Marty Seifert’s website.

Here’s Larry Jacobs’ piece in the NYTimes.  I may be posting a refutation in coming weeks if time permits…

Info on Rep. Knoblauch’s lawsuit.

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

• I’m in the studio today from 1-3.  I’ll be talking with former House minority leader and gubernatorial candidate Marty Seifert about the race for the GOP nomination.  Then, former Representative Jim Knoblauch will join me to talk about his lawsuit against the new Senate Palace Office Building.
• Don’t forget the King Banaian Radio Show, on AM1570 “The Businessman” from 9-11AM this morning!
• Tomorrow,  Brad Carlson is  back!  Brad’ll have Marty Seifert on the show.  “The Closer” airs from 1-3 Sundays!

(All times Central)

So tune in to all six 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 my new UStream video and chat channel.
• 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!

Tomorrow, a couple of great interviews on the Northern Alliance Radio Network’s “Headliner” Edition:

First – I’ll be talking with GOP gubernatorial candidate Marty Seifert.

Then – former state rep. Jim Knoblauch will talk about his suit to block the new DFL Party Palace – aka the exquisitely-expensive Senate Office Building project that the DFL legislature jammed down in the middle of the night when nobody was looking, for a eight-to-nine-digit bill.

Remember last year, when Representatives Michael Paymar, Heather Martens and Alice “the Phantom” Hausman copied and pasted gun-grab laws from New York, Colorado and California and tried to jam them down in the Legislature?

The orcs insisted “Nobody’s coming to take the guns of the law-abiding!”

We Real Americans knew better.  We always do.

And in New York, it’s happening even as we speak:

Of course, not one incident of “violence” will be prevented.  The criminals won’t be turning anything in.

But you – provided you’re a Real American – know that.  The orcs?  Heather Martens, Jane Kay, Michael Paymar?

Their ends justify their means.

And had Minnesota’s Real Americans not staged a cataclysmic turnout last spring, we could have had virtually the same law.

And if we take our eye off the ball in the coming session, we still could.

Especially when it comes from the “Violence Policy Center”:

Or Larry Jacobs.

A Colorado Democrat Senator, faced with imminent humiliation at the polls for supporting Colorado’s wave of New-York-style gun regulations, jumped before she was pushed.

It wasn’t cowardice per se – more like Democrats manipulating the rules to stay in power:

Under Colorado law, Hudak’s successor will be a member of her own party.

 Hudak’s replacement would serve in the upcoming legislative session but would have to run for the seat in November 2014 to keep it. 

Hudak had done more than just infuriate the pro-rights crowd:

Conventional wisdom said Hudak couldn’t survive a recall: She had won re-election in 2012 by less than 600 votes, and her inartful questioning of a rape victim during a hearing on one gun bill had made her a national target of Second Amendment activists.

It wasn’t “inartful questioning” – Hudak’s thuggish, insensitive and ignorant grilling of rape victim Amanda Collins was  factually-vacant enough to have come straight from Heather Martens’ lips – but I have to believe even Martens wouldn’t be stupid enough to have done what Hudak did.  It even earned the scorn of the famously liberal Denver Post (although Hudak’s non-apology apology to Collins, arrogant and condescending enough to deserve being put on T-shirts by Second Amendment rights activists, didn’t earn specific condemnation).

In her resignation speech, Hudak said one of her key goals in resigning was to protect the gun-control legislation she and her fellow orcs passed last session.

Finishing off that seat is another item on the to-do list for second amendment human rights activists for next fall.

We’ve got a few of those in Minnesota.  Hopefully the GOP in Albert Lea has a candidate rarin’ to go to oust Shannon Savick…

Video taken from a “Sign Up For Obamacare” event yesterday evening.

Nah, it was WalMart.

Probably.

For years, I’ve been saying – half-jokingly – that gays wouldn’t achieve real equality until we saw a married gay couple on Cops, with a drunk guy in a husband-beater T-shirt being bundled into a cruiser outside a battered trailer in a ratty southern trailer park while his husband nursed a black eye and cried and yelled “I love you, Manfred!  I’ll be down to bail you out!”

But for the absence of a camera crew, a presumed dearth of ironic redneck-to-gay cross-cultural switcheroos and of course a tragic end result, we almost got there.

Lest I flirt further with insensitivity, I do in fact send my condolences to all involved.

And I am.

