The Daycare Union Jamdown bill – sponsored by “my” Senator, the foul-mouthed Soliah-supporting Sandy Pappas – hit an unexpected speed bump in the Senate Finance Committee yesterday; DFL Senators Terri Bonoff and Barb Goodwin broke with the caucus and voted against the jamdown:

The sponsor, Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, called the defeat a disappointing setback. But she said she hopes she can resurrect the bill yet this week and have the committee re-vote and move it out to the Senate floor, perhaps without a recommendation that it be passed.

But she mentioned the bill remains challenging to pass, because it represents a major change in the idea of what a union is. Goodwin said she believes there are not enough votes on the Senate floor to pass the bill this year.

It “remains challenging to pass” because most providers hate it, and have done a great job of telling parents what’s wrong with it; it’ll raise costs (daycare is already terribly expensive in Minnesota) without affecting quality of service, and will alter the meaning of “union”, pitting small businesspeople against their customers.  The only purpose it would serve, if passed, would be to provide dues and headlines (“membership is up!”) to the big state unions.

It’s still alive in the House, and Senator Pappas has vowed to find a way to bring it back for a re-vote in the Senate.  Here’s how you can help hold this bill’s head underwater until it stops bubbling.

One of the more comical moments in this past winter’s debates at the capitol over the various gun grab bills was when Representative Heather Martens, introducing her bill copied and pasted from Andrew Cuomo’s magazine ban bill, informed a crowd full of experienced shooters that (I’m paraphrasing closely here):

Nobody needs more than seven rounds for self-defense.  Experts say the Colt .45 is the best gun for self-defense, and it holds seven rounds

Hopefully the Colt marque will survive Rep. Martens’ endorsement.  The Colt 1911 is indeed a fine self-defense gun.  It’s also a hard gun for casual self-defense shooters to master; it’s big, and heavy, and it’s a single action piece with three safeties, any one of which the owner may bobble in the heat of the moment.  And – this is more important – it was designed to be used by guys in an army; when the lieutenant fires his seventh shot, he’ll have other guys in the platoon to cover him while he reloads.

But that’s getting ahead of ourselves.

Joe Doakes sent me this one.   It’s an attempt to answer the question “who really needs more than seven rounds?”

The answer?  Anyone who values survival:

It’s a dramatization, of course – but it reflects reality:

From metropolitan Philadelphia, PA to tiny Wilmer, AL, to North Woodmere, Long Island, NY, to Suitland, MD, and Pine Township, IN, home invaders are nowcommonly showing up in teams of 2-4 violent, armed criminals, willing to murder you and your family to get what the want.

Because self-defense shooting isn’t like the movies.  One hit doesn’t throw the target across the room – in fact if they’re drunk or high or dissociative, it’s entirely possible they won’t know they’ve been hit at all.  There’ve been cases of people walking to ambulances after five, ten or more hits (although they may have bled out before too long).

At any rate – when anyone, whether Rep. Martens or Governor Cuomo, tells you “seven rounds is all you need!”, just remember; they got that the same place they’re going to get yesterday’s dinner after the press conference.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The Constitution of the United States says Congress shall not infringe the peoples’ rights.

Congress passes a law infringing those rights.

The Kansas state legislature says they won’t honor that that law infringing their rights and furthermore, they’ll arrest anybody who tries to enforce it.

The Attorney General of the United States says the Supremacy Clause makes Congress’ law more powerful than Kansas rights and threatens a lawsuit if Kansas interferes with federal agents infringing Kansans’ rights.

I find it deeply ironic that the highest federal law enforcement official waves the Constitution as his authority to violate the Constitution.

Joe Doakes

I think it qualifies as “irony” at the very least.

To:  Speaker of the House Thissen
From:  Mitch Berg, Uppity Peasant
Re:  Vote NOW!  For the Children!

Speaker Thissen,

You’re taking a lot of flak for pulling Rep. Paymar’s gun grab bill from the agenda.

Representative Paymar

You’re getting the flak from the usual crowd; astroturf checkbook advocacy groups whose executives are also their entire membership; “faith” groups of the type PJ O’Rourke once described as “having faith the same way some people have halitosis”, the smug preening “faith” of the church that has adopted government as a sort of Executive Assistant to God.

