Monthly Archives: July 2012

Paul Supporters: Your Best Days Could Still Be Ahead

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In the last few weeks, since Ron Paul got eliminated from the running for the nomination, I’ve seen not a few Minnesota Ron Paul supporters waxing mildly suicidal that their guy didn’t pack the gear to go the distance in the primaries and caucuses.  Paul nabbed three states, if I recall correctly, including Minnesota – giving them what I think it was Shot In The Dark’s associate editor First Ringer once called (I’m paraphrasing closely, I think, maybe) that delusion that you could pull it off that’s so well-known to insurgent dark horse candidates from Obi Sium to Ross Perot.

Unlike most states, the Paul camp is running a candidate in a high-profile race here in Minnsota.  Unfortunately, Kurt Bills is a low-profile candidate – a freshman State Rep from Rosemount – running against the pleasant, innocuous, mistake-averse Amy Klobuchar and the media Praetorian Guard that shields her from inadvertent controversy.  The poll numbers show it. In a just world, Bills would be competitive – but in Minneosta, Republicans have to make their own justice.   Not to say long shots have no shot – ask Chip Cravaack or (shudder) Jesse Ventura.  Work like hell for Kurt Bills – I know I will do my best too.  But Hollywood money, a decade of name recognition, and stifling media pollyannaism are a tough row to hoe, and the polls are, at the moment, showing it.

And that’s why if you’re one of the flood of Ron Paul supporters in the Fourth and Fifth CDs that so stirred up the GOP’s pot last spring, I’d like your attention.

Because you do have a chance to shock the world.

Tony Hernandez in the Fourth CD is one guy whose platform is completely amenable to any  Ron Paul supporter.  He’s running in a tough district, sure enough…

…but it’s a district that is winnable.  Betty McCollum is a Zombie Democrat; she sleepwalks to 70-30 victories every two years pretty much because she’s a DFLer.  But redistricting made the Fourth much more Republican-friendly, adding Stillwater, Woodbury and Afton to the mix.  It’s not the same district it was even two years ago.

And here’s the deal – people just don’t care about Betty that much.  Fewer and fewer people turn out to vote for her every two years; I know DFLers who haven’t voted for her in a looong time.  She’s an empty skirt; when she give a speech, she’s like a substitute teacher who’s straining to control a class, and failing.  Her crowning “achievement” in a district with plummeting home values, a metro area school system with among the worst achievement gaps in the country, and unemployment lagging the rest of the state?  Saving us from the scourge of military ads in NASCAR.

Oh, there’s method to the madness; Representative McCollum sees that redistricting has changed her district, and is looking for a singular “Achievement” to show she’s “fiscally conservative” (cutting a tiny little fleck of spending, against the trillions in deficits she’s voted to create) while not cheesing off her base (she’s cutting military spending, although only the most innocuous kind).

She knows that there is a more conservative current in her district than she’s seen before.

In part?  She knows you, the Paul supporters, are out there.  And she’s trying to placate you.

So here’s the deal.  If you, the mass of Ron Paul supporters who swept into power in the Fourth, can pull together and each get a friend or two to come to the polls this November and vote Hernandez, you can do something for Ron Paul’s movement – including its future, Rand Paul – that Ron Paul himself couldn’t do: win a significant, Congressional office with someone not named “Paul”.

And if you are Marianne Stebbins, the organizer from Excelsior who engineered the epic statewide Ron Paul sweep in the caucuses, and were able to get Ron Paul himself to throw down on Hernandez’ behalf – what the heck, maybe even come here and seriously campaign for Tony as well as Kurt Bills – it’d sure put a wind in your movement’s sails, now, wouldn’t it?

Because antics in Tampa notwithstanding, whether you’re a recent grad who came out for Paul last spring, or a shadowy organizer from the Lake, you gotta know that it’s only by putting candidates in office that you actually earn real, long-term relevance.

And Betty McCollum is so freaking beatable, why on earth not do it?

Alida Will Not Be Amused

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More results from the Survey USA poll from yesterday.

I gotta confess, this one surprised me.  Conventional wisdom has it that the Left’s suffocating blanket of spending and publicity, as well as the purported apathy of many voters to the issue, would scupper the Marriage Amendment.

According to this poll – which, remember, oversampled Democrats, 38 to 32% – it’s just not so:

An amendment to the Minnesota Constitution on the ballot defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Will you vote FOR the amendment? Against the amendment? Or not vote on the measure?

52% Vote For

37% Vote Against

5% Not Vote

6% Not Sure

Remember, “No answer” counts as a “no” on Constitutional votes in Minnesota.  So let’s say these results hold up ’til election day, and that every single “Not Sure” response in this poll ends up voting “no” or not voting (which won’t happen); the measure passes 52-48.

This, I did not expect.

And I’m a tad gratified to see that the poll shows people seem to be resisting, broadly, the DFL’s torrent of lies and innuendo about the Voter ID Amendment:

An amendment to the Minnesota Constitution on the ballot would require voters to show photo I.D.’s in order to vote on Election Day. Will you vote FOR the amendment? Against the amendment? Or not vote on the measure?