I am thankful, for starters, that someone posted Linda Thompson’s version. Dave Swarbrick’s nasal delivery would put me off my thanksgiving meal…

From Rachel Held Evans:

I may make it into a lawn sign.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. 

Posting will be light-ish tomorrow.

They’re not spying on us.

They’re scouring the nation for evidence of any form of Obamcare succes story. 

Soon, they’ll be turning the Hubble Telescope toward the US…

The Select Committee on Capitol Security met yesterday. 

They moved to hire some new State Patrol and rent-a-cops.   There wasn’t a whole lot of controversy there, although Representative Woodard and Senator Ingebrigtsen noted that security in the parts of the Capitol that need it is already pretty good. 

But the reason reason people paid attention to yesterday’s meeting was because Rep. Michael Paymar intended to push his proposal to ban legally-carried firearms in Capitol complex buildings (the Capitol, the State Office Building and the Judicial building). 

 More than 800 Minnesotans have filed with the DPS to indicate that they have a permit to carry a firearm and may bring their pistol into the Capitol. Originally, the draft recommendation would have required gun owners to update that notification annually; at Ingebrigtsen’s urging, that timeframe was adjusted to renewing the notification every five years, and was adopted by the committee.

In other words, you renew your notification as often as you renew your permit.  Truth be told, I already thought I had to do that…

…if, hypothetically, I had a carry permit and desired to carry at the Capitol. 

After that bit of fairly sensible legislation, it was looney-time:

Paymar argued that the fact that the Capitol had so far been spared any violent altercations was not evidence that current safety measures are adequate.

“Having a ‘cross your fingers’ kind of policy coming out of this entity, which is charged with making recommendations about public safety on the Capitol complex, to me, is irresponsible,” said Paymar, who chairs the House Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee.

Mijnnesota’s carry-permit holders are the single constituency in Minnesota least likely to cause a problem , at the Capitol or anywhere else.  Ever  Period. 

No, seriously – Minnesotans at large commit murder at the rate a little over 2 per 100,000 people per year.  There’s been one unjustified homicide by a carry-permittee in ten years; the math breaks down to .1/5 million Minnesotans/year, or .002/100,000 annually.  That’s right around three orders of magnitude safer. 

Mr. Paymar would more aptly worry about one of his Saint Paul constituents – perhaps the many supporters of terrorist-accomplice Kathleen Soliah, who live in Paymar’s neighborhood and tacitly condoned her activities in the seventies – freaking out and killing people in the Capitol than the state’s legal carry permittees. 

No, this wasn’t done because of any danger, real or perceived or even fabricated.  This was done to try to try to salvage at least a smidgen of “Protect” MN’s narrative from this past session – the addlepated notion that legislators were “intimidated” by gun owners who carried openly and legally during last spring’s epic waste of taxpayer time hearings on Rep. Paymar, Hausman and Martens’ various gun grab bills.  The staff at Capitol Security refute that idea with prejudice; ask them for yourself. 

Emphasis added in this next bit:

Ingebrigtsen pushed back, and pointed out that Gov. Mark Dayton had already said publicly he does not favor a move to ban firearms in the Capitol.

“We’ve also got the governor saying the same thing,” Ingebrigtsen said. “[Dayton] doesn’t see anything wrong with law-abiding citizens carrying handguns on the Capitol complex.”

The vote fell, 2-2 (ties are counted as defeats); Lt. Governor Yvonne Prettner Solon (there’s a trivia question for you) and Paymar voted for it, Ingebrigtsen and Woodard voted nay, SCOM justice Lori Gildea abstained (she might have to hear a court case on the issue someday…)

…and Ann Rest, a DFL Senator from Plymouth who is as electorally bulletproof as an Armored Humvee, didn’t show up. 

Don’t think for a moment that was an accident.  Even safe DFLers are nervous about the Metrocrats’ insane obsession with disarming the law-abiding. 

Not that they’re going to stop them. 

No, that’s our job.  At the ballot box. 

(NOTE TO DFL LEGISLATORS:   If I had a carry permit, I doubt I’d ever carry openly.  It’s not my style.  But feel free to be intimidated – not by any gun I’d hypothetically carry, but by the fact that I can shred through every single actual factual assertion that Heather Martens and Richard Carlbom make about the gun control issue like a riding mower going through a daisy patch, and not break a sweat.  Be intimdated by the fact that if either Martens or Carlbom debated me, or any of 500 other gun rights advocates, in a face to face, open debate, I’d fold them up like origami swans and make them scamper away like scared bunnies.  Be intimidated by the fact that I, myself, have convinced liberal Democrats that you are wrong, and I’m just getting started.  Ignore any gun I might hypothetically be carrying.  Be intimidated by the weapon between my ears.  On this issue, your side is carrying a pellet pistol; I’ve got a .44 Magnum, and I don’t mean one of those wimpy four inch barrels, either)

It’s a lazy, pre-holiday blogging day where it’s easier to post videos than actually write anything.

