Word is starting to leak out; a number of GOP politicians are flirting with supporting the idea of the National Popular Vote.

Let me be blunt:  This idea must be stomped, and stomped some more, until the convulsions stop. 

This is an utterly wretched idea, favored by liberal plutocrats with deep pockets to give the nation’s population centers a stranglehold on presidential (and eventually, all)  politics.

The National Popular Vote means that presidential candidates will not, ever, need to campaign in flyover land.  They need only to play to the coasts.

It completely guts the “protection of minority states” that the Electoral College has given this nation, to its immense benefit.

Need a reason to oppose it?  Here are seven to start with, all of them worthy of a rhetorical death sentence. 

The campaign to institute it has been sneaky, under the radar, and not a little bit sleazy.  The supporters are clearly trying to gull a mass of low-information voters (swaying them with talk of “majority rule”) without fully airing out the consequences. 

It’s even sucked in a number of Republicans who should know better.  I’m not naming names.  But it’s going to happen, sooner or later.

Republicans:  I, for one, will support an NPV supporter about the same time I support a gun controller.   You support NPV?  We’re going to have a pointed conversation. 

This shall not pass.

In the eternal battle between crony controlled, politically endorsed monopolies and new service is popular among hipsters, a Minneapolis City Councilman has proposed – well, suggested – the unthinkable.

The Minneapolis city Council match in a public hearing to determine how to deal with the difference in regulation between the city sponsored taxicab monopoly, and the new ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft. Some cities have opted to back the monopolies.

. But in Minneapolis, the ordinance sponsor, Council Member Jacob Frey, said after the hearing that he doesn’t yet know if that’s an option but he is open to considering relaxed taxi regulations.

What will those Democrats think of next?

First, some history.

Untangled:  Back in 2010, when the DFL last controlled the Legislature, the media credentialling system was a shambles.  The Senate Rules specifically listed the media outlets that had permanent credentials – the major metro newspapers, the state’s various TV and major radio stations, MPR, the Legal Ledger and a few others.  You could count them on your fingers and toes, if I recall correctly (and I may well not).  However, any Senator could vouch for any “reporter” they wanted, and give them essentially a “day pass” to get into the gallery, the press room, and onto the floor (at a table reserved for the media between gavels, and out on the floor proper outside the session).

It was never much of an issue until the mid-2000s, with the growth of an alternative media.  Suddenly, new media – blogs, talk radio, and video and audio streams – began demanding a place covering the Legislature.  Being part-timers and hobbyists, most of us only needed credentials on a situational basis – but others, flush with activist budgets, had the time and manpower to make it a full-time “job”.

In 2010, the DFL made a hash of things; they credentialed “The Uptake”, a stridently progressive video-blog, but denied a day pass to Saint Cloud conservative talk host Dan Ochsner.

After the legislature flipped in 2010, the 2011 session began with tat following tit, with the GOP initially getting payback and ejecting the Uptake from the Senate.

Michael Brodkorb, brand-new in his job as Senate GOP Comms czar, took matters into his own hands.  While Michael’s a polarizing figure even inside conservative circles these days (and someone I still consider a friend), he undertook a really superlative project; give the Minnesota Senate the best, most open, transparent media credentialling process in the United States.  Period.

With that in mind, he enlisted left-leaning journo David Brauer, a few capitol comms staffers (including Senate DFL comms guy Beau Berendson and, briefly, then-House-DFL communications person Carrie Lucking, in her last gig before becoming Alita Messinger’s propaganda minister) and yours truly to craft a new Senate media credentialling rule.

I chronicled the process leading to the new news credentialing policy, from conception to passage into the Senate’s permanent rules, in a series of blog posts.

One of the rules was as follows (and it reads this way in the Senate’s permanent rules today):

Organizations owned or controlled by registered lobbyists, political parties or other party organizations (defined as organizations registered with the Campaign Finance Board or the Federal Election Commission) shall not be granted credentials.

It seemed pretty clear at the time.  In fact, it still does.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t controversy.

The Point Being:  the issuance of press credentials, and the (limited) access they give you to Senators on the floor, is non-partisan.  Utterly, utterly non-partisan.

So when the Strib’s  Baird Helgeson notes in a story about a credentialing tempest in a Senate teapot that…:

Republicans have questioned Senate press credentials for the left-leaning Uptake, while Democrats are critical of press credentials for conservative blogger Mitch Berg.

…that everyone – the Republicans questioning Uptake, the “Democrats” who bagged on me [1] , and I suspect Helgeson himself – misses the point.

Anyone can get credentials – provided they aren’t “owned or controlled by registered lobbyists, political parties or other party organizations”.

Credentials are issued by the non-partisan Sergeant At Arms – the eternal Sven Lindquist, who’s been there close to thirty years, through every possible combination of political power.

Seems simple, huh?

Muddied:  Shawn Towle is a Saint Paul would-be pundit.  For years, he ran the website/protoblog Checks and Balances.