65% Vote For

28% Vote Against

2% Not Vote

4% Not Sure

If the “Fors” stay put, and every single “Not Sure” votes against it (again, not gonna happen), the measure passes by almost 2:1.

While gay marriage isn’t an issue I care much about – I support civil unions – I’m glad to see that on at least a couple of issues, according to one mildly-DFL-leaning and slightly DFL-oversampled poll, the DFL’s huge, expensive, and slimy propaganda war seems at this moment to be crapping out.

The Party Of Pollyanna

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Good news, Democrats!  Your internal propaganda budget is apparently well-spent!

Democrats have a much more optimistic view of the U.S. economy than either Republicans or unaffiliated adults.

Currently, just 36% of Democrats believe the economy is in poor shape, according to new Rasmussen Reports polling. Nearly twice as many Republicans (67%) offer such a pessimistic view. So do 54% of those not affiliated with either major party.

It’s gotta be either the propaganda budget thing, or most of them work in government jobs that are untouchable until the entire economy Greeces out.

The national telephone survey of 3,500 American Adults was conducted by Rasmussen Reports July 14-20, 2012. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 2 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

Confidence in the survey, of course.  Not the economy.  Or the accuracy of the pollyannas’ views.

That Ain’t Music

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Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

It occurs to me that President Obama’s “You Didn’t Build That Yourself” theme may not be original to him.

The St. Paul City Council already had one like it, only theirs is longer: “If you have a successful business, you didn’t build that; at least not here because we won’t let you.”

Not sure which version I like better.

Joe Doakes

Como Park

It’s like asking “who do you like less: Rick Astley or Vanilla Ice?”

Why choose?

There’s A There, There

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A couple of stipulations up front before we cut to the chase:

  1. I’m not going to say Michele Bachmann hasn’t occasionally observed a “Ready! Fire! Aim!” approach to some of the things she’s commented on over the years.  She’s tightened up her messaging a lot, of course, since deciding to run for President – but whenever I see a chorus of leftybloggers bleating “did you see what teh crazee Mishele Bachmannn said?”, I still occasionally take a deep breath and brace myself.  Of course, it’s more and more an automatic rather than a reasoned thing.  But we’ll come back to that.
  2. I do think many American conservatives are way too exercised about the Muslim Brotherhood.  They are a big, loosely-knit movement with a lot of different histories in a lot of different nations. Some parts were radicalized by being pushed underground – think the IRA.  Other parts, in other nations, less so, or at least in different ways.  It remains to be seen what their majority in Egypt will turn out like – and they are far from the only force in Egypt that could drag that mess into the toilet – but they’ve been a broadly good influence in Libya, and neutral at worst in Tunisia.
  3. Some decry the fact that some Muslim Brotherhood national parties would re-institute Sharia law if they get their way in their various nations.  So don’t move there!   They’re sovereign countries and making – for the moment – democratic decisions.  They get to do that.  At best, the Brotherhood will bring Islam, and Sharia, out into the open, where it can bump up against the 21st century and, with a little luck, the motives and desires and political demands of people with more exposure to the modern world than, say, Afghans.  Am I being a pollyanna?  Perhaps.  Or maybe just tired of fighting unneeded battles.

With that out of the way, it’s hard to miss the cascade of caterwauling that’s greeted Michele Bachmann’s statements (along with those of four other House Republicans – Louie Gohmert (TX), Trent Franks (AZ), Tom Rooney (FL), and Lynn Westmorland (GA).  “Why, even John McCain is bagging on her!”, the liberals, and not a few Republicans, phumpher – as if that were news.  McCain even throws out the dreaded “M” word, “McCarthy”, which Democrats have turned into a rhetorical nuclear option over the decades (ignorant of the irony; McCarthy was right, there were communist infiltrators, although as his hunt went on it became both too broad and way too easily caricatured.

Speaking of McCarthy, the National Review’s Andrew McCarthy – presumably no relation – unloads on McCain, and Bachmann’s critics, with an excellent, moderately lengthy piece that documents both Huma Abedin’s real, honest-to-pete links to the Muslim Brotherhood (read the article), and shreds the notion that Bachmann et al were “witchhunting”, but rather…:

The five House conservatives, instead, are asking questions that adults responsible for national security should feel obliged to ask: In light of Ms. Abedin’s family history, is she someone who ought to have a security clearance, particularly one that would give her access to top-secret information about the Brotherhood? Is she, furthermore, someone who may be sympathetic to aspects of the Brotherhood’s agenda, such that Americans ought to be concerned that she is helping shape American foreign policy?

