“…why do you care if Minneapolis creates a gun law more restrictive than state gun laws?”

Because of episodes like this, in Cleveland, which can write laws more restrictive – and idiotic – than state law.

Toronto’s crack-addict mayor Chris Farley Rob Ford is many things.

Among them; “more popular than Obama“:

According to a new Forum Research survey of 1,049 Toronto voters, Ford, who admitted to using crack in a “drunken stupor” on Nov. 5, has an approval rating of 42 percent. The Telegraph notes that though this is “a two point drop from two weeks ago, it is up from the 39 [percent] approval rating he had before he admitted smoking crack cocaine.”

In contrast, President Barack Obama’s approval rating has fallen to an all-time low this week. According to a CBS poll released Wednesday, only 37 percent of Americans approve of the job the president’s doing in the White House — a nine-point drop since October.

To be fair, Ford benefits by being mayor of a city full of Canadians.

On the other hand, I can easily see President Obama needing to triangulate his way out of this.  Perhaps with the help of Senator Booker’s pal “T-Bone”.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Instead of building State Senators a nice place to do business, we should erect pup tents.  This is a part-time legislature.  We should encourage them to get their business done and go home.  Incentives work, just need to create the correct incentives.

Also, this is odd:

“Hausman’s committee usually would have had the task of vetting and approving such a large-scale project like a new Senate office building. Instead, it was placed in the tax bill in the final hours of the session and bypassed most of the usual committee process.”

She’s a Democrat.  She should already understand that laws are passed so that you can read them later to learn what’s in them.  Why is she claiming to be confused by this now?

Joe Doakes

Representative Hausman  – who, confusingly, is listed as the representative from HD66A, which we all know is Heather Martens’ district – is a good DFL soldier.  She claims what she is told to claim.

Still, this sort of thing – jamming down a huge capital expenditure without the requisite government oversight – is a little strange.

If only this state had an institution – say, with printing presses and transmitters, with a group of people who perhaps annoyingly see themselves as a monastic class of truth-seekers, but whose job was to, I dunno, report on things like this?

You may say that I’m a dreamer…

Shelley Leeson represents Minnesotans for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

Here’s my piece on the Data Practices bust.

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 Shelley Leeson of Minnesotans for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms  about about MNRKBA’s data practices findings with the Minneapolis Police.
• 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!

The synchronized gymnastics routine by the Ukrainian trio…:

…or the Brit sportscaster, who like most Brit sportscasters I have to assume smokes three packs of unfiltered Disque Bleue a day, acting very, very blasé about it.

John Edwards was right – there are Two Americas.

In one of them, people of means can get healthcare whenever and whereever they need to.

And in the other?  All the poor mopes who are jammed into Obamacare like Tokyo subway straphangers h take whatever they can and say “please, sir, may I have more?”:

As of this week, not one of the plans for sale on New York’s health benefit exchange would cover treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, one of the world’s largest and most respected cancer hospitals.

That could mean that the 615,000 individuals and 450,000 small business employees expected to eventually get their insurance through the exchange would have to go someplace else for treatment, or pay the bill out of their own pockets.

Other premier city hospitals are in the networks of just a few of the new plans.

Now, if you voted for Obama, you should be Happy To Die Pointlessly For A More Level Healthcare Playing Field, and not bitch about it.  This was what you wanted.

For everyone else?  I’d rather keep my “substandard” plan, which doesn’t provide me prenatal care, but does, y’know, cover diseases I could conceivably get, if that’s OK.

And I’m sure it’s not.

What national healthcare system did the Heritage Foundation pass into law, again?

A little bird forwarded me this email from “Protect”MN to its mailing list.  I’ll add emphasis:

You are Invited!

What: A house party fundraiser with Protect Minnesota

When: Monday, November 25, 5:30-7 p.m.

Where: [Redacted] Fremont Ave., Minneapolis [And no, it’s not North Fremont.  Or north of 38th Street South.  If you catch my drift – ed.]