More recently, he’s “famous” for reportedly having tweeted a link to an anonymous photo of a former Minnesota legisator – a female conservative, naturally – in her underwear, apparently while doing a little galavanting, as they used to say.  Did Towle publish the photo?  Let’s assume it fell out of the sky and hit him on the head, for all I care.  Either way, the episode was one of the more disturbing bits of “gotcha” “journalism” I’ve seen, part of a wave of (and I say this with all due respect to Towle as a journalist) prurient panty-sniffing from Twin Cites left-leaning alt-media, thinly disguised as diligent reporting (about the private and semi-private lives of female conservatives and, it seems, nothing more).

But that was last year,  We have a new controversy.

Helgeson  notes that Towle has been paid nearly $40,000 in the past few years by the DFL, including money just before the current session:

DFL Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk’s “failure to disclose political payments he made to a member of the credentialed press is dishonest and damages the integrity of the Senate,” Senate Minority Leader David Hann, R-Eden Prairie, said Monday. “How can the public trust what’s going on at the Capitol if the reporters are being paid by the politicians?”

There are really two points here:

• Why does the DFL feel the need to pay Towle – who, according to sources in the Capitol, apparently shows up at GOP Senators’ press conferences acting like a Reagan-era Sam Donaldson?  They don’t have enough mainstream media to do the job for free?
• I’m not sure that this story affects the public trust in the Senate – there are bigger reasons, like a $90 million office building and three years worth of lies about property taxes to do that.  But one might certainly wonder what Shawn Towle’s angle is.

Helgeson:

Hann is demanding that Bakk have Towle’s press credentials revoked. The press passes allow journalists to get on the Senate floor during debates, but they do not grant any special access to members.

It’s a little more complicated than that – it allows access to the press gallery, to press office handouts and info and – when space is available – to a small table on the floor (limit: 6) during the debates, with precedence given to the permanent press corps members that rent space in the basement.

But it’s not much more complicated than that.

An Aside:  Helgeson’s piece has this curious interjection:

Despite Hann’s insistence, Bakk had no role in getting Towle his press credentials.

Helgeson is talking for Bakk?   I mean – according to whom did Bakk had no relationship with Towle’s credentials?

Of course, it’s irrelevant, or should be.  You don’t need connections to get press credentials anymore.  That was one of the goals of the rules we passed in 2011!

And while Bakk needn’t have had any more role in Towle getting his credentials than in me getting mine, Bakk most certainly knew and had plenty to do with the fact that…:

• The Senate paid Towle
• The arrangement broke the Senate rules.

Dwelling in the Irrelevant:  Helgeson:

Towle said he actually got his Senate credentials when the Republicans controlled the body and Hann was an assistant leader.

Around that time, Towle was also on the payroll of the Republican Party of Minnesota’s payroll. The state GOP paid Towle a combined $15,000 in 2010 and 2011, records show.

Towle, in many forums (including in a phone conversation with me, over the winter when this story first came out) keeps repeating that he’s been paid by both sides.  The DFL is leaning on the same point:

DFL Senate Caucus Communications Director Amos Briggs points out that Towle has “been credentialed under DFL and GOP majorities, although you will notice that the credentialing authority named in the rule is nonpartisan.”

All of it is true – and it’s irrelevant.

When Towle was first credentialed, up through the beginning of the 2011 session, there were no formal rules against paid lobbyists or affiliates of lobbying organizations or parties being credentialed.  That restriction began in 2011, well into the session.

The partisanship – or even the bipartisanship – of Towle’s contract employment isn’t the issue.  It’s the fact that under the post-2011 Senate rules, he’s getting paid by any political organization.  Period.

And some observers get this.  The City Pages’ Aaron Rupar spoke with the Senate’s sergeant at arms, Sven Lindquist – the non-partisan staffer whose office is in charge of issuing press credentials.  Lindquist notes…:

“In the case of Towle, if he is working for one or both political parties — and I would have no knowledge of that — the rule does state that he should be responsible [and let us know about] any change in his reporting status,” Lindquist said. “What I’m hearing now about this, it will have to be looked at further… we’ve never had to go down this path before.”

Lindquist said the one significant thing a Capitol credential allows reporters to do is to “have access to the Senate chamber, and with God as my witness I’ve never had [Towle] attempt to gain access to the Senate floor, and he’s been credentialed since perhaps ’99 or 2000.”

During most of which time, up to 2011, partisan affiliation wasn’t an issue – or, rather, it was as much an issue as the party controlling the Senate wanted to make it.

So To Sum Up:  Does Shawn Towle get paid by the DFL?  So it seems.  Hey, a guy’s gotta earn a living.

But the problem is in Tom Bakk’s office.  Bakk either thinks “rules” are for mere mortals, or he isn’t in control of what his staff is doing.

I’m dying to find out which.

[1] I’d like to challenge Mr. Helgeson to show me a single Republican since 2011 who’s given a rat’s ass about The Uptake.  As to Democrats and yours truly?  The only Democrat I’m aware of who’s whined about my credentials was Mark Gisleson, one of the DFL’s intellectual thought leaders and former blogger and current “where are they now”-fodder.