A group of anti-gun zealots.  They’re frowning because someone – I bet it was the second guy from the right, in the glasses – forgot to invite anyone that wasn’t a white, Volvo-diving, NPR-listening, alpaca-wearing pre-1970 Saint Olaf graduate.  Courtesy of the Joyce-Foundation-supported MinnPost.

The Minnesota Gun Violence Prevention Coalition, which encompasses the main people and organizations working for firearm regulation in Minnesota, staged a rally/press conference on Friday to demand Thissen allow the measure to come up for a vote.

 “It seems to me that Speaker Thissen is trying to protect the caucus,” said Sami Rahamim, whose father, Reuven Rahamim, was killed in the Accent Signage shooting last year.

Rahamim posed a tough question for Thissen and the rural Democrats who tanked the gun-control bill: Does the DFL House caucus need protecting, or “hardworking citizens like my father?”

I know – the Accent Signage shooting both takes attention away from the fact that violent crime (outside North Minneapolis) has been in free fall for 20 years.  And the anti-gunners are using Rahamim and the searing images of that horrible shooting to distract from the fact that nothing in any of the bills that the DFL has been pushing would have prevented the Accent shooting in any way whatsoever – that, indeed, the only thing that might have would have been a guy in the plant with a gun and the will to resist, whether a guard or just a regular schnook with a carry permit.

But never mind that, Speaker Thissen; the real point is coming up:

Advocates for more regulations stressed that polling shows the public supports such measures as universal background checks, which would regulate the private sale of firearms at gun shows and over the Internet, among other avenues.

That’s right, Speaker Thissen.  Ignore your lying eyes, which showed you Greater Minnesota hates your bill.  Ignore the polls that show support for your bills was an uninformed mile wide and an inch deep (gun control is a vital issue to 4% of the voters); never mind the historical fact that the last time the MNDFL crusaded against the law-abiding citizen’s right to keep and bear arms, you lost the House.

But no.  The people who carried the water

 “With the will of the majority behind us, we believed our state would pass a universal background check bill” this session, said Jane Kay, of Moms Demand Action [heh heh] for Gun Sense in America. “That has all been swept aside.”

Heather Martens [DFL Rep. HD 66A], executive director of Protect Minnesota, which lobbied lawmakers extensively on the issue, said Thissen should bring the measure up for a vote, even if it is doomed to fail.

“I think he has a responsibility to reconsider that decision,” she said.

And for once, notwithstanding the fact that she has not uttered one substantive word of truth in her public life, I agree with Representative Martens.

You need to bring this to a floor vote, Speaker Thissen.  And you need to do it immediately.    Because it’s the right thing to do.  Do it for the children.  You owe it to them.

And you need to bust some knuckles in your caucus to make sure they vote the party line too.   Get everyone in the DFL caucus to vote the Metrocrat conscience, and do it this week.  None of this “voting their constituency” BS;  make sure Joe Radinovich and Zac Dorhold and Steve Howe vote the most enthusiastic “yea” they can manage.

And smile for the cameras when you do.  Thanks.

That is all.

The foot of the Minnesota Vikings’ punter will no longer be in his mouth.

Chris Kluwe: so focused on his job

There is a truism in all professional life that your cost, real or perceived, cannot outweigh your value.  Once that threshold is crossed, there is often little incentive for an employer to maintain such an employee.

Of course, that truism seems to take an extraordinary beating when it comes to being applied in the world of professional sports.  Athletes are excused all manner of crimes and statements while staying employed.  Kobe Bryant hardly suffered despite allegations of rape.  Michael Vick emerged from jail for the cruel practice of dog fighting and resumed his NFL career.  Mike Tyson’s been in and out of jail three times.  If he goes back a forth time, apparently it’s free.

Chris Kluwe: so totally focused on his job

In that light, the Minnesota Vikings’ expected release of outspoken punter/gay-marriage advocate/musician/video-game enthusiast/Deadspin contributor/gameboard store owner/all-around stunted adolescent Chris Kluwe hardly seems fair.  Kluwe has maintained a decent-to-high punting yards average since joining the NFL (notwithstanding his drop to 22nd in the NFL in 2012). And in a league that doesn’t even have a punter in their Hall of Fame (another source of Kluwe-influenced controversy), Kluwe may be the most relatively famous punter in history.