Now, Senator McCain is no stranger to smear. No need to confirm that with Mr. ElBaradei; we’ve watched for years as he has slandered, for example, critics of his advocacy for illegal aliens as “nativists” seeking to reprise Jim Crow laws. Nevertheless, since McCain purports to be a tireless guardian of our security, one would think he’d appreciate the distinction between a smear, on the one hand, and a routine application of security-clearance standards, on the other

…as well as illuminates some of McCain’s own flip-floppery on the issue:

So, the reporter asked him, does Obama’s tolerance of the Muslim Brotherhood “concern you”?

 

Senator Maverick shot back without hesitation: “It concerns me so much that I am unalterably opposed to it. I think it would be a mistake of historic proportions.”

 

Senator McCain elaborated that he was “deeply, deeply concerned that this whole movement [toward democracy] could be hijacked by radical Islamic extremists.” And what, he was specifically asked, “is your assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood”? McCain pulled no punches:

 

“I think they are a radical group that, first of all, supports sharia law; that in itself is anti-democratic — at least as far as women are concerned. They have been involved with other terrorist organizations and I believe that they should be specifically excluded from any transition government”

 

In fact, so apprehensive was he over the Brotherhood and its sharia agenda that McCain was quick to brand Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel laureate, as a Brotherhood tool.

By the way, Rep. Bachmann has claimed – with some considerable justification – that her words have been distorted and wrenched out of context, and she’s released all her communications on the subject to prove it.  You be the judge.

So the flap isn’t about “witchhunting” Muslims in government.  It’s about transparency and honesty about influence at the highest levels (as Rep. Bachmann’s letter to Rep. Ellison, whose has denied any knowledge of the Muslim Brotherhood, although his 2008 trip to Mecca was largely bankrolled by a group that, court documents indicate, is affiliated with the Brotherhood) makes clear.  It’s about transparency.

Lessons from this incident?  Simple:  When the media sounds off on conservatives, distrust, verify, and almost always distrust some more.

Personally?  I’m not sure that the Brotherhood is the suffocating danger that some conservatives claim, and even if it were, those are sovereign nations.  And I suspect Huma Abedin’s connections to the Georgetown Political Science Elite and Keith Ellison’s membership in the DFL are of more immediate danger to this nation and state, to be honest.

But since the subject is honesty – the flap about Bachmann seems to be little more than Dems trying to draw attention away from the real issue; Hillary Clinton and Keith Ellison’s disingenuity.

Welcome To The Battleground

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The latest Survey USA poll shows Obama’s lead in Minnesota has been cut in half since the last one:

In the election for President of the United States, three months till voting begins, Barack Obama captures the North Star State’s 10 electoral votes, defeating Mitt Romney 46 percent to 40 percent, according to a SurveyUSA poll for KSTP-TV in Minneapolis / St. Paul.

Libs will no doubt chime in “KSTP is teh Rpeublican Station!” – Tom Hauser made an effort to be balanced during the 2010 cycle, and “balance” is apparently “Republican” – but the Survey USA poll has trended ever-so-slightly more Democrat than reality has turned out, at least in the past couple of cycles.

More on that below.

Here’s the interesting part:

Romney and Obama are effectively even among male voters. All of Obama’s advantage comes from female voters, where Obama leads by 14 points. Romney edges Obama among Minnesota’s Independents, but not by enough to offset Obama’s 2:1 advantage among Minnesota’s moderates.

Further proof that “moderates” just don’t think that hard about things that really matter – like the future of this nation.

This part was one of the real shockers:

Romney leads in Northeastern Minnesota, but Obama leads in the rest of the state.

Whoah. The conventional wisdom says “Northeastern” Minnesota is a traditional DFL stronghold.  The economy must be finally sinking in?

In an election for U.S. Senator from Minnesota today, incumbent DFL candidate Amy Klobuchar soundly defeats Republican challenger Kurt Bills, 55 percent to 31 percent. Klobuchar leads among men and women, young and old, rich and poor, and in all regions of the state.

To be fair, that shows Bills up a couple and Klobuchar down a bit from earlier polls.  Hopefully all that Ron Paul fundraising machinery will be swinging into action here to support Bills.

Any ol’ time now.

And now we get to the point of the poll that is like the long string of disclaimers at the end of a TV drug ad.  Like the ads, this is the part that really matters: the poll sampling was 38% Democrat, 32% Republican, 28% “independent”.  The Democrats are oversampled – and even so, Romney is up 4 points among “independents”.

How Can You Tell When A Gun Control Advocate Is Lying?

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Their lips are moving.  (Or their fingers are moving over a keyboard.  Either way).

This blog has spent the better part of a decade exposing and illuminating the lies of Minnesota gun control advocates like Heather Martens, Dakota County Attorney Jim Backstrom, and former Senators Jane Ranum, Wes “Lying Sack of Filth” Skoglund, Ellen Anderson, and the like.

But I had a blast from the past over the weekend.

Senator Diane Feinstein of California appeared on the Chris Wallace show on Sunday.

Feinstein has been a kicktoy of the pro-Human-Rights movement for over twenty years – since I first got involved, really.