Republicans.

At our best, we are the party of individual rights, liberty, and limited government.

At our best, we are the party that actually believes in the original intent of the United States Constitution – including all ten amendments of the US Constitution.

At our best.

But the GOP isn’t always at “its best” – or, perhaps more accurately, politicians end up making compromises.

We had both on display this past week at the Capitol.

Senator Branden Peterson, Roger Chamberlain and Sean Nienow – three solid conservatives – co-authored Senate File 2466 with DFLers Bobby Joe Champion and Scott Dibble.  The bill, if passed into law, would require law enforcement to have probable cause and a search warrant to locate and track peoples’ cell phones via GPS. 

This is in line with the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution – which says we have an inalienable right, endowed us by our creators, to safety and security in our homes, papers and possessions, and that the burden is on the government to prove via due process that it has a compelling legal reason to need to do things like track our whereabouts.

And in a rare display of near-unanimity – and a rarer-still case of a useful bit of bipartisanship – the Senate voted for the bill 56-1 (see page 8233) – a vote that put Lyndon Carlson side by side with Roger Chamberlain, and Dave Osmek with Sandy Pappas, politically as well as alphabetically.  The lions laid down with the sheep.

All but one.

Senator Bill Ingebrigtsen, GOP from Alexandria, was the sole vote against the bill (see page 8232).

Why?

He’s been quoted saying “If you’re following the law, you have nothing to fear.”   The quote – assuming it’s accurate and in-context – is an unfortunate one; in all the millions of pages of state and federal laws and regulations that exist, surely everyone is a criminal in one way or another these days.  And even if that’s not the case?  That’s just not the attitude a government that governs a free association of equals should ever view law enforcement.

I emailed Senator Ingebrigtsen for his side of the story.  He responded very promptly, and I’ll carry his response in full:

There were already search warrants in place for this Law Enforcement function. This basically didn’t change much at all. Also this has nothing to do with pbone conversations between anybody. It is technology that aids the cops in locating a person registered to a specific phone. Again, no wireless tapping for voice. It would be used to locate abducted people, known offenders who are stupid enough to keep their cell phones on them after committing a serious crime. In defence of the bill, it does allow emergency personel to use if it’s determined a medical emergency or for lost kids.

So my vote was to not deter the possibility of other LE agency from wanting to obtain this very, what could be life or death, tool.

Again, LE has always dealt with evidence and how it is obtained with the search warrant process. Without this, they don’t have a case

I appreciate the response, and the answer.  He’s right about a couple of points; it doesn’t cover tapping phone conversations (as some assert), and warrants already cover most telecommunications, officially.

I disagree with it, of course; while as Ingebrigtsen notes the law already calls for search warrants to tap phone calls (and their attendant GPS data), there are loopholes; SF2466 closes them.  And as the NSA scandal shows us, the “official” legal stance doesn’t always govern how government actually handles its powers.  That overreach was what this bill was intended to forfend, at the state level. 

As far as finding children goes?   I’m not sure if the law allows parents to consent to searches for their childrens’ phones without need for a warrant – perhaps my lawyer readers can sound off about that – but that would certainly be a statute most could support while still defending our Fourth Amendment rights.   (And I can’t imagine a judge hedging on signing a search warrant for a missing child if a parent or guardian couldn’t be reached in an emergency). 

So I understand and respect Senator Ingebrigtsen’s reasoning – but disagree with it strongly.  And I’m happy that the GOP was able to lead this bipartisan effort that, in a dismal era for civil liberty, struck a tiny blow for the good guys.

That’d be “all of us citizens”.

1988:  Carl Rowan, the WaPo columnist with a long record of vicious attacks on the idea of civilian gun ownership, shoots at a teenager who was in his swimming pool.

2012:  Barack Obama, while claiming the GOP is fighting a “War on Women”, pays his female employees much less than his male staff.

2013:  DFL rep Ryan “Eddie Haskell” Winkler, who routinely attacks the integrity of his opponents on issues of race, calls accomplished jurist Clarence Thomas “Uncle Tom”.

2014:  Media Matters, a George Soros-funded attack-PR firm which has spent years railing against “Right to Work” laws nationwide, brings in the big guns as SEIU tries to unionize MM4A’s underpaid drudge-workers:

Media Matters has retained a law firm whose focus is representing management in labor disputes. It’s forcing its employees into a secret-ballot election, which is the kind of vote card-check proponents like the good folks at Media Matters decry whenever Republicans insist it’s important to maintain.

But the year is still young!

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

An Old White Guy is married but has a much-younger mistress. He’s rich enough to give her a condo and Bentley and fool enough to think he can order her around. He told her he doesn’t mind her cheating on him: she can sleep with her other lovers, just don’t embarrass him by posting pictures of those other lovers online or bringing them to LA Clippers basketball games because his Old-White-Guy buddies tease him about it. His wife found out and is suing the gold-digging mistress to get the stuff back. So the mistress secretly taped the old guy and released the tape to the gossip sites to gain advantage in the litigation. So far, sounds pretty normal for Hollywood, right?