The problem?  None of that notoriety comes from his actions on the field.  The Star Tribune’s Chip Scoggins danced around the elephant in the stadium when he wrote Kluwe’s Vikings career post-mortem in advance:

Kluwe’s departure will make the Vikings locker room a lot more dull because he is incredibly intelligent, articulate and passionate about societal issues. He’s a fascinating individual in a sport that breeds conformity. The NFL has become so big and so powerful that players often cling to political correctness for fear that a ripple might swell into a tidal wave. Kluwe is that surfer dude on top of the wave, hanging 10 on any issue that stirs his emotion.

“No single thing that I do defines me as a person,” he said. “Just because I play football, that doesn’t define me as a person.”

Chris Kluwe: like so very focused on his job

The message is unmistakable – Chris Kluwe’s gay marriage advocacy cost him his job.  And Scoggins et al are correct…sort of.

Kluwe’s value to the Minnesota Vikings was as a $1.4 million a year player at a reasonably expendable position.  Simply put – you don’t get to be a distraction if you’re easily replaceable.  And by every definition, Chris Kluwe is a distraction.  Kluwe has run his mouth on issues beyond gay marriage.  He’s been fined for “campaigning” for Ray Guy to get into the Hall of Fame.  He’s appeared on the website Deadspin several times over the 2011 NFL Lockout where he attacked numerous players over their views.

Chris Kluwe: so super duper focused on his job

Worse, Kluwe’s tactics are the epitome of his generation – foul-mouthed personal attacks against anyone who disagrees.  Pro-lockout players are “douchebags” who stand for “pretty much the definition of greed.”  His opponents are “a**hole f**kwits”, which also suggests he’s a plagiarist since I’m sure he stole that from Oscar Wilde.

In truth, the media needs Chris Kluwe’s release to be about his vocal and abusive activism.  Because admitting to solidarity with Kluwe’s political views, and his ability to deliver good copy to sportswriters and sports radio networks, is harder than portraying the SoCal punter as a victim of a 1st Amendment NFL crackdown.  Does anyone seriously believe that if Kluwe had come out passionately against gay marriage (ala Matt Birk), and saw his production dive, that those arguing against Kluwe’s release today would be defending his penchant to “hanging 10 on any issue that stirs his emotion”?

Chris Kluwe: so focused…on finding his next job

Kluwe mocked even his own Special Teams coach for suggesting the punter needed to focus on his job with the hashtag “so focused.”  Here’s hoping that Chris Kluwe finds the time to focus on realizing that being a public relations bully to those who don’t share his worldview isn’t the best way to advance what’s left of his career.

(SCENE:  MITCH Berg is bowling at the Minnehaha Lanes.  Avery LIBRELLE steps up to the next lane, laces up shoes as MITCH rolls a “6”).

LIBRELLE:  Hah hah, Merg.  You have nobody to run against Al Franken.  He’ll coast to another term.

MITCH:  Well, we’ll see.  The campaign is still very young.

LIBRELLE:  And the Governor’s race!   What, Jeff Johnson?  He ran for attorney General, and lost!  He’s over!

MITCH:  Er, Governor Messinger ran a couple of races and lost before he latched on as Senator and then Governor.  He ran what was at one point the most expensive failed race in state history again, back in the eighties.

LIBRELLE:  (Angrily) It’s Governor Dayton.

MITCH:  Oops.  Not sure how that happened.

LIBRELLE:  Pft.  Anyway, he’s  different!

MITCH:  You’re right.  He had an adoring media painting his toenails and covering up his issues.

LIBRELLE:  (Puts scoresheet on desk, steps up to the lane).  Waaah.

MITCH:  Well, you’ve got a point.  It’s a whole new race.

LIBRELLE:  (Elaborately prepares to roll ball; all sorts of shimmying and twitching) And what else?  You’v got Scott Honour.  He’s Minnesota’s Mitt Romney.

MITCH: (Rolls the second ball – misses the spare by one)  You say that like it’s a bad thing.  Two guys who actually earned their fortunes.