Why: To raise funds for a new campaign to change the conversation around gun violence prevention

 How: By creating a strong new campaign, we will be able to overcome those promoting a culture of gun violence

With comments from: Richard Carlbom, former campaign manager for Minnesotans United for All Families at 6 p.m.

Co-hosted By:

[Cohosts redacted]

Co-host levels available:

$250 – $500

Suggested minimum contribution: $40

And so the Carlbom era of gun control in Minnesota begins.

Before Richard Carlbom, the gay marriage debate in Minnesota was between people who believed in principle that marriage was a gender-blind civil right, and people who believed that it was a religious institution intended for the creation and raising of future generations.

After Carlbom, it became a battle between good, compassionate people who cared about rights, and evil bigots.

And that’s what the anti-civil-rights movement – and its highly-paid consultant, Carlbom – wants to do with the civil right of self defense; frame it as a battle between people who represent a “culture of violence”, and people who believe that with enough laws, we can create a violence-free utopia.

Like Chicago.  Or Washington DC.

“Protect”MN and Carlbom want the uninformed and gullible to conflate “armed self-defense” with gun violence; to lump people like this, this, this, this, this, these and thousands of others in with gang-bangers, thugs and spree killers.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The conversation I’d like to hear . . . .

“I’m losing my health insurance because of Obama-care. You’re a Republican Congressman, what are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing.”

“What? Why not? Don’t you care about people?”

“Sure, I care; but Obama-care is the law of the land, passed by Democrats, implemented by Democrats, enforced by Democrats. As long as Obama-care is the law of the land, you’re sunk.”

“Can’t you fix Obama-care to let me keep my policy?”

“I’m afraid not. The only way to fix the problem is to junk the entire plan and start over. All of us Republicans support repealing Obama-care so you can keep your insurance but Democrats in Congress and the President agree they won’t let us solve the problem. The President and all his Democrats insist that you must lose your insurance policy, pay more for a replacement policy, and probably lose your doctor, too.”

Joe Doakes

Concise, truthful, and politically devastating among voters who are smart enough to be allowed the right to vote.

Obama’s poll numbers are crashing – as in, post-Fallujah-George-W-Bush crashing.

He’s cratering fastest among women – who were, along with African-Americans, the lynchpin of both of his victories.

Tammy Bruce looks over Obama’s collapse among women:

The unfolding realities of Obamacare and its destruction of health insurance plans and personal, patient-doctor relationships confirm women’s fears that health insurance under Obamacare is not superior, but is quite inferior to health care they were free to choose before this regrettable law was in force. What women voted against in 2010 has come true, and we’re not happy about it. This may come as surprise to Mr. Obama and the people in his inner circle, but women’s health care involves more than sound bites and pithy one-liners.

With all the bad news descending on Mr. Obama as a direct result of his high-handedness and deceit on Obamacare, surely nothing could come as a greater shock to him than that women, the one constituency he has relied on the most, other than blacks, refuse to be swindled out of their health care freedoms and to be used to help perpetrate this massive fraud on the American people.

Well, I for one will believe it when I see it.  In particular, single women who don’t have children are among the most querulously gullible liberals there are.   They fell for that “vote to protect your lady parts” bilge in epic numbers, after all.

But maybe there’s hope.

Minneapolis has always wanted to roll back Minnesota’s “Pre-emption statute”, which prevents city governments from enacting gun laws different (especially more stringent) than state law.

And they’ve been lobbying to change that as long as I’ve been aware of the issue – and that’s getting to be a long time, now.

“Ron V” of the Minnesotans for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms blog notes that the City is not above lying through its teeth to try to do it.   Mr. V writes:

The (post Sandy Hook) Minneapolis City Council Legislative Agenda on Firearms recommendations were prepared by Melissa Lesch, Intergovernmental Relations Specialist, and WIFE OF REP. JOHN LESCH (66B DFL), who was one of the MN legislators leading the gun control charge in the Minnesota legislature post Sandy Hook.

