SCENE:  Mitch Berg is at the pharmacy, refilling a painkiller prescription.    He notices a tap on the shoulder.  It’s Mr. Victor VON SCHLIEFFENBERG-MOLTKE, professional fraternity organizer, and Vice Chair for Education at the 5th CD Libertarian Party.

VON SCHLIEFFENBERG-MOLTKE:  Hey, Berg!

BERG (holding an acheing jaw in dire need of a root canal):  Hey, V-Molt.

VON SCHLIEFFENBERG-MOLTKE:  What did we say about that?

BERG:  Oh, OK.  Hey, Viktor.  What’s up?

VON SCHLIEFFENBERG-MOLTKE:  You’re a Christian, right?

BERG:  Yep.

VON SCHLIEFFENBERG-MOLTKE:  Kurt Tischer said “Everyone is born an atheist and an anarchist. People have to be taught religion and statism.”

BERG:  That’s an attack on faith, right?

VON SCHLIEFFENBERG-MOLTKE:  Of course.

BERG:  People are also born babbling unintelligibly, utterly self-centered, unable to live independently – without their family, which is the ultimate autocracy – and crapping and peeing all over the place.  Are these also desirable traits?

VON SCHLIEFFENBERG-MOLTKE:  Clearly you are a RINO.

BERG:  Clearly.

(And SCENE).

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I previously wrote that the Evil Koch Brothers were not the Number 1 largest political contributor.  Turns out, they’re not even in the top 50.

If anybody is influencing politics and buying elections, it’s not them.

Pikers.

Joe Doakes

And guess who the biggest infusor of cash into US politics is?

Over the years, I’ve been codifying bits and pieces of (mostly liberal) human behavior into what I call “Berg’s Laws”.

I’m adding a new…well, not so much “law” as corollary to a law; an observation completely supported by the law.

The Law in question is Berg’s Fourteenth:

 The more strenuously a media organization identifies itself as “fact-checkers”, the more completely their “fact checking” will actually be checking statement for congruency with liberal conventional wisdom.

I’m adding the brand-new but utterly-sensible Maddow Corollary:

The same goes for science

I did it after reading this Glenn Reynolds piece in the NYPost, pointing out the facts behind the latest blitz of self-congratulatory articles by liberals lauding themselves for their greater supposed belief in science than conservatives.

These articles always trip the BS detector, naturally; they’re like the articles pointing out the”science” showing that liberals having higher IQ, or are less racist, or other such fripperies; bad science to reinforce a bad and – more importantly – meaningless conclusion.

Of course, as Reynolds points out, the whole tendency goes a solid level of illogic deeper.  He starts by noting that in 1974, a University of North Carolina sociologist Gordon Gauchat noted that in 1974, conservatives had a demonstrably higher likelihood to trust science than liberals.  I’m going to add some emphasis: 

Gauchat points out, correctly, that you can’t lay the blame at the feet of biblical creationists and anti-evolutionists, who were no less common in 1974. Nor is sheer ignorance responsible, as the decline in trust rose with education.

So wait – the more educated a conservative, the less likely he or she is to trust science?

Why, that suggest that this lack of trust isn’t just love of snake-handling, doesn’t it?

Why yes.  It does:

Instead, he suggests that it’s the increasing use of science as ammunition for big-government schemes that has led to more skepticism.
There’s probably something to that, but if you read the actual paper something else becomes clear. Despite the language in the coverage, it’s not science as a method that people are losing confidence in; it’s scientists and the institutions that purport to speak for them.

Reynolds does what everyone needs to do when they analyze polling information; looks at the original questions.

Gauchat’s paper was based on annual responses in the General Social Survey, which asks people: “I am going to name some institutions in this country. As far as the people running these institutions are concerned, would you say you have a great deal of confidence, only some confidence, or hardly any confidence at all in them?” One institution mentioned was “the scientific community.”
So when fewer people answered “a great deal” and more answered “hardly any” with regard to “the scientific community,” they were demonstrating more skepticism not toward science but toward the people running scientific institutions.
With this in mind, a rise in skepticism isn’t such a surprise.