Oh, did I mention the mistress is Black? And the Old White Guy owns the basketball team?

The media is ablaze with news that racism has been found in America. The league is investigating. Al Sharpton will lead a rally. The players wore black armbands while they lost the game. Even President Obama – halfway around the world – felt the need to comment. Everyone is outraged that America is such a horribly racist place.

Except . . . it’s pretty weak beer. The guy is 80 years old, a relic from two generations ago. He was having a private conversation with his mistress, asking her not to cuckold him in public, which seems a reasonable request from a Sugar Daddy to a Gold-digger. He has owned the team for 20 years and has never been accused of racism before. In fact, the NAACP was all set to give him a Lifetime Achievement Award in two weeks, which means he must have been doing all the right things in race relations up until this point. He’s a private citizen, not a US Senator and Kleagle in the Ku Klux Klan. Okay, yes, he has unfashionable opinions; but he’s not exactly representative of mainstream America today.

The whole thing reminds me of Oprah claiming to be discriminated against while she was shopping in Switzerland, just in time to promote her new movie. If these Extortion-by-Race incidents are the best examples of racism to be found today, then we can pretty well conclude that actual racism in America is dead and gone.

Joe Doakes

whatever Sterling’s views – and everything I’ve read so far strikes me as he’s the kind of casual, not especially ideological racist that a lot of people were in that generation, even if you leave out the whole “sugar daddy/Golddigger” thing – he’s basically this year’s Trayvon Martin; a bone to be chewed in yet another Democrat “base turnout” campaign.

One of the problems with the current “universal consensus” among “climatologists” in re Global Warming, leaving aside the legitimate questions about the science involved and, beyond that, the political conclusion that the “science” is driving, is the track record of “settled science” from a previous generation of scientific chicken littles.

That’s right – the assembled brain trust of scientists from the original “Earth Day” (whose 34th or 35th go-around was last Tuesday), and the “settled science” of their predictions:

1. “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” — Harvard biologist George Wald

15 or 30 or 60 or 120…heck, it’s gonna happen someday…

2. “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.” — Washington University biologist Barry Commoner

Vague, untestable…settled!

3. “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.” — New York Times editorial

Vague, general, unprovable…settled!

4. “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” — Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich

Reading an Ehrlich article when I was probably 7-8 years old (in Readers Digest) scared the crap out of me; it gave me nightmares for weeks.

But one of the biggest problems facing the poor of India, Sub-Saharan Africa and China -today is obesity – which brings another meaning to “settled science”.

Oh, yeah – Ehrlich is one of the leading lights of the global warming movement.

5. “Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born… [By 1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.” — Paul Ehrlich

The eighties was when KFC made it to India, if memory serves.

6. “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” — Denis Hayes, Chief organizer for Earth Day

But while we wait on that mass starvation, we’ll have to deal with a lot of overweight poor people.  We humans are men and women of constant sorrow, aren’t we?

7. “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions…. By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.” — North Texas State University professor Peter Gunter

Wonder if they ever proposed “Nuremberg Tribunals” for population bomb “denialists”?

8. “In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution… by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half.” — Life magazine

What would “Miami Vice” have been like if everything looked like Seattle?

9. “At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.” — Ecologist Kenneth Watt

To be fair to the esteemed Mr. Watt, it has been “a matter of time” since the creation of the universe.

10. “Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.” — Paul Ehrlich

But only at Paul Ehrlich lectures.

11.“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate… that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, ‘Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, ‘I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’” — Ecologist Kenneth Watt

One wonders why the esteemed Mr. Watt thought someone would be waiting around the pump, in that case…

12.  “[One] theory assumes that the earth’s cloud cover will continue to thicken as more dust, fumes, and water vapor are belched into the atmosphere by industrial smokestacks and jet planes. Screened from the sun’s heat, the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born.” — Newsweek magazine

One wonders if the esteemed editors of Newsweek ever pondered that as the “water vapor fell and froze”, it would leave the atmosphere…?

13. “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” — Kenneth Watt

Huh.

The weekend saw not just one, but two bits of epic anti-2nd-Amendment bias in the Strib.  And not in the columns, mind you – it was in the “news”.

Contestant Number One:  Matt McKinney:  McKinney, whose coverage of the Darin Evanovich shooting in 2011 we spent so much time assailing back in the day.  Last week, he wrote about the Byron Smith trial in Little Falls.  Smith is accused of ambushing two youngsters who were breaking into his home.  Again.  The two -Haile Kifer, 18 and Nick Brady, 17 – were apparently not visiting Mr. Smith’s home for the first time.

How many times?

McKinney (with emphasis added):

The Little Falls homeowner had suffered a few break-ins in his home and his adjacent property in the fall of 2012, but didn’t go to the sheriff’s office until after an Oct. 27 break-in, when a shotgun and rifle, as well as other items were stolen from his home.

“A few break-ins” may have been a half-dozen or more.

How many break-ins is a person supposed to cheerfully endure?