Don’t judge me.

Anyway – I loved this one:

This video – “And I Carry” – has been making the long-overdue rounds:

(Technical note: I don’t endorse carrying in one’s book bag. Too easy to steal…)

The surprising part? I actually found it on the MPR News site.

The local establishment media have been flogging a article in the NYTimes in which Professor Larry Jacobs – the most over-quoted person in Twin Cities media, although Professor David Schultz is breathing hard on his heels – claims “progressive” Minnesota’s outlook is better than “conservative” Wisconsin’s.

I was going to tackle it – but Jeff Peil already did, and did it just fine.

Read the whole thing – but here’s the money quote:

So what does it matter? The whole point of Jacobs’ article is that Minnesota and Wisconsin are perfect little laboratories to measure the consequences of completely opposite policies. The only problem is that they are not. What’s worse is that the consequences he cites are so cherry-picked, that Politifact, renowned in conservative circles for being vehemently left-leaning, actually pre-empted Jacobs’ drivel a couple of months ago. Politifact called it a half-truth to state that Minnesota is faring better than Wisconsin in important areas. But, you see, that does not matter to the likes of Jacobs or the Times. Walker must be taken down – sound reasoning and intellectually honest analysis is irrelevant.

The truth is that it is way too soon to see what differences, if any, exist between liberal and conservative rule. Mark Dayton spent much of his term battling a Republican majority, which, like its federal counterpart, shut the government down. Being as generous as I can, he has had about nine months to enact his policies. Similarly, Scott Walker spent the majority of his term battling a recall effort which ended up with his party losing control of one chamber of the legislature.

Economies take time to change – but the parade of suck has begun in Minnesota.

Jimmy Kimmel:

“The only time President Obama comes to LA for money. He’s like the college student who only comes home to do his laundry and steal leftovers….”

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The Norwegian Army is having Meatless Mondays, to fight Global Warming.  I’d think Norway would Welcome global warming.

In unrelated news, doctors are puzzled why tofu burger franchises can’t make enough money to pay the lease payments at airports, especially in the Deep South.  No doubt they need federal subsidies.

Joe Doakes

Maybe they should build them in Norway instead…?

Lighten up, Francis.

Most observers, Catholic or not, recognized the sea-change brought about by Pope Francis I.  An Argentinian Cardinal, Francis supposed a move left for the Catholic Church from the days of Pope Benedict XVI and John Paul II.  While Francis hasn’t shocked many with his bending on social issues, his most boisterous attacks have been on economic issues – a move leftward he restated by declaring “unfettered capitalism” a “new tyranny.”

The move isn’t exactly unprecedented.  Pope Benedict XVI voiced deep reservations about modern capitalism. In his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, Benedict reiterated “progressive” stances in areas of public unions and economic redistribution; areas often overshadowed within the media by Benedict’s undoubted commitment to baroque liturgies and traditional moral norms.  The election of Pope Francis caused everyone from full-time Vaticanologists to the average Catholic in the pew to recognize a shift, a change of emphasis and style, and a laser-like focus on poverty from the new pope.  (more…)

Obamacare will have “death panels”, just like Sarah Palin said.

This according to Ted Nugent:

“It’s built into the plan. It’s not like a guess or like a judgment. That’s going to be part of how costs are controlled,” Halperin told “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV. 

Oh, they’re not called “Death Panels” – but, as we discussed in the past, HMOs are built around the idea of “Case Management”, which means “make sure the cost of the care is commensurate with the benefit received”.  Don’t don’t transplant the liver of a 21 year old into a 70 year old alcoholic diabetic who’s already past their life expectancy if there’s  a 30 year old who’d benefit more, for an extreme example.

And no, it wasn’t Ted Nugent.  It was that noted conservative tool Mark Halperin.

If you go to the little email widget that “Protect” Minnesota uses to try to spam legislators, you’ll see this text pre-filled.  I’ll highlight the money quote:

Minnesota is one of only a few states that allows private firearms to be carried at the state Capitol without screening. In addition, committee chairs don’t have the authority to keep people from carrying guns into hearings — no matter how volatile the topic of discussion.