Of course, people today have less faith in general in “institutions” than they used to.  Journalism, the police, the courts, the government, all are less trusted than they used to be.

So has…not “science”, as in the “scientific method”, but the institutions that run it, and especially the ones that use it toward their political ends.

“Science” – in the form of institutions – earned that distrust.  And that’s a good thing – because the root of science is skepticism.

And the push to jam down the beliefs of institutions, simply because they’re institutions, is unskeptical and, beyond that, illogical.  It is in fact a logical fallacy, the “appeal to authority“, which is also unskeptical and unscientific:

We accept arguments not because they come from people in authority but because they can be proven correct — in independent experiments by independent experimenters. If you make a claim that can’t be proven false in an independent experiment, you’re not really making a scientific claim at all.

And saying, “trust us,” while denouncing skeptics as — horror of horrors — “skeptics” doesn’t count as science, either, even if it comes from someone with a doctorate and a lab coat.
After a century of destructive and false scientific fads — ranging from eugenics to Paul Ehrlich’s “population bomb” scaremongering, among many others — the American public could probably do with more skepticism, not less.

Conservatives aren’t less scientific.  After a few years of “debating” liberals, it’s painfully clear we’re more logical.

We’re just less likely to trust someone with a PhD and a lab coat who’s come for our freedom, simply because he has a PhD and a lab coat.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Our oldest son is a Senior Chief Petty Officer stationed near Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.  He sent this photo of his front yard, taken Tuesday, February 11, 2014.

They received 8-1/2 inches of new snow with sleet and freezing rain expected [late last week].

More proof of global warming?

Joe:  All evidence supports global warming.  As does all lack of evidence, and all contradictions in evidence.

(The real question isn’t so much “is the climate changing” as “if it is, would the best response be to give unlimited power to the United Nations and groups of unelected, meritless bureaucrats to sandbag the world’s economies even further at the time when they need prosperity the most”?).

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Damn that global warming, Philadelphia just broke a snowfall record.

Joe Doakes

Joe, read the memo:  it’s “darn that climate change“.

More information on Rob Farnsworth!

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 have GOP Gubernatorial candidate Rob Farnsworth on the show in the second hour.
• Don’t forget the King Banaian Radio Show, on AM1570 “The Businessman” from 9-11AM this morning!
• Tomorrow,  Brad Carlson is on “The Closer”!

(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 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 on the Northern Alliance Radio Network, I’ll be talking with special guest GOP gubernatorial candidate Rob Farnsworth. 

Also – the perils of purism in the Senate race.

That’s tomorrow on the “Headliner” edition of the Northern Alliance Radio Network, on AM1280 The Patriot!

While Michael Bloomberg’s “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” loses more members to defection (and, occasionally, conviction and incarcertation), Real America continues to rack up the wins.

This time?  The US Ninth Circuit struck down a niggling provision in California’s heretofore strict carry permit law:

California law has a process for applying for a permit to carry a handgun for protection in public, with requirements for safety training, a background check, and so on. These requirements were not challenged. The statute also requires that the applicant have “good cause,” which was interpreted by San Diego County to mean that the applicant is faced with current specific threats. (Not all California counties have this narrow interpretation.) The Ninth Circuit, in a 2-1 opinion written by Judge O’Scannlain, ruled that Peruta was entitled to Summary Judgement, because the “good cause” provision violates the Second Amendment.

The Court ruled that a government may specify what mode of carrying to allow (open or concealed), but a government may not make it impossible for the vast majority of Californians to exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember – conservatives and Real Americans are winning some battles out there. 

The rest of conservative politics needs to follow the Second Amendment activists’ lead at grassroots politics:

• Clear, specific message; no meaningless platitudes.  (This is the Victim Disarmament movement’s big handicap; all they have is platitudes.  Specifics are what kill them)
• Massive popular engagement that stays passionate and committed, year in, year out. 
• Willingness to put money and time where mouths are
• Knowing the difference between a tactical bend and a “compromise”.  More on this later. 