To be fair to McKinney, it appears to this non-lawyer that Byron Smith broke one of the absolute rules of self-defense.  While he was not a willing participant, he had no “duty to retreat” in the home, and he may well have had a reasonable fear of being killed or maimed, the idea that he may have shot one or more of the burglars after they were down and no longer a threat may have been the one mistake he made.

On the other hand?  The Strib ran the story on a Saturday.  When the jurors weren’t sequestered, and could read McKinney’s heart-rending elegies to the victims.  Er, burglars.  Why would they do that?

And the County is charging him with first-degree murder – as if he’d been specifically planning to kill the two.

Why, it almost seems like the Strib has a desired verdict.

No – that’d be crazy talk.

The Second Contestant:  Baird Helgeson:   The Strib’s Helgeson wrote last week about the Schoen-Latz bill to take guns away from domestic abusers.

It’s not so much that the issue doesn’t warrant attention – domestic abuse is ugly and prone to violence.  Most people – even shooters – support some provisions to disarm people who are legitimately suspected of domestic abuse, with due process.

It’s the words “legitimate” and “due process” that are the clinkers.  Many – maybe most – domestic abuse charges brought during divorce proceedings are inflated or false, intended by angry spouses and sleazy divorce lawyers to try to skew the proceedings.   The accused – usually men – are often treated as guilty until proven innocent.  And even a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction is sufficient to disarm someone for decades, maybe life.

So most shooters agree – disarm the violent, but give people due process.

The responsible anti-gunners and the Minnesota 2nd Amendment community have been negotiating over a current bill for a while now, trying to make sure everyone’s concerns get addressed.

So look at the tone of Mr. Helgeson’s piece.  I’ll add emphasis for things like cheerleading and repeating Heather Martens’ chanting points under the guise of “news reporting”:

Minnesota could be on the verge of breakthrough changes in some of its gun laws.

“Breaking through…” against what?

Until now, no restriction on gun ownership has been too small to draw the fierce opposition of gun rights groups and their supporters.

“Small” to whom?  This blog spent a lot of time last year showing how big the “small” restrictions actually were.  That is, apparently, of no interest to Helgeson.

Just a year ago, a proposal for broader background checks for firearms purchases was crushed at the Capitol despite attempts to weaken the bill enough to get it approved.

“Crushed” sounds so…bad.  How about “defeated”?

This time, a rank-and-file police officer — who also happens to be a DFL House member from St. Paul Park — is leading the effort to take all firearms, including rifles, away from those who stalk or abuse their partners. His careful ­legislative campaign is winning surprising support.

Notice how Helgeson is framing the issue?  Gun rights supporters are tyrants, “crushing” and “weakening” legislation from the plucky, reasonable underdogs of the DFL!

The narrative is served!

He has a powerful partner — Republican Rep. Tony Cornish, a retired police officer and the Legislature’s most outspoken advocate of gun rights. He ­regularly carries a handgun into the ­Capitol.

Presumably as “the Darth Vader March” plays in the background.   That plucky Dan Schoen!

The bill, which has run a gantlet of House committees, faces its most serious test Monday, when the full House is scheduled to vote on final passage.

Now, if I were a reporter exercising my personal biases, I’d say the bill “slithered through a series of House committees where members, weary of defending bad gun bills from well-informed citizens, gave it a solid working-over”.

But good bills “run gauntlets”.

Here’s the interesting part – and perhaps the part the Minnesota anti-civil-rights lobby would prefer Helgeson not have written:

The proposal would put Minnesota at the leading edge of a larger national movement that, after meeting with defeat on more ambitious proposals, is aiming at narrow niche victories in areas with broad public ­support, such as preventing domestic homicides.

Leading the way to “Victory” against the big bad shooters!

That is, of course, Michael Bloomberg’s current strategery – to kill the Second Amendment with a million cuts. 

I wonder if Helgeson would be so excited about laws that tossed biased “journalists” out of the trade?  Probably not – he (and I) would likely turn into civil libertarian absolutists.

Narrative alert!

The bipartisan nature of the measure has drawn the attention of DFL Gov. Mark Dayton, a devoted gun owner who has been leery of tightening Minnesotans’ right to own firearms.

The left trots that out whenever Dayton needs to appear “moderate”.  He’s a “devoted gun owner” – but not one of the icky bad ones!

“It’s not perfect, but it’s getting there,” said Rob Doar, a lobbyist for the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance, which has dropped its objection to Schoen’s bill. “We agree with making sure the guns get out of the house,” so long as there is ample due process.

There is some question as to how accurately Helgeson related Doar’s quotes.  I’ll be talking with Rob about this soon enough.

Studies show that half of all domestic abuse homicides in Minnesota over the past three years involved a firearm.

“I absolutely believe without a doubt that lives will be saved by this,” said St. Paul City Attorney Sara Grewing, whose office handles about 1,000 domestic violence cases a year.