She’s an epic hypocrite on the issue, like so many gun control advocates.  When she was mayor of San Francisco, she revoked all civilian carry permits…

…but only after she had the police issue her a special “police” permit that was exempt from her own decree.  Even as she worked to disarm San Franciscans, she carried a revolver with her.

Because while the average villein’s citizen’s life was of no value and unworthy of defense, and incompetent to do it himself, Diane Feinstein was, in Diane Feinstein’s judgment, both worthy and competent.  (Chuck “Chuckles” Schumer and Barbara “Stupidest Person In The Senate” Boxer are similarly hypocrites; gun banners with carry permits).

Anyway – she appeared with Wallace yesterday.  She claimed that one out of five cops who are killed in the US are killed “by the same type of weapon” used in the Aurora massacre.

She’s lying, naturally.

The weapon getting all the attention in this shooting is the AR-15 – a semi-automatic civilian version of the Army’s M-16 and M-4 rifles.

An AR15, which is available in a bewildering number of configurations

(And Holmes’ AR-15 apparently jammed before an indeterminate number of shots fired, which is also similar to the military versions, which have been derided as famously jam-prone for almost as long as they’ve been in service).    Holmes then apparently switched to a shotgun and one of a number of Glock pistols he had – like an amazing number of utterly law-abiding Americans).

Feinstein – called “Feinswine” by human-rights advocates who’ve been trying to draw the “media fact-checkers'” attention to her for two decades, now – is using a rhetorical dodge built into American gun laws by the 1994 Crime Bill that, theoretically, classified almost any weapon larger than a revolver as an “Assault Weapon”.   The term “assault weapon” is almost entirely devoid of technical meaning; it “means” essentially any weapon that looks menacing and has a magazine (“clip” for rookies and videogamers) capacity over 10 rounds.

So during the nadir of the “Assault Weapon” ban, it’s meant large-capacity semi-authomatic pistols…:

With a capacity of 15 rounds, the Beretta Model 92 is the standard sidearm of the US military, and of many private citizens.

…or my own SIG P250, with its 12 round magazine:

Yep - an "assault weapon", according to Diane Feinstein!

So this is Feinstein’s rhetorical sleight of hand; she’s using a definition of ‘Assault Weapon” that is intentionally as broad as it can be made, to rope in as many otherwise-fairly-normal firearms as possible.

Because that’s what the left wants to control and eventually ban – as many as possible now, and everything else later.

There Was A Time I’d Have Called It “Casualty #14”

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That casualty would be “any sense that the media is not working an agenda against conservatives, especially organized conservatives like the Tea Party”.

But that time was many years and at least one set of ideals ago.

During the confusion over the identity of the shooter in Aurora, ABC’s Brian Ross went on the air and reported…

“There’s a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea Party last year. Now, we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes. But it’s Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado.”

Which has been, by the way, the leftymedia’s process for reporting on the Tea Party since the very beginning; find the slenderest reed of possible allowing the assumption of guilt, and work back from there (because there will be no consequences).

Brian Moran at Pajamas Media remembers that time as well:

There used to be a time when journalists had a rough integrity about what they said over the air and took pride in striving for accuracy. Who could ever forget ABC’s Frank Reynolds, ABC News anchorman, who, after receiving and announcing word that James Brady had been killed in the Reagan assassination attempt only to discover the press secretary was still alive, got visibly angry and to no one in particular barked on air, “Let’s get this right. Let’s nail this down.”

Today, Stephanopoulos thanked Brian Ross for smearing the Tea Party by reporting a lie. Ross should be suspended or lose his job for this attempt to inject politics into a national tragedy.

I noted the phenomenon years ago; in their unquenchable hunger to demonize the Tea Party – literally, to rhetorically turn them into demons – the media was bending over backwards to find the slenderest reed of association with the Tea Party first, and worry about attribution and proof later.  It was so pervasive, it launched an entire category on this blog, “The Slander Files“, chronicling the left’s demented quest to make the facts, such as they were, fit their narrative.   It’s been a busy category.  Do you remember when…:

Slandering the Tea Party is an exemption from whatever still passes for “Journalistic Ethics”.

Just Keep Repeating To Yourself…

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…”Obama promised no middle-class tax hike.  Obama promised no middle-class tax hike…”

Unless Congress takes additional action to address the deficit before then, when the New Year’s hangovers wear off, two big things will have happened.

First, the Bush-era tax cuts will expire. That means income taxes for everyone would return to the higher rates that existed under President Bill Clinton. Taxes on dividends and capital gains also would rise from the current maximum of 15 percent. Top individual rates for high income earners could reach 39.6 percent

Second, $109 billion in automatic federal spending cuts will be set in motion, split evenly between defense spending and domestic programs. That’s because last summer’s agreement to lift the debt ceiling required lawmakers to forge an agreement to reduce the budget deficit by $1.2 trillion. As they failed, the automatic budget cuts are set to take effect.

But remember – it’s neeeeeever a spending problem.  No, it’s all you greedy peasants and the spending the government must do on you!:

“People are calling it the fiscal cliff,” Franken said. “It isn’t. It’s a slope.”