Study and learn.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Of the 501 (c)(4) organizations selected by the IRS for scrutiny, 83% were right-leaning.  Of those selected for audit, 100% were right-leaning.

This is known in Democrat circles as “coincidence.”

Joe Doakes

Indeed, a “random act of Goddess”.

I bike.

I’m waiting with bated breath for the “out the door” temperature to be 33 or above, soon, so I can start biking to work again.  I’ve missed it terribly (and didn’t get to do nearly enough last season).    It just plain makes me feel good.

Of course, as I pointed out a few years back when I was interviewed in the Utne Reader, it’s really not a political thing for me.  It’s just one of few forms of regular exercise that don’t bore me stiff.

Unfortunately, both left and right have opted to politicize biking.   Smart conservatives attack the political cronyism, payoffs, and mindless noodling with urban geography that Big Bike is trying to wreak on cities like the Twins.  Not-so-bright conservatives attack people who ride bikes because they ride bikes.

But for every conservative chowderhead cyclophobe, there’s a small cloud of two-wheeled human smugginess that proves the theory.

John Gilmore noted the uproar of a biker, Marcus Nalls of Minneaopolis.  Or as the “biking community” knew him, a guy on a bike assassinated by a car:

WCCO-TV had a fascinating online report about the “memorial” which focused on Nalls’ means of transport much more than the actual human being. “More than 200 riders made their way from Loring Park to the sidewalk along Franklin [where Nalls died]. There, in a solemn procession, they walked their bikes past the “ghost bike,” which is a memorial bicycle that’s painted white.”

All cults need icons and what better, more effective icon than one associated with death? A ghost bike? Was this some sort of sick joke? No indeed, as I found out to my amazement. Such sorts of “remembrances” take place throughout the country when a biker dies. There’s even a disconcerting website: http://ghostbikes.org/

Naturally, what is really going on is the narcissism of the biking community being put on prominent display for the public to see but mostly for themselves. One white bike after another: no individual, just the hope that bikers still living won’t die in a similar fashion. White bikes are the crucifixes for the secular, “spiritual but not religious” types in our midst. The dislocation of religion into environmentalism and Portlandia lifestyles is relentless.

Gilmore mentions Portlandia.

That’s one of the funniest things about that series; knowing that grimly serious people live out the parody every day.

When Minnesota’s carry law went into effect in 2003, people – some of them pro-Victim-Disarmament, some of them unaligned but curious – asked “why does the law force stores that don’t want people carrying to put up those stupid signs?”

To prevent situations like this; Dwayne Ferguson of Buffalo, NY, a “community organizer” with a carry permit, racked up a felony charge because he didn’t know that the building he was in was a no-gun-zone.

Granted, schools are generally no-go zones for carry permittees everywhere, and you’re supposed to know where to go and where not to.   But the organizer had himself campaigned for the law that gave him one of his felonies.

Which is why it’s droll hearing people who normally rail against the law-abiding gun owner defending this particular organizer:

Those who have worked with him also said they believe it was an honest mistake.

“I’m sure Dwayne went into the school not thinking he had the gun on him,” said Rev. James E. Giles, a friend of Ferguson and president of Back to Basics Outreach Ministries. “We know this for a fact, that he called out to a Buffalo police lieutenant asking why the school was in lockdown, and that they were looking for a man with a gun.

“Dwayne’s reaction was to get his kids – he had about 50 of them – and make sure they were safe,” Giles explained. “He led them into the cafeteria and closed the doors.”

But Mr. Ferguson is fairly likely screwed. Because the law is the law, even if you’re a on the left.

Unless you’re David Gregory.

Last years, I noted a number of episodes of police seemingly blazing away without much regard to actual “public safety”; a shooting incident at the Empire State building in New York City where eight of the shooting victims were innocent bystanders shot by cops responding to the shooter (who was killed after being hit several times)…

…and, most ominously, the erroneous shooting of two women during the manhunt for rogue cop Christopher Dorner.  Cops fired 103 shots at the women, who were riding in a pickup truck that didn’t resemble Dorner’s, had no weapons, and were delivering newspapers.