All likely true.  But they’re significant for what they set up:

“The gun culture of this country is so disturbing,” said Marree Seitz, whose daughter Carolyn was shot and killed by her husband several days after filing for divorce in 1996. “So much of the domestic abuse is so flammable, where the littlest thing can set the person off,” she said. “The accessibility of the weapons makes it such a natural thing.”

It’s as if Helgeson thinks he’s writing a buddy movie – the unlikely good/liberal cop bad/conservative cop taking unlikely sides against “the gun culture”, personified by all those unwashed gun maniacs that swarm the Capitol “crushing” and “weakening” their precious gun laws.

And yet they try soooo hard!

Legislators were still working on the proposal late in the week, ensuring that gun advocates could approve the changes.

The measure puts opponents in the difficult and politically dicey position of defending gun ownership rights for domestic abusers and stalkers.

Right!  And in case any of you missed it, Baird Helgeson was there to say it’s so!

The measure has strong support from Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the country’s largest gun violence prevention advocacy organization.

Not to be confused with “gun control group”.  Good heavens, no.

The group was founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has poured millions of dollars of his personal fortune into the cause.Just this month, Bloomberg pledged an additional $50 million to try to match the NRA’s formidable membership base, lobbying force and campaign organization.

That’s good ol’ Bloomie; just another plucky billionaire underdog, fighting against those millions of regular middle-American nuts!

“Clearly, we ran into a buzz saw last year,” said Paymar, who runs a nonprofit organization aimed at reducing domestic abuse. “The environment was toxic at the time.”

Regular citizens turning out and making their opinions crystal clear = “toxic”.

Good to know.

Now It’s Time To Vote!:  Who wins the first ever “Strib Bias Pageant?”

Results will be announced tomorrow. Vote early and often!

…a “Moms Demand Action” rally…

…with paid, armed security guards.

Because their lives are worth protecting, you know.

Not yours, silly peasant.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Eric Roper is a reporter for the Star Tribune.  He lives in Minneapolis but has no car.  How does he do itand is his solution right for all of us, as the Minneapolis City Council seems to believe?

Items to consider:  The reporter is single, he lives on a bus line, he works downtown where the buses go, his work hours are flexible, he has no family or friends outside the city to visit, and he grew up in New York where nobody has a car so he’s used to making do without one.  Plus, he evidently makes enough money that when he wants a car, he rents one.

Eric can afford to spend Time instead of Money to get around.  That works for single, childless, affluent, flexible, downtown residents, what we used to call “Yuppies” in the olden days.  I agree, Yuppies shouldn’t own cars.  For everybody else . . . .

Joe Doakes

I’ve noticed that about transit advocates and activists; they tend not to have kids. No after school activities, no unplanned doctor appointments, no friends just outside easy walking or safe biking (in the city) distance. And working in an industry that, largely, isn’t downtown.

Back when I had kids at home dependent on me for transportation to everything planned and unplanned, I used to dream about daring a transit advocate to try to survive a week of my life using nothing but buses.

Julia Schliesing on “Call Me Mental“.  Here’s more about Julia and her mission with the Childrens Miracle Network.

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!

• Today, Brad Carlson is filling in for me from 1-3 PM.
• I, on the other hand, will be doing Brad’s show on Sunday from 1-3PM.  I’ll talking with Margaret Martin of the Taxpayers League about the annual Tax Rally, sponsored by a lesser radio station.   I’ll also be talking with Julie Schliesing, Miss Minneapolis 2014.   And I’ll spend some time talking about the left’s war on the Western Intellect – a war they’re winning in a depressing number of ways.
• Don’t forget the King Banaian Radio Show, on AM1570 “The Businessman” from 9-11AM this morning!

(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!

Well, at least as re: radio!

I’ll be at a CD Convention on Saturday, so I’ll be swapping shows with Brad Carlson.  Brad’ll be on tomorrow, and I’ll be in Sunday. 

On Sunday’s show, I’ll be talking with Taxpayers League president Ted Lillie about the upcoming Tax Rally (sponsored by a lesser station), and of course with Julia Schliesing, Miss Minneapolis 2014. 

And we’ll be talking about the left’s war on the Western Intellect.

Tune me in Sunday on the Northern Alliance!

One of the key tenets of being a late-seventies, early eighties musical “rebel” was rejecting not only the bland corporate rock and jet-set superstars of the seventies, but affecting a studied boredom with the sixties.  The Beatles were fun, but they were old news. The Stones had turned into a multinational enterprise more famous for their glam lifestyle than any actual music they’d done since 1972 or so.  Don’t even start talking about the Moody Blues, the Dave Clark Five, Herman’s Hermits, The Hollies, Gerry and the Pacemakers…

But there were two survivors of the British Invasion that still demanded respect.  The Kinks (of whom more later), who were sort of like the garage band we all wanted to have, run by Ray Davies, the same too-clever, too snarky, too-cool-to-be-a-hipster kind of guy we all aspired to be (or better yet, little brother Dave, the guitar anti-hero who spawned many a punk imitator)…

…and The Who.