Franken said the tax increases would have little immediate effect on most people since their 2013 taxes won’t be due until the following year.

While that’s not the outcome he wants, Franken concedes that a willingness to let taxes go up is part of the Democrats’ negotiating strategy. “This is the only leverage we have, I think, to focus the Republican Party on being serious about this,” he said.

Franken and most Senate Democrats have signed on to President Barack Obama’s proposal to keep the Bush tax rates in place for those making less than $250,000 a year.

To paraphrase that greatest of Democrat thinkers, Rahm Emanuel, “Never waste a wedge issue”.

Some Republicans get it:

“They have a tax policy that says that they’re going to hold the entire economy hostage unless Republicans agree to a tax increase,” said U.S. Rep. John Kline, a Republican. “Is a tax increase on anybody, let them pick the number for how wealthy you have to be, so important that they’re going to send us over the cliff?”

Kline doesn’t want to see taxes go up at all. He’s also worried that the automatic budget cuts could devastate the economy by throwing thousands of defense contractors out of work.

“You’re going to have huge cuts in the private sector, and that’s the piece that I think is most problematic,” Kline said.

But Kline voted for the debt ceiling deal that created the automatic budget cuts, and Democrats say the only way for Republicans to help undo the cuts will be to negotiate a deal with them on taxes.

Of course they do.

Saints And Sinners

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Joe Doakes of Como Park writes in re the St. Paul City Council’s vote to fund a new stadium in downtown for the St. Paul Saints:

City Council approves stadium funding, city resident has questions:

What kind of rinky-dink stadium are we getting for a lousy $50 million when the Twins stadium cost 10 times that much? The Saints already have a rinky-dink stadium in an inaccessible location, do they really need another?

Is a seasonal recreational facility consistent with the City’s vaunted Comprehensive Plan for Downtown Business and Retail district? Shouldn’t a ballpark be in an industrial zone – as the current one is – to allow for parking and tailgating?

Why does the Housing and Redevelopment Authority have $2 million free land sitting around for a ballpark? Why isn’t that in housing? What will the HRA do with the Midway Stadium site and how much will that cost?

What “other projects” is the Council gutting to pay for the stadium? If those projects are such low priority the stadium takes precedence, why were they funded in the first place instead of taxes being lowered?

Is the City borrowing this money on “Revenue Bonds” (if the team fails to pay rent, the bondholders take the hit) or “General Obligation Bonds” (city taxpayers are on the hook for everything)?

In re that last question, the answers are simple, if depressing:  the answer is “whatever will benefit the City Council and its friends, regardless of its affect on the taxpayer of Saint Paul”.

Am I wrong?

Observations

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For starters – my thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of the victims of last night’s outbreak of senseless, cowardly violence.

Not that I have a lot to offer in re this story, but here are some observations:

  • As many people died in that theatre as died in the previous week and half in “gun-free” Chicago. And the week and half before that.  And the week and half before that.  So far this year, they’ve been almost 300 firearms homicides in Chicago, and many many hundreds maimed.  And there is no end in sight.
  • I say that for the benefit of the liberal orcs who are already coming out of the woodwork demanding big changes to American gun laws.
  • Notwithstanding the occasional headline-grabbing spree killing, violent crime has been dropping steadily in the US, even as (or, I believe, because) the number of Americans owning guns has skyrocketed in the past decade.  43 states have either shall-issue permitting laws – which have been shown, all other things being equal, to reduce violent crime – and about half the states have some variety of “Stand your Ground” laws, all of them successful outside the media’s rarified sampling of high-profile politicized cases (like the Zimmerman case).  No state has even considered repeating a shall-issue law in the nearly thirty years that the laws have been on the ascendant.
  • One of the arguments is “what if someone with a carry permit brought their piece to the theatre?”  On the one hand, liberals – expressing the deep intellectual rigor for which the liberal anti-gun argument is so famous – respond “Oh, yeah, just what they needed – a bunch of wannabe Dirty Harries”. To which the conservatives respond “Yeah, good thing nobody in the theatre fought back. It might have gotten dangerous!“

So pray first for the victims, their families and friends, the doctors who are treating them, and the people of Aurora.

And then, when all that’s done, pray for the liberal hamsters who come out calling for more moronic gun control laws.

Pray they get God’s mercy, because rhetorically speaking, I will show them none.

UPDATES:  I am at the moment thankful that both b the President  and even the folks at iMedia Matters seem to be taking the high road so far.

Know Your Place, Animals!

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This piece is sort of a natural follow-on to yesterday’s post – all the “Deep Thoiughts” about man’s relationship to government, and the different philosophies liberals and conservatives bring to the table on the subject.

But first, a brief digression.

I don’t normally rebroadcast other peoples’ ads – but this one was just too good not to pick up and run with, just a little bit.