Both officers were cleared of any wrongdoing in the shooting.

The scary part?

It is also worth noting that, if this were Dorner in the truck, it would have been highly questionable as a justified shooting since no weapon was present or shown to the officers. None of that seems to matter. It leaves a chilling message that police are at greater liberty to use lethal force (without positive identification or appearance of a weapon) when searching for a cop killer.

Criminals, indeed, have better protections against police error and overreach than law-abiding citizens do.

…is one thing.

Doing all 100 in one 12 minute take, and with only one little tiny flub?

Now that is impressive.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

If global warming is causing the snow in Atlanta today, it must have been blazing a century ago when we saw the Great Blizzard of 1888 on the East Coast.

The prairies have always had blizzards, going back to the Schoolhouse Blizzard followed by theArmistice Day Blizzard in 1940 and the 1952 Blizzard. Nobody thinks anything of them – it is supposed to snow like mad on the prairie and that’s not evidence of anything.

But Lake Superior is freezing over for the first time in decades.  Duluth is having the coldest wintersince Kennedy was President.  That’s got to stand for something.

Joe Doakes

All evidence that supports global warming, supports global warming. On the other hand, all evidence that undercuts global warming, actually supports global warming.

There’s a pattern here.

It would be a big mistake to say “Obama has lost The Onion.” 

But two stories in the same week lampooning the President and Liberals’ bigotry against conservatives? 

That may be a first.

Just a couple of things from the news.

Crises, Crises Everywhere:  Some libs claim that conservatives are “paranoid” for planning ahead against massive public dislocation in the event of major crises.

I say “it’s only paranoia if it’s not fully justified by the minor crises“.      

On Your Neck Forever: Some libs claim that conservatives are “paranoid” for not trusting government – especially government’s intentions toward dissidents.

I say “it’s only paranoia if it’s not absolutely accurate and true“.

Imperious:  Some libs say conservatives are “paranoid” for concerning themselves with Barack Obama’s expansion of presidential powers.

I say “it’s only paranoid if it’s not playing out righit in front of us as we speak“.     Or if our country weren’t developing a two-tiered law-enforcement system – one for the political haves, one for the political have nots – before our very eyes.   

On  Your Neck, Forever – Part II:  Some libs claim that conservatives are “parnaoid” – or  even “traitors” – for believing that government and its agents need to be strictly limited, lest it run amok. 

I say “it’s only paranoia if it’s not virtually a physical law.  And if this is treason, then it’s the same “treason” our Founding Fathers engaged in.

No, you heard me right – virtually a physical law.

Yes, it is.

I’ve snickered about “E-Democracy” – the liberal-leaning non-profit that has been running email list-serve discussion forums for something like twenty years.  Awash in non-profit money, they’ve expanded (more or less) all over the place – but have pretty much been a “progressive” echo chamber for most of the past fifteen years.

Which is, I suspect, all they were ever asked to be.

I watch ’em, still – especially the Saint Paul “forum”.  Mainly for new blog material, or for warnings about Saint Paul government’s latest detour into delusion.

A group of contributors were discussing how to “save” the “soul” of Saint Paul.  By “soul”, they really meant “small ma and pa businesses” (and, by extension I suspect, the correct small ma and pa businesses; no gun stores, no motorcycle shops, no bars in “my” backyard, yadda yadda).

I responded.

———-

And by “soul”, you mean “small, local, ma and pa businesses” [1], or so I assume from the thread so far.

Simple.

And some of you are even flirting with some answers that sorta kinda make sense – but for the fact that they all rely on the agencies of politics to enable them. Meaning more “systems” for the well-connected to game [2], more picking of winners and losers by the people who are already in power. And this is non-partisan, by the way – it’s not even a Republican vs. Democrat thing [3].

But we could “save” Saint Paul’s “soul” in a breathtakingly short time – as in, make a huge start before the next Mayoral election [4]. It’d require a lot of people parking a lot of their preconceptions, and working for the benefit of *city* and its people, rather than the betterment of the city’s political class [5] – but let’s just imagine for a moment.