LIBRELLE:  Did you hear me?  He’s Minnesota’s Mitt Romney!  

MITCH:  Right.  I guess that makes Mark Messinger…er, Dayton – our George Soros.

LIBRELLE:  Hah hah hah!  There is no such thing as George Soros.

MITCH:  Hm.  (Mitch steps back to mark last ball)

LIBRELLE:  (Steps down the lane.  Backswings.  Forgets to release.  Hits self in face with ball.  Falls over)

MITCH: (Runs over to render assistance)  Avery?  You OK?  Can you hear me?

LIBRELLE:  (Dazed, incoherent)  I’m happy to pay for a better Minnesota.

MITCH:  I knew it.

(And SCENE)

It’s time we focus on the real victims here.

Hollywood, after donating millions to get Bloomberg and Andrew Cuomo into office, is bitching about the scope of New York’s gun grab law:

The sweeping gun control measure signed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and hailed by Democratic leaders has a surprising critic: Hollywood.

 

Officials in the movie and television industry say the new laws could prevent them from using the lifelike assault weapons and high-capacity magazines that they have employed in shows like “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and films like “The Dark Knight Rises.”

For some reason, Hollywood likes to use real firearms when they make their movies glorifying violence (or at least minimizing its consquences:

Industry workers say that they need to use real weapons for verisimilitude, that it would be impractical to try to manufacture fake weapons that could fire blanks, and that the entertainment industry should not be penalized accidentally by a law intended as a response to mass shootings.

Impractical to manufacture?

Tell it to those peddlers on 23rd Street with the “Rolexes”.  I’ll bet they can hook you up with a fake SIG 551 right quick.

Andrew Cuomo, of course, is angering people who supported him very generously:

Mr. Cuomo has gone out of his way to promote the industry’s success; on Monday, he issued one news release to say the state was on track to break its record for the number of television pilots shot in a year, and another to say that “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” would begin production this week in Rochester. The governor has also enjoyed political support from Hollywood: his sole out-of-state fund-raiser as governor was held at the Los Angeles home of an HBO executive.

And here’s the beauty of it all; Cuomo may have cried wolf once too often:

 But some lawmakers, feeling stung by conservative and upstate voters over the gun control law, do not wish to vote on it again, even to make what the industry describes as a technical correction. Gun rights activists, who are challenging the new firearm restrictions in court, have mocked the idea of a so-called Hollywood exception.

¶ “They’re saying, ‘Why are we being held to this standard when Hollywood is getting a pass, and they’re the ones who are promoting the violence?’ ” said Thomas H. King, the president of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association.

¶ The new laws expand New York’s ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and beginning next January, they will prohibit the possession of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

And it’s gonna be hard to keep Mariska Hargitay looking all sleek and fashionable if they have to switch from a Glock to a Colt 1911 or a Ruger Redhawk.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The Governor was savagely taunted for telling taxpayers their Legislators need a raise.  Could that have been:

• Because although the Legislature has been in session since January 8, we still don’t have a budget or even a plan for one?
•  Because although they are nearly two BILLION dollars short of a balanced budget, they’re giving in-state tuition to illegal aliens?
•  Because they wasted months trying to infringe on Constitutionally protected rights?
•  Because now, three weeks from the end of the session, they finally consider freedom to use medical marijuana, that the Governor promises to veto? 

No, Governor Dayton, the Legislators don’t need a pay raise.

Now go away, or we shall taunt you a second time!

Joe Doakes

It’s not just that it’s been a do-nothing legislature – although it has.  Seriously – there is serious talk that the Legislature, which is fully controlled by the DFL, will have to go into special session anyway.

No, it’s that everything they’ve done this session has been extreme, divisive and destructive.

Help out fighting against forced daycare unionization. Please call your legislators – especially DFLers. Info right here.

Wanna help fight the beer tax? Here’s where you can help out.

Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network – America’s first grass-roots talkradio show – brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism, as the Twin Cities media’s sole source of honesty!