It’s a riff on President Obama’s “You didn’t do it” scold to entrepreneurs and, by extension, really anyone outside government:

Nope, nobody paid me to rujn it. Although they sure could.

Of course, this sentiment is pandemic on the left.  Yesterday Jim Schowalter, Mark Dayton’s budget director, was at a meeting in Thief River Falls with, among other people, the CEO of Digi-Key.  You may not have heard of it – it’s a privately-owned billion-dollar company based out of Thief River Falls that is one of the biggest success stories and major employers in northwestern Minnesota.  The company started in the CEO’s apartment forty-odd years ago – guy didn’t even have a garage at the time – and grew into a billion-dollar operation employing thousands (I have family in the area, so I hear things).

And, according to a report from the scene, Schowalter told the CEO that  without government, he could never have done it

The theory among lefties is that without all the “infraastructure” government “provides”, entrepreneurs would be huddled in caves, helpless, banging rocks together to try to get fire.  It’s only through the nurturing hand of government that any human activity is possible.

But once government – at some level – has dealt with banditry, brigandry, barratry, piracy and piracy, really, you’re into the mundanities of laws, roads and regulations.   And when those are the subjects…:

  • What?  Government wants a cookie for doing what it was set up to do, and for which generations of people before the entrepreneur paid taxes – sometimes grossly overpaid in taxes – to get?
  • By the way, where do people suggest the money to build that “infrastructure” came from?  Brought down from heaven on the backs of unicorns?  No – people, entrepreneurs and company guys and executives and high school kids working at Tastee Freez and trust fund billionaires alike – had it taken out of their paychecks.

So yeah, government – good job and all, “providing” things that I and millions like me paid you to do.  Isn’t that like me going to my boss and saying “thank me for the design I handed off, on top of paying me to do it?”

By the way – try as I may, I can not find a single reference to this episode anywhere in the mainstream media.

Animal Farm

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In 2004, lefty commentator Thomas Frank published a book “What’s The Matter With Kansas” – which analyzed the growing conservative majority in America’s heartland…

…in the most patronizing, contemptuous way I’d heard until the mainstream media’s response to the Tea Party five years later.  Frank hammered on the idea that conservatives in the heartland were “voting against their interests” by voting Conservative.

The ‘Interests”, of course, were limited to “having government take care of you, provided you send it enough taxes” (my phrase, not Frank’s)..  “Kansas” – Frank’s home state on the one hand, and his and every lefty pundit’s short-hand for “all those dumb rubes I left behind when I went to an Ivy League school” on the other – has “interests” that begin with getting farm subsidies and end with single-payer health care.

Frank’s thesis, in other words?  States, and citizens, are dependents.  Like pets.  Like a herd of cattle for which a noble farmer is responsible; it’s in the cattle’s interest to make the farmer’s life easy.  Or maybe like children – little people who aren’t quite fully formed, who depend on the older, wiser, parents to keep them on the straight and narrow until a majority that never comes.

And it highlit one of the big disputes between “progressives” and conservatives:  what is the role of a person, a citizen?  To a liberal, it’s “vote when told to vote, pay your taxes when told to pay taxes, and don’t get in the way”.  To a conservative, it’s to be one of the free association of equals that consents to having a government, and – make no mistake – controls that government.

This argument came to the nation, and Minnesota, this past few months.

Last spring, Representative Mary Franson from the Alexandria area took nationwide heat for a comment which some of the local Sorosphere’s ‘dimmer bulbs yanked out of context (and a few of the less less-bright ones correctly called out as a dumb hit) which was, in its entirety, correct; long-term dependence on welfare does, in fact, treat people like animals.  Like pets, at best; little critters for whose well-being the master – the owner, or government, depending on which end of the metaphor you’re talking about – is responsible.

And about the same time the Sorosphere was denouncing Franson with florid indignation, the Obama Administration came out and proved that Franson was exactly right – that the government did in fact see citizens as monochromatic consumers, as ivestock, dependent on their owner/master/government for their ongoing wellbeing, with the fabulously inept and gloriously spoof-worthy and, beyond that, downright Orwellian “Julia” campaign.

David Clemens – in a piece called “Elvis Vs. Julia”, which is actually a defense of humanities education, the discipline of studying the why of humanity, which is in its entirely worth a read for its own sake – cuts to the reason “progressives” attitudes about the government / citizen relationship, as revleated by “Julia” are not just toxic, but dehumanizing:

This is why selling the Julia concept frightens me. She doesn’t yearn to be free, like a human; she yearns to be kept. Julia embraces the piano key life that the president offers, and like W. H. Auden’s Unknown Citizen, she will act and behave predictably, she will choose and think correctly.

But in literature (and life) we recoil from those who trade freedom for safety nets and soft landings. The great anti-utopian novelists warned us over and over what happens when we make that bargain: George Orwell’s Winston Smith, Aldous Huxley’s John Savage, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s D-503 would rather suffer or die than join the Party, take the soma, or blend into the One State.