Here’s how you bring back Saint Paul’s “soul” – its small business community:

First: Declare a ten year business tax holiday. Not a TIF district. Not an enterprise zone. Not a tax break for businesses that fit the favored criteria, or a subsidy to get them going. No. Slash business taxes; make them the lowest in the state by a statutory ten percent. Abolish all city sales taxes. Yes – this would require some drastic, and for some painful, cutbacks at the city level [6]. But city government isn’t Saint Paul’s “soul” [7]. You want small business – and, while we’re at it, jobs and opportunity for all those kids, immigrants and poor people?  Give Saint Paul THE lowest business taxes in the state. And not by a close margin.

Second: Knock off the “living wage” talk. Many small businesses can’t afford it at all; others [8] can afford it only by hiring higher-skill workers who give much higher productivity than the traditional minimum wage worker. They hire fewer of them in the process. Why scare off small businesses? Not only should Saint Paul can the “living wage” talk, they should have a “training wage” for kids under 18 that work less than 20 hours a week *below* the regular minimums. That’ll actually make it *worth* it to hire the young and unskilled. [9] Long story short – let business pay for skills what the skills are actually worth on the open market – and let people work and learn the skills that make their time more valuable. That’s how its’ done *sustainably*.

Third: Put zoning back in its place. Quit trying to use the zoning process to create an urban utopia (according to the people in power, of course); pare it back to commonsense regulations. Especially parking regulations. It’s in the *businesses’* interest to make sure they have enough parking (why would you open a bar in a location with half a dozen parking spots?). Quit letting the NIMBYs hold the city’s economy hostage.

Fourth: Ditto regulations. Ruthlessly hack away business regulations that exist only to protect people who bent the ears of City Councilpeople 50 years ago. [10].

Fifth: Prune DSI back to inspecting for health and building-safety regulations according to *state* law.

So what’d happen?

Saint Paul would get *lots* of businesses.

Some would be chains. Yep. They have money, they invest it, they hire people and pay taxes.  You can not use government to pick winners and losers without distorting the market and making *everyone* a loser.

But you’d also get a lot more local businesses – because *they’d be able to compete* without an arm tied behind their backs! And this city would develop a *culture* of entrepreneurship – people would start businesses because *that’s what people do* in Saint Paul [11]. And that culture of entrepreneurship would open up financing, both through normal channels (the city would become a MUCH better risk for small business lending) and non-traditional (example: Asian family credit pools could start investing in Saint Paul, and start moving back from Woodbury and Burnsville. Maybe).

And that’s the *real*, *sustainable* way to “save” Saint Paul’s “soul” – create a place where someone can start at McDonald’s, learn the basics of how to get and hold a job, and then realize “Bull! I can make a better burger!”, write a business plan, find a location, and start grilling better burgers. And hiring a kid who works her way up, and decides she can do it better still. And so on.

THAT is how you “save” Saint Paul’s “soul”. [12]

So – let’s do it, shall we?

Mitch Berg
Private Sector Warrior
The Midway

[1] – Interesting term, “Soul”. Metaphysical – as opposed to many other metaphors that could describe a city. So – how are souls lost? By falling for whatever Big Lie your worldview abjures.  Like, to pick a hypothetical example, the idea that politics – which is nothing but the control over the state’s monopoly on force [13] – solves any problems without causing worse problems.

[2] – See: all the restaurants and bars owned by retired government employees that skate on their city inspections (everywhere, not just Saint Paul). Wash your hands before eating.

[3] In principle, anyway. That’s the problem with one party government; eventually you’re held accountable, even if only via your city going bankrupt on your 70-plus-year watch.

[4] It’d require different mayors and a whole ‘nother city council, of course. But work with me, here.

[5] The DFL, the special interests that support it; the hordes of rent-seekers, non-profiteers (including this very forum) and other favored members of the political class. And again, this is non-partisan; this would be equally true in a Republican city that’d been run into the ground – if you can find one.

[6] I’ve written about this before, in the past year; I won’t recap the whole proposal, but it does involve getting city government out of some areas. Kicker is, the city comes out way ahead. Stay with us, here.