• I’ll be in from 1-3PM.   It’ll be a big show:  Hollee Saville will be talking about how you can help with the daycare unionization hearings (which are still going on).  Then, Dan Schwarz of Lift Bridge Brewing will talk about the beer tax.  Finally, Hugh Hewitt will join us to talk about our event on April 28!
• Brad Carlson is  on “The Closer” from 1-3 tomorrow. Tune on in!

(All times Central)

So tune in to all four hours of the Northern Alliance Radio Network, the Twin Cities’ media’s sole guardians of honest news. You have so many options:

• AM1280 in the Metro
• Streaming at AM1280’s Website
• Streaming on IHeartRadio
• On Twitter (the Volume 2 show will use hashtag #narn2)
• Via UStream video and chat
• Send us an SMS text message – 651-243-0390
• Good ol’ telephone – 651-289-4488
• Podcasts are now available; for my show and for Brad’s
• And make sure you fan us on our new Facebook page!

Join us!

Now that Speaker Thissen has made the eminently sensible move of getting his party out of an issue that is vital to 4% of the voters and deeply unpopular outside the 494/694 beltway – an issue that scuppered the DFL in 2002, indeed – Rep. Michael Paymar has the vapors:

Rep. Michael Paymar, a Democrat from St. Paul who authored the “Gun Violence Prevention Act,” said he was “very disappointed and very angry” that the proposal was no longer moving toward a vote on the House floor. “I think this is the kind of thing that really makes the public cynical about politicians and about the political process,” he said.

That’s right, Rep. Paymar.  You copied and pasted bills from other states, tried to ram them through after doing your damnedest to stifle public feedback, let a paid lobbyist introduce “Rep” Hausman’s bill, tried to jam your bill down on a wave of paid lies…

…in support of a bill that is considered absolutely vital by about 4% of the population, a bill that wouldn’t affect crime at all (which has been dropping faster as more people buy guns), with the aid of your buddies in the media that are perfectly happy to carry your lies without question:

Paymar painting the toenails of Jane Kay of “Moms Demand Action” (heh heh) and Representative Martens immediately after a hearing.

Why would anyone get cynical about that?

Try again next year, Mike.  We’ll be waiting for you.

As John Edwards used to say, there are two Americas.

On the subject of freedom versus safety, there certainly are.   And one of the Americas – the one that would give up liberty to get safety – is growing, and the other, the ones that are pretty hard-core about liberty?  That one’s shrinking.

Wendy Kaminer, writing a few weeks back in that noted conservative tool, The Atlantic,  noted that while in any group – especially a group of 660,000 like Boston – there will be heroes and cowards and lots in the middle, but when the heat is on, people will retreat to the comforting arms of Mother Government.

No matter what we say:

David Ortiz brags that “nobody is going to dictate our freedom,” and I assume he hasn’t heard of the Patriot Act or warrantless wiretaps, much less the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. Dennis Lehane can be excused for declaring that “they messed with the wrong city,” but don’t take seriously his confidence that not much will change: “Trust me,” he adds implausibly, “we won’t be giving up any civil liberties to keep ourselves safe because of this.”

Of course we will. We’ve been surrendering liberty in the hope of keeping ourselves safe for the past decade. The marathon bombings will hasten our surrender of freedom from the watchful eye of law enforcement. The Boston Globe is already clamoring for additional surveillance cameras, which are sure to be installed to the applause of a great many Bostonians. You can rationalize increased surveillance as a necessary or reasonable intrusion on liberty, but you can’t deny its intrusiveness, or inevitable abuses.

Every disaster – at least the man-made ones – lead to calls for less liberty and more government control.  Sandy Hook – a disaster that could have been prevented or controlled by precisely one government intervention, an armed cop (or teacher – or, for that matter, parent) led to the biggest surge in demand (real and astroturf) for paring back the Second Amendment in 25 years.

Kaminer notes the disconnect between Americans’ and their leaders’ words and their actions:

You shouldn’t deny the fear that drives the diminution of freedom. You’ll only end up looking foolish. “A bomb can’t beat us,” President Obama assured Bostonians three days after the attack. “We don’t hunker down … we don’t cower in fear.” Yes we do. Less than 24 hours after Obama left town, hundreds of thousands of us were “sheltering in place.”