At the Nov. 5 committee meeting, a public safety official described and example of a concealed carry permit holder expressing anti-government sentiment and a plan to bring a gun to the Capitol. Members of the committee who support gun carrying expressed their disapproval of such behavior.
But sitting right in the hearing room was a group aligned with the gun lobby wearing Guy Fawkes masks. Nobody on the committee appeared to realize that Guy Fawkes was known for his attempt to blow up the English Parliament, and a recent movie glorified Fawkes’ effort.

The safety risk of loaded firearms is known – but the use of guns for political intimidation is becoming more brazen every year. This is unacceptable in a democracy. Our public safety officials and legislators should be allowed to know when individuals are coming in with guns and keep guns out of all or part of the Capitol complex.
It would be irresponsible to wait for a tragedy to happen in Minnesota before making our Capitol safer. Please give law enforcement and legislators who run hearings the ability to protect our free speech and our safety at the Capitol.

I have to wonder – has Representative Martens actually been to an “Occupy” rally (back when the were still happening)?  The places were crawling with those creepy masks.

But let’s take Heather Martens at her stated word.  The legislature has to guard against “Anti-Government Sentiment?”

So now Rep. Martens is trying to gut the First Amendment, too!

Here’s the letter I sent back through their little email spam-bot widget:

Representatives,

This, like everything “Protect Minnesota” has ever written or said, is a lie.

Capitol Security staff are pretty clear about it; carry permittees are the most polite, least bothersome groups of protesters that ever show up at the Capitol.

By the way – the “anti-government sentiments” Ms. Martens is referring to was a guy in a Guy Fawkes mask. Ms. Martens is filling in the details about “blowing up the Capitol” – because, as usual, she’s lying.  And, apparently, she’s no more comfortable with the First Amendment than the Second.

Please stop wasting taxpayer time participating in Heather Martens’ Joyce-Foundation-funded charades.

Mitch Berg
Saint Paul

Not sure it’ll get through, but it was fun to write.

This email came out from Rep Heather Martens (DFLiar, HD66A) earlier this week:

Dear Friend,

Tomorrow at 10:30 am, the legislature’s committee on Capitol security will decide whether to continue to let people carry loaded guns in the Capitol.

At a meeting earlier this month, it became clear that some concealed carry permit holders have used their loaded guns for political intimidation.

And there’s your lie.

There was no “intimidation”.

Go check for yourself. Call the folks at Capitol Security. They’ll tell you the Second Amendment Rights crowd, guns or no, is the very best-behaved group of protesters that ever comes to the capitol. Friendly, polite to a fault, never even the faintest shred of a problem. Which is an amazing feat with group that always numbers in the hundreds every time they show up.

Not a single problem. Ever.

Martens – as always – is lying.

It’s The Bigotry, Stupid: Martens points out that there’s some fear, classism and bigotry at work here:

A legislator on the committee expressed disapproval of such behavior.

I don’t doubt that “a legislator” might have said something like this. Some DFL Metrocrat no doubt does have an aversion to guns, and people carrying them.

But why do we pay them any more attention than we would a legislator who was afraid of black people?

It’s entirely possible some ninny is afraid of people exercising their law-abiding rights.  People get intimidated by free speech, too.  Do we dignify it with a response?  Or do we call it what it is?

(Fact:  the only “intimidation” carried out by an unelected official during the gun hearings was the loathsome gun-grabber who walked up to the daughter of a GOCRA organizer and told her “you’ll be a better person than your father when you grow up”).

But he then said nothing should be done because nobody has been killed yet at the Capitol.

Nor will they ever be – by a carry permittee, anyway. Statistically, you are at greater danger of being shot by a Democrat legislator than by a legal carry permit holder.

I Gotcher Call To Action Right Here: Martens puts out a call to her anemic, arthritic, utterly white little legion:

Please contact committee members to urge them to take decisive action. They should allow security officials and legislators to limit where guns can be carried at the Capitol.

We can’t wait for something to happen in the Minnesota Capitol building in order to make the Capitol safe. And political intimidation should be unacceptable at our state Capitol.

Once more unto the breach, Real Americans.  It’s time to light up the switchboards.

Which ones?  For some reason, the members of the select committee on Capitol Security aren’t published (or at least five minutes of googling didn’t turn up a list).  Start with the Public Safety Committee.  You know the drill.