[Minneapolis Police Department assistant chief Matt] Clark testified before the city council at the request of Melissa Lesch/IGR. Included in the recommendations from Melissa Lesch/IGR was full support for Obama’s extremist federal gun-grab agenda. The Legislative Agenda ultimately approved by the city council included:

–A plan to use the city’s weight to lobby the state legislature for the repeal of the state pre-emption provision currently included in Minnesota’s right-to-carry law (MN 624.714).

Meaning, the city of Minneapolis wants to be able to override state law and set its own ordinances in regard to permit holders and gun owners who live in, travel through or visit the city of Minneapolis by implementing ordinances to:

—-Require concealed carry and outlaw open carry by lawful permit holders within the city limits of Minneapolis;

—-Ban lawful carry from parks and public buildings within Minneapolis;

—-Ban common use semi-automatic firearms and standard capacity magazines within city limits;

—-Require that permit-to-carry applications be approved by local police chiefs (returning to arbitrary “may issue” standards);

—-Deny the 2nd Amendment rights of any person who has experienced a “mental health incident that required the intervention of law enforcement” or anyone who has ever been placed on a 72 hour hold;

—-Add additional regulations to the transfer of firearms;

—-And a number of other vaguely worded recommendations designed to allow infringement of 2nd Amendment rights

Nothing new, there.

Here’s the rub;  Minneapolis is lying, via its police department, about the data it’s using to try to convince the legislature.

Here are the verbatim statements made by asst. chief Matt Clark during the testimony:

—-“We’ve had incidents where handgun owners have had handguns taken away from them. Where they have lost those firearms because somebody knew they had them on their person, and they specifically took it away from those individuals.”

—-“What we’re looking for… is that if you have a permit to carry a firearm that it [be] concealed in public. We have a lot of calls from constituents, individuals, residents, visitors that are very ‘shocked and surprised’ to see a handgun on somebody out in the open…”

As to the latter?  In parts of this world, people are “shocked and surprised” to see same-sex couples, women without headscarves walking without male relatives, or Jews without Stars of David on their person.  We don’t dignify any of those, either.

But it’s the former that Mr. V went after:

Following those statements by asst. chief Clark in January, I immediately made several attempts to contact asst. chief Clark and chief Harteau, as well as the MPD public information officer, to request the data upon which Clark’s testimony was based…After multiple attempts over several months to get the information, I NEVER received a response from Clark or Harteau, and finally filed a Data Practices Request with the city of Minneapolis to get the information on which his testimony was based.

Mr. V requested the info and math behind the dates, places and case numbers of incidents where people openly carrying firearms had their guns stolen – and of course whether they were carry-permittees carrying legally at the time.

And the result?

In total, the response to my Data Practices Request for the cases used as the basis for Clark’s testimony to the city council includes 15 incidents between 2000 – 2012 where a firearm was taken during a crime incident, NONE OF WHICH INCLUDE an incident where a firearm was taken from a lawful permit holder while open carrying in a public place. The 15 incidents they tried to palm off as citations for Clark’s testimony include:

–Six (6) Robbery of dwelling (that’s NOT a permit holder lawfully open carrying in public…

–Four (4) Car-jackings (that’s NOT a permit holder lawfully open carrying in public…

–Two (2) Business robberies where a store gun was taken (that’s NOT a permit holder lawfully open carrying in public…

–Two (2) Random street robberies where one female had a gun in her purse, and the other, which made the news last spring, was a guy randomly attacked who had a permit but his gun was concealed in his pocket …

–One (1) incident where a holstered firearm was taken from a victim IN HIS OWN YARD BY SOMEONE HE KNEW (that’s NOT a permit holder lawfully open carrying in public…

If “ProtectMN” and its official minions couldn’t lie, they’d be silent.

Well, not “conservative icon”, per se. 

But Ann Coulter makes the case that he’s not just misunderstood, but on the right side of not a few issues.

You be the judge.

Michael Paymar is leaving the House:

State Rep. Michael Paymar announced Wednesday he will leave the Legislature after his current term expires.