So what I find most chilling about the Julia ad concept is its creators’ cynical view of Americans, particularly women. And what if her creators are right? As Michael Walsh writes, “It’s tough to accept that perhaps a majority of our fellow Americans would cheerfully trade liberty for a false sense of security.” That is, how many workforce-ready but literature-free voters see The Life of Julia and find her flat, subsidized, feckless life desirable? With the liberal arts in decline, how many “miss the connection?” One must have been exposed to Orwell, Huxley, and Zamyatin in order to see their relationship to Julia and hear the warning.

Clearly, much of the left does – or, worse, “gets it”, but feels the trade is worthwhile, or worst of all, sees themselves as the “shepherds” needed to manage all of us sheep, or Julias, or whatever line of metaphor you want to run with.

A perennial question that divides the political left and right is this: what sort of beings are we? Do we have an immutable, perhaps transcendent, nature that will surrender everything utopia for autonomy, agency, and freedom (Elvis) [who, it might be said, rebelled against the very security that his phenomenally-successful career ]? Or is there no inherent nature, and humans are just socially constructed, plastic, seeking nothing but safety and a reliable sense of well-being (Julia)? Political Science, Psychology, and Anthropology cannot answer that question, and the sciences can only measure what is measurable. The liberal arts and humanities, however, insist that we are like Elvis, and that those who trade liberty for comfort always live to regret it.

Well, some humanities observe this.  Others are waiting on their next NEH grant.

But the real question is – which is a better reflection of what humans are, and can be?  Conservatism, with its immutable standards and great consequences and sometimes greater hurdles?  Or a life bellied up to the government trough, like the one Obama and Mark Dayton clearly see for us?

What’s the matter with Kansas – and with Kansans like us?

We’re human, and we want to stay that way.

Hey, Minnesota Combat Vets

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According to Governor Mark “Bored DIlettante” Dayton, NFL players get into trouble – bar scuffles, DUIs, shooting each other, dogfighting – because they’re just like you:

Football players aren’t ordinary citizens, [the Governor] said, and compared the game to combat.

”It’s basically slightly civilized war, and then they take that into society, much as solders come back, and they’ve been in combat or the edge of it and then suddenly that adjustment back to civilian life is a real challenge,” Dayton said.

You heard him right.  The Governor – who got a draft deferment by staying in college and then working as a substitute teacher until his number went away – says that NFL players, many of whom started on the fast track to stardom in high school, waltzed through college in dumbed-down academic programs and “work” at playing an overgrown sandlot game for millions of dollars a year, misbehave because they’re just like you are after you get home from a tour or two in Afghanistan or Iraq (or Desert Storm or Vietnam).

It’s So Hard To Follow

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Let me see if I’ve got this right this year:

In 1992 and 1996, a record of military service (like George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole had) was absolutely not important…

…but in 2000, it – or the version of it in which being a “military journalist” under the watchful eye of a senior NCO who didn’t let the future Democrat candidate within miles of any known action was bigger and better than being an Air National Guard F-102 pilot. a job with a frighteninly-high “peacetime” casualty rate.

In 2004 it was especially confusing – since having been a Navy “Swift Boat” commander was reputed to give absolute moral authority, while crewmen in those same boats who dissented from their former junior officer’s view of things were said to be blackguards.

It was back to normal in 2008, when a Community Organizer was deemed the real hero, and America’s chattering classes reduced themselves to tittering about the dental state of a man who’d spent years in a POW camp, to say nothing of the circumstances of his getting shot down in the first place.

And this year?   Supporters of Obama are trying to paint the community organizer – who was one of about 98% of the adults in his generation who never served in the military – as somehow more noble as the community organizer (for the Mormon Church) who was among the 70-odd percent of people of his generation who got one form of deferment or another – missionary and educational – until he was finished with school, in 1975.  Two years after the draft ended.

Which is it?

“Just Plain Wrong”

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Matt Bai of WorldNet Daily, in the intro of a piece that tries to separate fact from self-indulgent liberal fiction in re the Citizens United case’s impact on politics.

Libs, of course, have been telling themselves and (mostly) everyone else that Citizens United completely swept away the foundations of democracy.

As a matter of political strategy, this is a useful story to tell, appealing to liberals and independent voters who aren’t necessarily enthusiastic about the administration but who are concerned about societal inequality, which is why President Obama has made it a rallying cry almost from the moment the Citizens United ruling was made. But if you’re trying to understand what’s really going on with politics and money, the accepted narrative around Citizens United is, at best, overly simplistic. And in some respects, it’s just plain wrong.

Read the whole thing.  And pass it on to your liberal and propaganda-addled (ptr) friends.

UPDATE:  Whoops – it wasn’t in WorldNet Daily.  The piece appears in that noted conservative tool, the NYTimes.

I regret the confusion.

UPDATE 2:  Bai, not Sai.

And This Is What “Stand Your Ground” Is All About

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Two young thugs storm into an internet cafe in Florida with a bat and a gun, and start herding everyone together to rob them – at the very least.

