of Liberal Projection – “When a Liberal issues a group defamation or assault on conservatives’ ethics, character or respect for liberty or the truth, they are at best projecting, and at worst drawing attention away from their own misdeeds” – has never been challenged, much less repealed.
• It’s the liberal press.  If’s most likely either painstakingly stripped of context, if it’s not an outright lie.

With that in mindThe Gateway Pundit notes an example of the media jumping all over the story of a “Tea Party Leader” accused of rape.

Untrue?  Naturally.  The guy had no connection with any Tea Party organization that anyone with the Tea Party could identify.

We have, of course, run into this before in Minnesota – during the 2010 campaign, Andy Birkey at the Minnesoros “Independent” ran a piece claiming that some schlub who left a profane and insulting message on the AFSCME voice mail was a “Tea Party Organizer”, notwithstanding the fact that not a single actual Tea Party organizer had ever heard of the guy.

If Charles Manson called himself a Tea Partier, the media would run with it.

Dan Severson for Senate website right here.