 

The St. Paul Democrat is the chairman of the House Public Safety Committee; his district is considered safe Democratic territory.

No.  New York under Boss Tweed was “safe Democrat territory”.  Michael Paymar’s Highland Park, a part of Saint Paul that ponied up seven figures in donations for Kathleen Soliah’s defense fund, is a whole level beyond that.  The DFL could endorse a bag of dog food and get 60% of the vote, and most of the voters would say the bag of dog food made perfectly good sense in the debates.

Paymar collided this year with his party’s leadership over whether to change Minnesota’s gun laws. His bill to expand background checks and restrict gun purchases stalled when House leaders declined to call a vote.

Well, no.  It stalled when Paymar’s (and Hausman’s, and Rep. Martens’) copy-and-paste gun-grab bills served their purpose to the people who paid for their offices.

Best of luck, Representative Paymar.

I was going to title the piece “Rep. Heather Martens:  Her Lips Are Moving” – but now that Protect MN has hired Richard Carlbom, the PR father of gay marriage in Minnesota, I have to upgrade my approach.

Because while Representative Martens has never made a substantive true claim in all her years of working for victim disarmament in Minnesota, it’s time to start tracking Carlbom by the same standards.

An email went out to “Protect”MN supporters the other day.  Here was the money quote:

Click here to sign the petition urging our lawmakers to renew the Undetectable Firearms Act before it expires on December 9…

… Guns without a certain amount of metal can slip by metal detectors in public places. There is no reason responsible gun owners would need to have unconventional weapons like these. The Undetectable Firearms Act keeps guns that evade critical security measures off the streets. The law is set to expire on December 9. We urge legislators to renew the Undetectable Firearms Act to keep these dangerous guns away from airports, courtrooms, and other public places.

Now, the fact is that no such weapons have ever been produced.

And not only does every single gun owner know it, but so do the Feds.  Neither the Departments of the Treasury or Justice have ever enacted any regulations pursuant to the “Undetectable Firearms Act”…

…because there’s nothing to regulate.

Zilch.

The “Undetectable Firearms Act” is an utterly empty gesture.  It affects no crime.  It affects no manufacturing.  It is yet another empty gesture that groups like “Protect”MN flop in front of their ill-informed followers to give their shapeless concerns some rallying point.

I responded to the petition:

It’s not. This is empty legislation – even the feds have not bothered to enact any regulations due to this “act”, because *it refers to weapons that don’t exist*. There ARE no “undetectable firearms”.

“Protect”MN is lying. Again.

I think that sums it up.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The Obama Administration sicced the IRS on TEA Party-related fundraising groups so they couldn’t raise money to get the Conservative message out to voters for the 2012 elections.   It was voter suppression at the front end, by muzzling First Amendment rights.

 

Wisconsin Democrats are applying the same principle on the local level, harassing and intimidating Conservative groups to suppress their fundraising.  Expect Dog Gone to screech about the Koch Brothers any minute now, under Berg’s Law.

 

Joe Doakes

Sad to say, I do expect it.

Time was, people on both sides valued a vigorous debate.

That was before the Democrats were taken over by Alinskyites.

…these days, that whenever I wonder “whatever happened to…?” about some person from some scrap of history, the answer will pop up online before too long.

Monday, I wondered – for the first time in decades, probably – “whatever happened to Cecelia Cichan, the four year old girl who was the sole survivor of an airliner that crashed in, I think, Detroit?”

And sure enough, badda bing, there we go.

Everywhere I go – from the radio show to the grocery store, and even on different floors of my home – people ask me “who are all these characters, fictional and otherwise, that pop up on the pages of your blog?”

Some of them are from my series of satiric dramatizations.   Others are actual writers on this blog.

Now – for the first time – a complete list of this blog’s personalities, real, imagined and not quite sure which, can be found here. 

Maybe it’s just me – but at around this point in the past few election cycles, it’s seemed that the media has undertaken a campaign to try to give liberal Christians a little boost of self-esteem.  Perhaps to help them feel like they matter in the big scheme of things.