Sam Williams – a 71 year old guy with a carry permit – legitimately fearing death or great bodily harm (lest we forget, there are A GUN AND A BASEBALL BAT pointed at him and the rest of the customers), draws and fires, wounding both of the attackers and sending them scampering for their lives.

It’s a beautiful thing – criminals wetting themselves with fear:

That’s two criminals (and, most likely, Democrat voters) off the street.

No word yet on whether President Obama thinks the lads “look just like him” or not.

Here’s the point:  in Florida, if the shooting is ruled legitimate self-defense, the shooter – Sam Williams – will be immunized from being sued by the victims thugs.

If this were in Minnesota?  The two probable DFL voters thugs, from jail, would have every right to run out and find themselves a couple of personal injury lawyers (most of whom are DFL voters and contributors) and try to sue Mr. Williams back to the stone age.  At best, Mr. Williams will spend whatever is in his retirement to defend himself against the people who’d threatened to kill him for his money; at worst, he’ll be cleaned out. Ruined.

Thanks, Governor Bored Dilettante!

(Via Erika from Hot Air)

So There’s Good News

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You live in the Minnesota Fourth Congressional District.

Your home value is plummeting.

You may well be out of work, and are certainly nervous about your job.

Your local property taxes are skyrocketing, while your schools are collapsing (especially if you’re black, asian or latino).   They promise to zoom still further, as business, overtaxes and then starved out by light rail construction, deserts the city or starves to death.

And the nation is on the path to make Greece’s meltdown look like a fart in a tornado, with trillion dollar deficits and a national debt that just rocketed past a years’ GDP.  And when the depression over all this is getitng to be too much and you need to see a doctor, before long you’ll need to see the one assigned to you by Gus the Cranky Public Servant.

But hey.  At least Betty McCollum is tirelessly fighting Army ad money to NASCAR.

Thanks, Betty.

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

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Twin Cities urban planners seem to think that if they just make driving a car inconvenient and headache-prone enough, drivers will throw in the towel, get a job downtown, and start riding the bus.

Which seems to be the main impetus behind this initiative – turning Charles Street (which runs parallel to light-rail-construction-addled University, two blocks north of the construction nightmare) into a “bike boulevard”, with traffic circles, bike lanes, speed bumps, and none of those dang cars.

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

University Avenue is impassable to bicycle traffic now, but when the light rail is done . . . it’ll still be impassable. Parking lane gone, trains down the middle, buses in the right lane and all the other frustrated motorists wedged between. So where are those cars and bikes now? On the adjacent parallel streets as far North as Minnehaha.

And down to Marshall and Selby.  The traffic nightmare hasn’t ebbed; just metastasized.

” Organizers said an overwhelming number of respondents think that there are already too many cars, often driving too fast, on Charles Avenue and that the street is unsafe for children. Residents also worried that traffic would increase when light-rail construction is complete.”

Well yeah, dummy: frustrated motorist traffic has had to self-divert to side streets because the largest, longest, busiest East-West throughway in the City has been completely shut down and it’s never going to reopen to normal levels. This is news to you? You’re just figuring this out now? Don’t urban planners ever visit the sites of their glorious triumphs? Don’t they read the papers (or SITD) to see the chaos and havoc they’ve created? Why didn’t they plan for it up front (or did they, but had to wait for a “crisis” to arise so they could “solve” it)?

Joe has too much faith in Wahhabi transit activists.  They’re a little like post-modern German artists, the type that glumly intones “Art IS destruction and ugliness” as they unveil their latest, “installation”, a dancing man clad only with a jar holding a gutted cat pickled in urine.

Like the post-moderns, the chaos – to drivers, anyway – is precisely the point.  The goal is to make driving, and drivers, miserable.  And to them, it’s no matter if you deal with that misery by jumping on the train, or by expressing your anger, fulfilling their prophecy that drivers are base, benighted, spoiled, arrogant and above it all.

They win either way.

So naturally, the same urban planning geniuses who caused the problem on Charles are springing into action to make things even worse. The City will install bike lanes, traffic circles and speed bumps to slow traffic through the neighborhood. Cars that were shoved off University to make room for the train will be shoved off Charles to make room for the bikes. That’s great in the summer but have you ever tried to plow snow around traffic circles and speed bumps? There’s already one traffic circle on Charles and the snow ridges around it are a nightmare.

I know that circle.  The winter before last, the intersection was like an Andean goat path.  The side streets in that neighborhood are very narrow; it’s hard to get a plow around that circle – so it never went around the circle!

The bicycles will be in storage but cars still won’t be able to use the street. Might as well go all the way and tear up the tar completely, sod the street and turn Charles Avenue into lawn.

Hey Mitch, get ready for even more motorists up your way, all of them late and angry. Should be . . . interesting.

Joe Doakes

Como Park

Way ahead of you, Joe.  Traffic on Thomas, Marshall, Minnehaha and Selby is all up.  And the city is reacting the way it always does.

Writing more traffic tickets.