[7] When I was younger and more rash, I’d have thrown in a “Carrie” or “Exorcist” joke here. But I’m clearly no longer that brazen plate-thrower.

[8] Including *both* Punch Pizza and Costco, by the way. From the President’s State of the Union! They were both terrible examples of businesses that pay living wages; Costco sells limited SKUs in bulk and locates only in fairly wealthy areas, and hires people at higher wages but with established skills (and contracts the minimum wage stuff, like working in the snack bar and handing out samples, out to subcontractors – who do NOT pay $11-15 an hour!). Punch is a high-end niche pizzeria with a high markup; time’ll tell if they succeed with the higher labor costs. But again – they also pick and choose who they hire. Go ahead – send your unskilled kid over there to apply. Let the forum know how it goes!

[9] But since this IS a city full of people who believe in living wages, start a program (privately) so that companies that pay better starting wages can advertise it on their front doors. Let ’em put big “We Start At $11/hour!” signs, so that people who DO value a “living wage” can put their money where their mouths are (and gauge whether they get the same bang for *their* buck that stores with lower labor costs provide.

[10] Classic example of this: when I was in Jacksonville on business a few months ago, I travelled almost entirely by “shuttle”. That is to say, a van. A single van owned by someone who met a minimum set of standards (four wheels, seatbelts), and kept the van clean enough to attract customers. It wasn’t a posh van, but no worse than a cab – smelled better than any cab I’ve been in, ever – and it got me around Jax quickly and cost-effectively. I talked with the driver; no serious regulations other than the same vehicle safety rules everyone has to follow (which are perfectly effective), no Taxicab lobby to worry about breaking his knees, and he makes a *solid* middle-class living driving that van between the hotels, the business district and the airport. One of them (whom I used twice, and talked with about the system) gave me a card – he does with all his customers – and told me to call him when I need a ride next time I’m in Jax. And I will.

Anyway – there is no way a local businessman could set up such business in Saint Paul. And that’s a shame; our system enriches the cab company owners, at all of our expense.  This is just one of the examples of our business regulation making it impossible to start small businesses, for the dumbest reasons.

[11] Nope, it’s not “what people do” in Saint Paul in 2014. In Saint Paul in 2014, people work for government, or work outside Saint Paul. To the extent that there is a private sector in Saint Paul, it’s some very rugged people who can weather a lot of bureaucratic BS.

[12] Or shall we just continue making soothing sounds about helping small business by using policies that have made Saint Paul one of the most business-hostile cities in the upper midwest, all the while lining the pockets of the city’s political class and its hangers-on (sorry, those of you who I just described – it’s business. Not personal).

[13] I know – some of you see politics (in the form of government and the whooooole process) through soft-focus lenses. But it all devolves back to force. Try this: Stop paying your taxes, or put a statue the city doesn’t like on your lawn, or decline to send your kid to a government-approved school. Keep at it, and sooner or later someone with a gun shows up at your door to demand compliance. You can dress it up any way you want, but that’s really the essence of all politics at the end of the day.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The federal government has rules on who gets a pilot’s license. Most pilots think the rules set the standards too high, especially for little planes used in recreational flight.

Minimum 40 hours behind-the-wheel lessons, a medical exam, written exam, oral exam, and a flying test to demonstrate not just ordinary flying, but also emergency maneuvers and navigation over unfamiliar territory, all for a private pilot’s license to fly a little Cessna. The requirements for lessons and testing get harder the bigger your airplane, or what purpose you’re flying for.

If we applied the same standards to other recreational vehicles such as boats, motorcycles and 4-wheelers, nobody would ever use one.

The feds claim they only want to ensure safety. Setting the standard so high nobody can meet it means nobody takes off, so nobody crashes, so perfect safety is achieved.

I guess that’s how they’ll pay for Obama-care . . . nobody will ever get hurt again so it won’t cost anything to heal them.

And all we’ve lost is . . . our freedom.

Joe Doakes

Obama is betting long on the idea that the only “freedom” anyone really cares about anymore is “from want”.