In 2007, the media burned a slew of cycles trying to make the case that there was a burgeoning movement of liberal evangelicals.  Of course, it came up “meh” at the polls.

Now, I’m a Presbyterian.  I am because of the denomination’s theology – not because of its politics, which are (at a regional and national level) almost smug enough to be Episcopal.  Note to any conservative Presbyterian sects breaking off from the PCUSA:  have your people call my people.

Today’s liberal-Christian superstar is and media darling is Nadia Bolz-Weber.  She’s got enough tasteless ink to pass for a bartender at the Seventh Street Entry…

…and she swears in the pulpit, so as to not “be a hypocrite”

Walter Hudson breaks down the reasons Rev. Bolz-Weber is wrong.  You need to read the whole thing.  But here’s the money quote:

No one who knows God would want to associate Him with filth. That’s why Christian pastors shouldn’t swear from the pulpit, not to “pretend to be something they’re not,” but to glorify who God is.

And that’s the problem with so many of the examples of “liberal christianity” that I see in the media (and conservatives, in too many cases, as well); it’s not about glorifying who God is, but reassuring themselves about who they are.

Which, if you’re a Christian, really really really isn’t the point.

(Also – you want a tattoo, have a tattoo.  But that much ink just looks really really really stupid).

“Scary? Honey, you’ve managed to make them boring, which is a much greater feat.” — Glenn Reynolds.

Context?  Sure, here you go.

Government officials wouldn’t…lie to the public to try to whittle back the Second Amendment.  Would they?

Tune in tomorrow morning on Shot In The Dark.

Two of the gun-grabbers’ favorite conceits:

• It’s guns – not criminals – that make the “inner city” dangerous (this pronounced always by unctuous white liberals like Jane Kay and Representative Heather Martens, who live in places like Linden Hills and Crocus Hill after doing their stint at Carlton or Saint Thomas)
• Nobody ever foils a crime with a gun

Both lefty memes were, um, shot full of holes earlier this week:

The victim of an attempted robbery in St. Paul took action when one of the robbers pointed a gun at him, firing his own gun and wounding one of the robbers.

No, it’s not Mario Van Peebles gone terribly to seed. It’s Michael Galloway, alleged accomplice to robbery. Photo courtesy of the Saint Paul Pioneer Press.

One of the robbers [Marcel Lee Galloway] simultaneously fired in the direction of the victim, who was not hurt, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday.

Galloway was hit in the leg.

Yep – it was justified.  And in John Choi’s Saint Paul, you gotta figure the County Attorney’s office did its darnedest to prove it wasn’t.

The article relates that two men – listed as “VT” and “TG” – got off work in downtown Minneapolis, where they work as bar bouncers.  They drove to a check-casheria on University at Lexington, by the White Castle, around 3AM to cash their checks:

VT, who is 31, saw two males approaching them as he walked to the passenger side of the car and heard the sound of a gun racking a round. A man in a baseball cap, later identified as Galloway, pointed a gun at VT and told him not to move. VT told TG, who is 26, not to move because he feared they would be shot if they did.

The two scumbags lifted TG’s money.  VT hid his wallet before they could get to him.  The robbers frisked him, and found nothing – which has been known to make robbers upset.  I add a bit of emphasis:

“VT was afraid that he and TG were going to be shot” and reached under the passenger seat to grab his SIG Sauer P250 .45-caliber handgun, which he has a permit to carry, the complaint said. “VT feared the two men didn’t believe him when he said he didn’t have any money, and he was afraid they might come back.”

A SIG/Sauer P250 in .45.   Relatively inexpensive, reliable as the rising sun (like all SIG products), and – most importantly of all – at the scene.

The robbers crossed into a Dairy Queen parking lot and the man in the stocking cap raised his handgun and pointed it toward TG and VT.

VT then fired at the robbers, the complaint said, and the man in the stocking cap simultaneously fired once in VT’s direction. VT fired five times and his second shot struck Galloway.