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Chicago TV reporter leaves the studio, and The Loop, long enough to absorb a little bit of life in Chicago’s Democrat-addled slum neighborhoods – and is amazed to see signs of a war zone, in a piece entitled with glorious cluelessness “Bulletproof Subways A Sign Of Violent Times?”: 

Just another day at Subway in Chicago

While out on an unrelated assignment, CBS 2 investigative reporter Dave Savini decided to stop by a South Side Subway sandwich shop for a meal.

Savini was struck by the fact that the counter of the store at 116th Street and South Halsted was encased in bullet-proof glass.

Such a sight would be common at crime magnets like gas stations or currency exchanges, but a Subway?

One wonders where these media hamsters have been the past 15 years. 

The first restaurant I saw bullet-proofing its employees’ work area was a White Castle on the 1/9 in Newark (hell yeah, I ordered) back in 2003.

More amazing, perhaps?  The KFC near Abbot Northwestern in south Minneapolis had a completely enclosed bullet-proof counter in 2005. 

No wonder the Chicago bloodbath has gotten so little media coverage; not only do the media lick Rahm Emanuel’s shoes clean, but none of them have the foggiest idea what goes on in their city.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Dorsey lawyer’s Strib editorial on residency requirements for income tax purposes doesn’t make much sense. Not surprising, as it’s plainly self-interested on three fronts – keeping in good with the Tax Court and with Democrat politicians, as well as keeping her wealthy clients after they move out-of-state.

First, she says the law on residency hasn’t changed and it’s not a problem. Then she says two recent notable cases weren’t a big deal and the losers should have lost. But then she says she supports the proposed change in legislation because people who move out of state shouldn’t have to switch lawyers to prove a change in residence.

Hey, either the law was fine before, or the critics were right and the tax court has turned this state into the Hotel Minnesota: once you live here you can never leave, you’re always a “resident” for income tax purposes.

I agree with the critics: the present law is overly broad, inconsistently applied and antiquated. The only reason we still have it is Democrats want to tax rich people wherever they live, however slight their connection to this state and the present law is a fig leaf to justify it.

Joe Doakes

rumors that the DFL wants to tax everyone who has ever been a professional athlete in Minnesota are exaggerated.

Probably.

Throughout this series, I’ve referred to Kevin Williamson’s year-old classic, The End Is Near And It’s Going To Be Awesome.

In it, Williamson – perhaps the best political-philosophy writer doing business today – notes that politics is the worst possible means to allocate resources among a population, in large part because politics, alone among life’s institutions, is immune to evolution.

Politics never evolves – or does so slowly, and only in response to political, rather than market, pressure.

It’s as if a species of animal governed its genome by committee – changing and evolving and mutating not in answer to nature’s stimuli, but according to decisions made by committee.

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It’s the 50th anniversary of the Ford Mustang – one of automotive history’s great successes.

A few years ago, during a live NARN broadcast, James Lileks and I discussed how, if the “green car” movement ever, ever wanted to catch on with mainstream America, it needed to build an electric or hybrid version of one of the great sixties muscle cars – because they weren’t just cars; they were celebrations of life, and especially of the sheer joy of the American tradition of not just mobility, but mobilitywith style. 

The only car that’s come close, so far, is the Tesla Model S…:

…which is a good start, although modern safety and fuel economy regulations pretty much make sure every car on the road looks like a photoshopped Ford Taurus these days.   The Feds wouldn’t allow the immortal Pony to be built today!

Here’s a look at 10 great Mustangs through history.

MNSure, the state’s catastrophically badly-executed health insurance portal, has hired Deloitte Consulting to try to fix the state’s ailing website.

Pity Deloitte:

Deloitte was a top contender in 2012 for the contract to build the online health exchange, whose rollout was marred by ongoing technical problems. It has built successful state-based insurance exchanges in Connecticut, Kentucky, Rhode Island and Washington.

Yeah, good luck with that.  It’s much easier to build something right the first time (kudos, Deloitte) than to tear apart and rebuild someone else’s botched job.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

College costs too much so students take loans. But there are no jobs so graduates can’t repay the loans. But the federal government made the loans so they cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.

An alternative is for private investors to offer to pay your college in return for your promise to work for them in the future. Some already are doing this.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla) wants national legislation to legitimize the program and add safeguards.

Cripes, you can’t even trust Republicans to keep their greasy mitts to themselves. Look, Marco, you’re a US Senator. The US Government student loan system is busted. You are one of 534 people in the world who can do anything about it. But no, you’ve got your eye on “helping” private investors and students use an alternative arrangement. They wouldn’t need an alternative arrangement in the first place, if you were doing your job and fixing the busted system.

Joe Doakes

The idea – investors “investing” in students in exchange for future earnings – is a fascinating one.

The Fed’s involvement will quickly make it a hopeless mess.

The sun rose, blue, in the south.

A v-shaped formation of pigs descended onto a lake near my office.

And MPR’s “Poligraph” actually out-and-out called Mark Dayton “misleading“:

It’s true that the legislature passed and Dayton signed $508 million in tax relief this session, and that the bill will benefit a wide swath of Minnesotans.