When I left  North Dakota in the eighties, it seemed like rural America was on the verge of drying up and blowing away.

Of course, it was a historically lousy time for farmers and farming – and a time when there just wasn’t much more than that to draw people to a small town, unless one specifically sought out the small-town life.

Which I, for one, certainly did not.

Anyway – times have changed.  Not just in NoDak – perhaps you’ve heard, they found oil – but also in rural Minnesota:

Amid what has been described as a new “golden age” for farm profits and land wealth, the list of the 50 Minnesota counties with the fastest-growing incomes since 2005 includes only one big Twin Cities county. The state’s net farm income has nearly doubled, from $4.5 billion in 2010 to $8.2 billion in 2012.

The town of Jackson, in southwest Minnesota, was one of only four rural cities over 2,500 to suffer significant losses in numbers during this century’s first decade — then it landed a new employer from Europe offering 1,400 jobs.

Studying trends in retail, Craig and a colleague uncovered what they called “astounding” growth in consumer sales in regional centers such as Mankato and Brainerd, and “remarkable” increases in economic activity in many smaller communities — stiff reproofs to the “myth of rural decline and ghost towns.”

The spread of technology helps, of course. One of the worst things about small-town life, if you weren’t wired to appreciate it or didn’t live to spend your days in deer stands or on fishing boats, was the stultifying isolation. That’s much less a factor these days.

Oh, yeah – and I wrote about this almost seven years ago. Joel Kotkin’s been predicting this for a long time; as technology makes small towns, especially the exurbs, less isolated, growth will shift there.  Cities will become playgrounds of the wealthy and warehouses for the poor; everyone else will be living in Watertown.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The reason the Obama-care website doesn’t work correctly is the software is barely half written. They still need to write the code for payment systems to make payment to issuers in January.

Even if you managed to sign up using the already-written application software, you can’t actually buy a policy because you can’t pay for it. The software doesn’t exist, yet.

Richard Fernandez at The Belmont Club says: “That would explain why the system didn’t work. The president had launched a program with a lot of parts missing and apparently expected to see it function, rather like a producer who opens a movie nationwide with only the trailer completed and expects it to be a box office hit.”

Joe Doakes

But it might be how someone who’s never produced a movie except in theory might do a movie.

I’ve said this over the years, to a number of Second Amendment activists; if you’d have told me 25 years ago that the state of the Second Amendment would be as good as it is right now, in 2013, I’d have said you were nuts.

In 1987, when I first started as a pundit on the issue, Florida was the ninth “shall issue” state, and the first one with a large population.  Today, most of the country is “shall issue”, and the number of firearms has ballooned even as the crime rate has plummeted.

In 1988, it looked as if Minnesota’s pre-emption statute was in jeopardy, and that the Metrocrat autocracy would have free reign to act like pocket Daleys.

But for a view of how much things have really changed, and over how m uch time, a longer view is even more interesting:

What about the possession of pistols and revolvers — do you think there should be a law which would forbid possession of this type of gun except by the police or other authorized person?
The question was slightly changed over the years. Since 1980 it’s been:
Do you think there should or should not be a law that would ban the possession of handguns, except by the police or other authorized persons?
The current breakdown is just what Europeans would expect of Cowboy Nation. Only 25% of Americans say “Yes, should be” – versus 74% who say, “No, should not be.”

But if you think this reflects a long-standing American tradition, you’re dead wrong. Back in 1959, the breakdown was 60% yes, 36% no. Support for gun-grabbing fell almost non-stop during the ensuing decades, with just one odd reversal in 1979.

It’s too early to become triumphalistic; the seesaw can easily tilt the other way.

But it’s encouraging.

The “why” would be an interesting question to answer.  Plenty of speculation in the article, which you should read.

Our media allowed the most un-vetted, and unqualified, presidential candidate in American history to walz into the White House with scarcely a question. 

They shunted any suggestion that the federal or state Obamacare websites were catastrophies waiting to happen straight into the memory hole. 

They parrotted the Obama campaign and Administration’s (ptr) rhetoric – “The War on Women”, the “99%”, etc etc – without so much as a peep.

And they’ve tried – oh, lord, they’ve tried – to eradicate all mention of the IRS and Benghazi scandals from the public conversation.  They never happened, Winston. 

They’re participating like tail-swishing little lapdogs in the White House’s spin over SecState Kerry’s “Peace In Our Time” settlement with Iran. 

But don’t you dare tell me the American media doesn’t know what matters.

Because they totally do. 

For reals.