The gunman ran off.  The police caught Galloway.

A couple of bets to place, here:

• The ninnies at “Protect”MN will list this as an example of “inner city gun violence” – even though it was self-defense.  Just watch.
• “VT” will turn out to be African-American, Latino or Asian.  And yes, there are Asian bouncers.

Any action on that bet?

By the way – while it wasn’t a “homicide” (Calloway will live) this is yet another defensive gun use carried out by Minnesota’s 160,000-odd carry permit holders.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Bankers were seriously panicked over the last shut-down, fearing government might actually stop paying welfare.  Bankers were willing to fund the welfare system while Democrats kept ratcheting up the hysteria to force the Narrative on the public.  How much of the bankers’ war-gaming was spent lobbying Republicans to turn the spigot back on?

Like the illegal drug business, banking is so immensely profitable that there is nearly no way to take them down from the outside.

And what happens in January, when the short-term-agreement ends?

For Christmas, all my kids are getting bricks.  Of .22’s.

Joe Doakes

This country does need a serious realignment.  Of course, every splinter party and every faction thinks the same thing. The problem is making sure the right splinter or faction drives that realignment.

Also – Joe, you’ve actually found .22LR?

In past months, I’ve showed you how not only big-media-alum group-blog MinnPost, but “No Rant, No Slant” Minnesota Public Radio are on the take from the Joyce Foundation – which funds “Protect MN”, the anti-rights group run by Rep. Heather Martens.  I speculated that it might be the reason that MPR has been so incurious about Martens’ astroturf group, and why the MinnPost – with all its pretenses to legitimate journalism – spent the past year giving Martens a public tongue bath.

I asked – does this involvement go any higher in the Twin Cities’ “progressive” political world?

I asked, and Bill Glahn answered – ten months ago.  Joyce is a huge financial backer of “Take Action MN”, a non-profit that verges on being a political party in its own right, a descendent of “Progressive Minnesota”, which had its own unseemly connections with “non-partisan” institutions.

Glahn:

The Joyce Foundation of Chicago, Illinois, was founded by Iowa lumber heiress Beatrice Joyce Kean.  This $760 million foundation has been involved with TakeAction since near the beginning of the Minnesota non-profit’s existence.  Joyce’s 2006 Annual Report (p. 25) shows a grant of $350,000 to be paid out to TakeAction over two years, “To develop and promote a political reform agenda focused on campaign finance, judicial, and voting rights reforms.”
Joyce’s 2009 IRS Form 990 reveals that the $350,000 grant to the 501(c)(3) TakeAction Minnesota Education Fund was renewed in 2008 for two additional years, “for ongoing efforts to reform and strengthen democracy in Minnesota.”[12]
Joyce’s 2011 IRS Form 990 reveals that, yet again, the $350,000 grant to the TakeAction Education Fund was renewed in 2010 for two additional years, “For advancing a political reform agenda that encompasses election administration, voting rights, campaign finance, redistricting, and judicial independence.”[13]

The Joyce Foundation’s website indicates that the TakeAction Education Fund received an additional $150,000 in 2012 for one year, “For advancing a democracy reform agenda using legislation, community organizing, movement building, coalition work, and unexpected alliances.”
Unexpected alliances?  In any event, the seven-year total of grants from the Joyce Foundation to TakeAction equals $1,200,000.

So let’s break this down:  The Joyce Foundation heavily sponsors “Progressive” non-profits, including “Take Action MN”, “Protect MN”, and (I strongly suspect) “Common Cause MN”.

And they pour money into at least two “non-profit” Minnesota media outlets that have pretensions to respectability; Minnesota Public Radio and the MinnPost.

I’ve sought comment from both organizations in the past, without success.  I’ll try again.

All of this carefully obfuscated money going to support “campaign finance…reforms” is one thing.

Going to buy friendly media coverage?

And finding willing takers, in an industry whose “code of ethics” tells journalists who avoid financial entanglements in their “journalism?”

The surviving Pythons are going to get the band back together.