Of course, the very act of living with a civil government involves giving up some freedom; getting a drivers license, paying taxes, following procedure and voting and negotiating to reach consensus with your idiot neighbors to change the rules we all go by, having a police force; all of them involve surrendering some form of liberty.  And most of us, even the most libertarian, go along with some of it, since they’re broadly considered acceptable trade-offs.

But a new CNN/Time/ORC poll shows that Americans – at least, the Americans who take polls – are willing to trade more and more:

A new poll shows a willingness by 4 out of 10 Americans to give up some civil liberties to figåht terrorism. But they don’t want the government eavesdropping on their cell phone calls or emails.

The CNN/Time/ORC International Poll shows that concerns about terrorism have increased since the April 15 Boston Marathon bombings. Forty percent say they are worried someone in their family might become a terrorism victim. That number is up 6 percentage points from a CNN poll conducted on the 10th anniversay of 9/11.

When it comes to security versus personal freedoms, 81 percent favor expanding use of cameras on streets and in public places. That’s up 20 points since 2001. Seventy-nine percent favor using facial-recognition technology to search for suspected terrorists at public events.

But only 30 percent want the government to increase monitoring of cell phone and email conversations to prevent terrorist acts. Slightly more than half, 55 percent, favor law enforcement monitoring of online chat rooms and other forums.

But commerce need not worry:

Americans are still mostly refusing to respond to terrorism by changing their routines. Seventy percent said they would not be any less likely to attend large public events in order to reduce their chances of being a victim of a terrorist attack.

This is pretty dire stuff – or, if you’re a DFLer, music to your ears.

It’s easy to take the hard-Libertarian tack; “he who trades liberty for security ends up with neither”.  And it’s true; the search for the bombers in Boston itself showed this, metaphorically speaking.  The people of Boston “voluntarily” hunkered down, “voluntarily” let their houses be searched (or so the government and media lines went) – and waited nearly a day at Mother Government’s mercy with no result, before the younger Tsarnaev was found by a civilian.

But if you’re concerned about the future of liberty in this country, the behavior of government isn’t your biggest concern – although that is truly worrisome, with the government confiscating guns, food and supplies after Hurricane Katrina, making up watch lists of average Americans involved in mundane non-left causes, police departments acting officially in ways that used to be considered “rogue” (all the while militarizing themselves to an extent that’d boggle the minds of cops 30 years ago), its behavior after Sandy, and now the Boston Dragnet.

No, your biggest concern is your fellow Americans.

Partly it’s things like the polls above; so many well-meaning Americans are willing to trade liberty for (short-term) security.

More so?  It’s the way that our larger culture is stigmatizing the very concern for liberty.

More on that later.

(SCENE:  MITCH Berg and Avery LIBRELLE meet at the coffee shop).

MITCH (Walks into store):  Hey, Avery.

LIBRELLE (leaving store holding a latte): What’s that?  You want to kill me?

MITCH:  Beg pardon?

LIBRELLE:  You hate me for my stances on abortion and gun control and you want to shoot me with your assault weapon?

MITCH:   Um, start over.  What are you talking about?

LIBRELLE:   Was that another threat?

MITCH:  I’m just here for, er, coffee…

LIBRELLE: Help!  Raaaaaaaape!

(And SCENE).

Fiction?

If only; a U of Wyoming liberal activist has been busted threatening herself with rape on Facebook.

Oh, she did it under a sock puppet “conservative” ID:

And the Laramie police weren’t fooled:

University of Wyoming student targeted by an anonymous Facebook posting that included a threat of sexual violence had posted the item herself, police said.

The university in Laramie, Wyoming announced on Tuesday that campus police cited Meg Lanker-Simons for misdemeanor interference with a police investigation by giving false statements

On the one hand, it’s an attempt to frame conservatives, especially gun rights supporters. And Lanker-Simons’ supporters are doubling down, naturally:

‘I will tell you, I believe Meg is innocent of this outrage,’ Kandt told the Laramie Boomerang, adding she believes the citation issued by police is a ‘classic case of blaming the victim.’

‘I mean, my God, who would do this to herself?’ she added.

(Ditto her husband, who answers the question “What ever happened to “RB” from those Arby’s ads?”)