No, not even this.

Michael Bloomberg and the Victim Disarmament movement are going to make as much hay as they can on the issue this year…

…because  their highest profile group is fading away as we speak:

 As it has broadened its attacks on lawmakers and Second Amendment groups like the National Rifle Association, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s aggressive “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” group has experienced a sharp 15-percent drop in mayor-members.

According to a new count, the group’s membership has gone from a high of 1,046 following the shootings at Newtown, Conn.’s Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012 to a low today of 885.

That’s a fast drop of 161 members.

Watching what happened in Colorado and, yes, Minnesota has given a lot of mayors a reality check; support for Victim Disarmament is a half a mile wide and two inches deep.  The Second Amendment movement is half a mile wide and 200 feet deep and has a current that’ll pull stumps. 

Although some of the mayors are attributing it to Bloomberg’s greedy scope creep:

As they’ve left MAIG, many of the mayors have publicly assailed Bloomberg’s group, suggesting that it has gone from a group targeting “illegal” guns to one simply against guns.

The “original mission swayed,” said Rockford, Ill., Mayor Larry Morrissey as he exited. He even explained that he planned to get a concealed carry permit because his family has been threatened.

Just this week, Poughkeepsie Mayor John Tkazyik bailed. He wrote a letter about in the Poughkeepsie Journal. “I’m no longer a member of MAIG. Why? Just as Ronald Reagan said of the Democratic Party, it left me. And I’m not alone: Nearly 50 pro-Second Amendment mayors have left the organization. They left for the same reason I did. MAIG became a vehicle for Bloomberg to promote his personal gun-control agenda — violating the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens and taking resources away from initiatives that could actually work to protect our neighborhoods and save precious lives. Gun control will actually make a bad situation worse.”

Bloomberg’s offensive this year is going to be like the final banzai charge at Iwo Jima; furious, and deadly, but a dying gasp.

At least for this cycle.   

(By the way, all you Victim Disarmament activists?  We’re all against illegal guns.  Unlike Bloomberg, we Real Americans actually have done something about keeping them out of the hands of illegal people).

Employees at a small business get their first look at their insurance under the “Affordable” Care Act.

Watch the whole thing.  They look like they went a couple rounds in an MMA cage.

This is what you voted for, America.

And now you must be punished.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

If you voluntarily reduce your income to avoid paying full price for child support, you are a deadbeat Dad.  We want people to work so they can afford things like medical care for their kids.

If you hide your income to avoid paying full state income taxes, you are a tax cheat.  We want people to work, on-book, and pay their fair share.

If you give away your income to qualify for nursing home care, you are disqualified from receiving it.  We want people to pay for their own medical care, if they can.

If you cut your hours, reduce your income, move it off-book, and make yourself poor on paper . . . you get Obama-care subsidies.

We don’t want people to work?  Who’s going to pay for all the free unicorns and rainbows?

Joe Doakes

The Obama administration’s whole “reducing the need to work” schtick reminds me of a joke from the nineties; “Q:  How many Microsoft developers does it take to change a light bulb?  A:  None; Bill Gates will declare Darkness ™ the new standard”.

Every month for the past couple of years, I’ve been pointing out the nearly constant decline in the Labor Force participation numbers.

With unemployment taken out of the participation numbers, the actual share of people actually working in the economy today is as low as it’s been since they’ve been tracking the numbers.

The left has a brisk retort; “People are retiring!”   Supposedly, enough baby boomers are leaving the workforce to cause the participation rate to drop.

As if that’s good news.  Someone has to be working to pay into Social Security to pay for all those aging ex-hippies, after all!  Having historically low labor force participation rates means more debt incurred to pay for statutory entitlements that we just can’t control.

So even if that were true – the slide in labor force participation is entirely due to baby boomer retirements – then that’s still bad news.

But it’s not true.

According to Mercatus, oldsters are faring much better in the workforce than younger workers.

No – much better:

Retirees aren’t retiring – and youngsters aren’t working.

At this rate, we’re going to have a nation of 50+ workers paying both for their parents and their kids.