However, to say that these tax cuts are new is a bit of a stretch. Nearly half come from making sure Minnesota’s tax rules match federal tax rules. And in part, there won’t be a lapse in those tax benefits.

Another large part of the bill comes from repealing sales taxes that were put into law only a year ago, one of which hadn’t even kicked in yet.

Finally, it’s important to note that Dayton and the DFL legislature raised taxes last year, too, to the tune of $2.1 billion. That means Minnesotans will still be paying more than they used to, though some will be paying less.

Dayton’s claim leans toward misleading.

In the same sense that Michael Jackson “leaned toward” weird.

But let’s not split hairs.  It’s MPR, actually coming out and saying Dayton’s “tax cut” claim is BS.

Never thought I’d see it.

SCENE:  Mitch BERG is walking through the garden store looking for organic potato seeds.  He spots Avery LIBRELLE, over in the tomato section.  BERG turns and tries to quietly leave, but LIBRELLE turns and sees him.

LIBRELLE:  Merg!  (Hurries over toward BERG)

BERG:  Oh – uh, hi, Avery.  What’s up?

LIBRELLE:  I read your stupid piece yesterday about the supposed decline of logic. 

BERG:  Yeah? 

LIBRELLE:  The first thing I thought was “It’s only Berg.  Who cares what he has to say?”

BERG: In other words, the ad hominem…

LIBRELLE: Oh, shush with all your Greek words.  It lowered my self-esteem for a bit – until I realized something; an argument can be fallacious but still be logical!

BERG:  Er…sorta.  You can use logic to persuade people of something that’s not true.  I mean, that’s basic rhetoric.  But the problem is in the audience’s ignorance, or the lack of information they have, or…

LIBRELLE:  Exactly!  Logic is one of those things lawyers use to hide the truth.  Anyway – what I do is, at the beginning of an argument, I ask “What is the truth”.

BERG:  Er…OK.  So before the debate starts, you find out….what…

LIBRELLE:  I find out whatthe truthis.  And then I run with that. 

BERG:  OK…so you just ask “what is the truth, here?”

LIBRELLE:  Yep!  Because the truth of something isn’t related to how well it’s argued!

BERG:  So you figure “I’ll just go straight for the truth”.

LIBRELLE:  Yep.  Truth is truth, whether people or know or discuss it or not. 

BERG:  Huh.  And so how do you find what is “the truth”?  Say we’re on a jury, and the prosecution has their version of what happened, and the defense has a different version of what happened.  Do you just ask the judge “what is “the truth” here?”

LIBRELLE:  Well, empirical evidence helps.

BERG:  OK, now we’re onto something!  Where does “empirical evidence” come from?

LIBRELLE:  Western Thought!  And modern western thinking started when thinkers became willing to consider the illogical!

BERG:  Good lord – the process of getting “empirical evidence” is called “the scientific method”, and it is built on classical logic!   And then when your evidence leads you to a conclusion, you have to convince others that your conclusion is valid!  And logic is how you build a valid argument that focuses on fact!

LIBRELLE:  Just like Johnny Cochrane did! 

BERG:  Er, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” was part logic, part rhetoric.  It was closer to marketing than classical logic…

LIBRELLE:  I demolished you with that!

BERG:  Look – logic is how we convince ourselves, and others, what the truth is.  For example, if I’m trying to convince you that “Stand your Ground” laws make sense, I would show you, logically, how such laws are immediately correlated with drops in unjustifiable homicide…

LIBRELLE:  …and then I call you racist!  Because I read something in the Daily Kos that said so!

BERG:  Er… (slowly backing away) I hadn’t thought of it that way… (notices that LIBRELLE has started chewing on a tomato start.  BERG slowly turns and walks away .

(And SCENE)

(AUTHOR NOTE:  While the names and flow have been changed, the conversation above actually happened with a liberal on Twitter.  Yes, it did.  Remember; the left are the smart ones).

Now, I’ve never been much for bashing on people who are different than me.

Gays, in particular.  While I am a committed straight breeder, bashing on gays for their orientation has never really interested me.

And when the whole genre of gay-baiting humor, to say nothing of hatred, went out of style (except in the world of all those democrats who produce hip-hop, naturally), I breathed a muted sigh of relief.

So we’re all good.

Now, gay movement; could you please see to these hatemongers?  Before someone gets pissed and starts putting on “Pranciest Fairy” contests again?

Because “H8” really does cut both ways.

Thanks.

To:  The English-Speaking World
From: Mitch Berg, Angry Language Purist
Re:  Lunchtime Frenzy of Anger

Dear World:

Chipotle.

It’s pronounced “Sha-POTE-lay”.

Not “Sha-POLE-tay”.

See to this at once or suffer the consequences.  Flaming, shrapnel-laden consequences.

That is all.

So as we discussed in the first two installments, there are plenty of reasons Americans aren’t enamoured with each other these days.  There really are two Americas – one that believes that the road to all good things leads through government, and one that pays at least lip service to the idea that we’ve a free association of equals and that our government operates by consent of the governed.

We’ll come back to that.

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