It does, in fact, happen all the time; the Duke Lacrosse Team, the Tawanna Brawley incident, even (as I recall, but can’t find) a case at Saint Cloud State in the past decade or so.

On the other hand, it’s no worse than the stuff Michelle Malkin gets every day from real liberals with the tacit blessing of the Democrat establishment and media.

DFL Speaker of the House Thissen has pulled whatever was left of the Metrocrat gun grab agenda off the table.

Several Democrats, mostly in the metropolitan area, were pushing for increased background checks for gun purchases but that legislation faced opposition from gun rights groups and rural Democrats.

Thissen says he decided to shelve the bill because neither side was willing to budge.

“Both sides of the issue are still not willing to come to a reasonable middle ground so I don’t think there’s a bill that can pass the Minnesota House of Representatives this year.,” Thissen said.

Senate Majority Leader Bakk also pulled the remaining odds and ends out of the Senate agenda – and in so doing, perhaps unwittingly showed the problem the DFL has on this issue:

DFL Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk says the Senate won’t vote on a bill now that the House has decided not to act. He says the NRA and other gun rights groups were effective in their lobbying efforts.

“Public opinion would seem to support doing something on background checks,” Bakk said. “But I think when you measure the e-mail that many members receive, that public opinion didn’t weigh out in what their constituent contacts were. It was quite the contrary.”

So let’s get this straight; while official big-institutional polling showed “support” (in terms of numbers of people who said “yes” to “should we do more background checks”), in terms of actual feedback from the public it wasn’t even close?

Huh.

Chalk one up for the good guys.  The Gun Grab Agenda is dead in Saint Paul for this year. Kudos to GOCRA and, after years and years of sitting more or less on the sidelines on this debate in Minnesota, the NRA for resurrecting one of the great grassroots political organizations in the history of this state.

Take a break (to the extent Federal efforts will let you).  Rest up a little.  I have a hunch we’ll need everyone back on deck next January.

Governor Messinger Dayton responds to a little laughing and just about the mildest heckling in the history of face-to-face politics:

Contrast:  Tom Emmer responds to having a bag of 2,000 pennies dumped on him by an ofay young stooge acting with the full approval of the entire DFL:

I played hockey…and that actually got me to jump a little bit” 

And that was it.

(Not that whinging like Governor Messinger Dayton would have done any good; the DFL approved of young Robert Espinosa’s little stunt, and thus so did the media).

Note to Governor Messinger Dayton: we’re not your butlers and maids.  We pay the taxes – and those of us who pay attention notice that you and your idiot party are asking a lot of us to pay way too much.  For more and more people every day, it’s way more than this state is worth.

Anyway – I hope that noticing that people aren’t amused by your distracted noodling while your lieutenants and the special interests that put you in office gut the economy and our personal savings doesn’t scare you off from appearing in public (outside the Twin Cities metro, anyway); I’ve got some tough questions for you too.

“Heckling”, I believe you and your praetorian guard call it.

In Scandinavian society – including the parts of it that transplanted themselves to Minnesota, the Dakotas and the U.P. – there’s an aggressive modesty about people; they don’t talk much about their accomplishments; they don’t set themselves out from the crowd much; they take some pains to conceal any gains they’ve had.

Scandinavian writers christened this idea Janteloven – “Jante’s Law“.  There are really ten parts to Janteloven:

1. Don’t think that you are special.
2. Don’t think that you are of the same standing as us.
3. Don’t think that you are smarter than us.
4. Don’t fancy yourself as being better than us.
5. Don’t think that you know more than us.
6. Don’t think that you are more important than us.
7. Don’t think that you are good at anything.
8. Don’t laugh at us.
9. Don’t think that anyone cares about you.
10. Don’t think that you can teach us anything.

It’s really 1 through 4 that you seem in small scandinavian towns around the region.  When I was a kid, people that you just knew had made it big – the town’s dentist, real estate agent, whatever – took great pains to live in modest houses and drive the same kinds of cars as everyone else.  The ones that didn’t – like one of the car dealers, as memory serves?  Well, there was gossip.