The DFL – at the behest of the Teachers Union, of which the DFL is a partially-owned subsidiary – hates charter schools.  They provide choice to families who find themselves underserved by the public system.

And if you’re a parent in the inner city, that’s pretty much you; your kids are jammed into public schools that by any rational standard are gross underperformers.  If you’re a minority parent in Minneapolis or Saint Paul, you send your kids to schools with two of the worst minority achievement gaps in the country (while constantly reiterating the PR pap notion that Minnesota’s schools are really, really swell).

And complete DFL control of Minnesota’s government – at least for this session – means charter schools can expect an existential threat in the next four months.

Today’s story on MPR is a bellweather of this threat.

Critics of underperforming charter schools say state law isn’t tough enough. They’re pushing a measure that would flag poor performing charters for closure.

If approved by the Legislature it would pressure charter school authorizers, the organizations that oversee the schools, to close chronically underperforming charters.

Detractors of charter schools – pretty much the DFL, the unions and their various non-profit handmaidens – constantly refer to charter school “performance” and “metrics”.

Unanswered in all of that palaver – whether any public district school could be a success, acadmically, fiscally or in regulatory terms – if they had to follow the same standards charters do.  This is especially true of larger public districts that can bury their most intractably underperforming students in “Alternative Learning Centers” – effectively getting the “off the books” for purposes of assessing academic performance.

And still the public schools languish.

Charter schools are public schools, but they are freed from some of the requirements that traditional schools must follow. By design, that autonomy is intended to allow charters to try innovative approaches like longer school days or creative curriculum.

An eighth of Saint Paul’s parents – and an even greater share in Minneapolis – have opted, via school choice, to leave the city systems; they’ve moved to private, parochial, suburban, and – especially in poor, immigrant and minority communities – charter schools.  75% or more of inner city charter students are from “families of color”, immigrants or other underserved communities.

These news stories – and legislative initiatives – are invariably based on biased research.  Example (with emphasis added):

As the charter system has grown, so have concerns over how the schools perform, academically and financially.

Overall, students at charter schools don’t do as well academically as students in traditional district schools, according to research by Myron Orfield, director of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity.

“research by Myron Orfield” means “research commissioned by and for the DFL and the unions”.  No more, no less.

“The problem is the vast majority of charters are underperforming and maybe 25, 30 percent of them are just really terrible and they go on from year to year,” said Orfield, one of the biggest critics of charter schools in Minnesota. “They’re considerably worse than the public schools.”

And some numbers can make that impression.  And some charters are, no doubt, not-hackers.

But there are three things to remember about “achievement” comparisons between charter and district schools:

• It’s A Hard Knock Life:  Charter schools – especially in the city – are frequently a refuge for students and families who’ve been shorted by the public system.  “Shorted” is a polite, general phrase that means everything from “badly served” to “thoroughly brutalized” by the one-size-fits-all public school system.  Yes, I have a perspective on this.   Of course their academic performance is lower, no matter what charter school they attend.
• Rigged:  Of course, the studies show that charters schools lag district schools in terms of raw academic performance.  Not only are a large percentage of charter students looking for a second chance (and their grades show it), but charter schools have to own their numbers; public systems have the “Alternative Learning Centers” into which they can shunt the chronic underperformers, to get them off the district’s books.  And that’s with the ones they haven’t given up on altogether; after about age 16, the big districts put very few obstacles in the paths of kids who want to drop out – which also bumps the curve up for the big schools.  The “studies” – including Orfield’s – don’t account for this.  The only meaningful measurement of achievement would follow students’ changes in academic performance – positive or otherwise – after they left the public system (controlled by comparison with kids with similar social, educational and ethnic makeup who stayed in the public system), over a realistic period of time.   
• Apples To Axles:  I’m going to suggest that if public schools were measured, financially and academically, by the same standards that charter schools have to meet (including the performance of the kids that the district gives up on, the ALC and dropouts – that a much greater share of public schools would risk being shut down.  Especially in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Duluth, Bloomington, Richfield, Robbinsdale/New Hope and the Brooklyns.