Which is why Garrison Keillor’s description of Lake Wobegon – a place where all the men are strong, the women are good looking, and the children are above average – is so subtly hilarious.  Of course all of them are strong, good looking and blow the curve up – because to single anyone out, or God forbid for anyone to do it themselves, would unleash a torrent of passive-aggressive retribution.  It’s easier just to say everyone is the same.

The side effect, of course, is that all “pride” gets displaced to the community.

Kim Crockett of the Center of the American Experiment (which I traditionally abbreviate as “CAX”, but Kim reminds me they prefer “CAE”, which I think is a huge mistake, but whatever) writes (and I’ll add emphasis):

Though we find it more than counterintuitive, there is a serious conversation out there that taxes and regulations do not matter — or that Minnesota does not spend enough on education and health care. I call it the “Lake Wobegon” argument; we are so special that people will keep paying more just to be here.

I’m not sure if anyone at the DFL, with all its Chicago-y ways, ever sat down and said “let’s exploit this state’s dominant culture’s passive-aggressive communitarianism to basically browbeat and shame people into thinking “the community” is always worth whatever it demands”…

…but if they didn’t, I’m not sure what’d be different if they had.

Kim echoes something I say myself:

I think there is something to that—that Minnesota is a special place and that we have more to offer than the average state but we’ve stretched that argument past the breaking point.

I like Minnesota.  Two of my grandparents were born here (Park Rapids and Middle River).  I’ve lived more than half my life here.  Saint Paul is a wonderful place, in a lot of ways.

But…

We demonstrated that the state spends much more on K-12 education, health care and higher education than its peer states in our report “Minnesota Spending 101: Smart Budgeting for an Era of Limits” . This will be accelerated, of course, as we feel the full effects of an Obamacare exchange and expanded Medicare spending—not to mention the massive tax hikes and spending increases headed for the governor’s desk.

…the state is acting like an alcoholic relative; demanding that you cave in to its demands or maybe you never really loved it at all.

And yes, I know, I’m switching pathologies, from peer pressure to addiction.

But they both apply, really; the DFL is like a pushy alcoholic brother in law from Joliet who pushes your scandihoovian buttons to get you to cave in.

“Don’t you love our schools anymore?  Or are you more important than the kids are?”

“It’s a beautiful state.  Do you think your retirement is worth more than our state parks?”

“We’ve always been progressive, bitch.  Don’t get uppity”.

Addiction? Janteloven?  It gets hard to keep abusive codependent pathologies straight, after a while.

DFL 2010:  “Glitter-bombing Michele Bachmann and dumping pennies on Tom Emmer are the highest expressions of our First Amendment rights”.

DFL 2013:  “Heckling the governor is juvenile”.

Take a governor who rarely sets foot in front of the public, and usually leaves the “dealing with the proles” thing to his press secretary Katie Tinucci and his ex-wife’s consiglieri Carrie Lucking.

Put him in front of a crowd that hasn’t been carefully screened for obedience, with some spectators who are fighting and losing the battle to stay in the state they, for whatever reason, love – and are losing, with taxes and fees and regulations slowing eating first the ability to start a business, and finally the impetus to live here at all.

Let one of them heckle His Excellency.

What could possibly happen?

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I imagine King George felt this way about his peasants, too, right around 1775 or so.

 

 

Joe Doakes

He’s referring to this bit of video:

The Associated Press, in its capacity as part of the governor’s media Praetorian Guard, wrote:

The room apparently erupted into heckling and interruptions when Dayton was trying to explain his belief that state lawmakers should get a raise in pay.

 

The Minnesota Jobs Coalition, a Republican political committee working to unseat Dayton next year, recorded the meeting and publicized the governor’s comments.

Check out the video – or go to the piece that Joe linked, which has the longer version of the video.  Tell us if “the room erupted”.

It’s preposterous.  The crowd laughs when Governor Messinger Dayton tells them the Legislature is underpaid; a heckler points out that the legislators get a little over $31K a year for a “part-time” job – which it is (40 or more hours a week for about half the year). Dayton insults the audience.

It’ll be interesting to watch what happens with these meetings in the future.  If they happen, look for the first several rows to be pre-filled with adoring fans.  That’s what the legislature tried to do during the gun hearings, and that’s my fearless prediction.