I’ve been saying it for years.  It hardly bears saying again.

Heather Martens of “ProtectMN” – the gun-grabber group that used to be “Citizens for a Safer Supine Minnesota” – has never, not once, made a true, factual substantial statement about the Second Amendment or guns in America (barring the odd number or bit of trivia). 

Not one.  Ever. 

We’ve been documenting this fact for about a decade now.  The lies come in ones and twos, and sometimes in gale-force flurries.  She lies about criminals and about how criminals operate in the face of determined resistance; she lies about the law-abiding (no, lots, and lots more, sometimes reverting to puerile slander); she lies about her political opponents, and about elections, and, lately, about the results her “group” has on the public discourse.

She’s exploited race, she’s exploited crime victims,

And yet everytime a firearms issue crosses the public threshold – as they have been, this past two DFL-clogged sessions – the media beats a path to her door.  And not just the media that are paid for by the same people that pay Martens’ bills, or the little daisy-chain of lefty alt-media that paint Martens’ toenails when they get the chance.  No, even the mainstream media, the reporters who may or may not know anything about firearms but may try to do a fair job, whose editors want to see two sides to a story and don’t know an anti-gunner in Minnesota other than Martens (or the even less credible Jane Kay or Joan Peterson).

Still, that was then.  This is now. 

So as we head toward another session, I thought I’d reiterate my thesis:

Heather Martens has never
made a single true, substantial factual assertion
on firearms or the Second Amendment

I thought I’d demonstrate that ineluctable fact by taking a stroll through the ProtectMN website, as of today (11/19/14). 

The only real recent output from Martens is her post-election wrapup piece; the title alone, “Gun Sense Takes Big Wins in 2014 Midterm Elections”, is one for the ages. 

Yep, Heather – it was just a spectacular election day for the gun-grabbers:

In Minnesota, gun violence prevention champions Gov. Mark Dayton and Sen. Al Franken won re-election over NRA-endorsed opponents. “This election shows that campaigning on gun violence prevention is good politics in Minnesota,” said Heather Martens, Protect Minnesota’s executive director.

Dayton spoke a lot more about his support for hunting, and about the “two .357 Magnums” he supposedly keeps at home, than about background checks in both of his elections. 

 In Washington State, voters approved a ballot initiative to require background checks for gun sales, despite the NRA’s efforts to defeat it.

Martens is right about this, as far as she goes.  Of course, this issue may well turn out to be in Washington (at least the rural half of the state) what it was in Colorado.  Stay tuned. 

 In other races around the country, gun violence prevention champions won Senate seats in New Hampshire, Maine, Illinois, and Michigan.

In other words, some Democrat Senators held some safe Democrat seats where guns are not an issue. 

 In Pennsylvania, NRA-endorsed Tom Corbett was unseated by gun violence prevention champion Tom Wolf.

True – but guns were not on the top ten list of reasons that office flipped. 

The loss of Sen. Mark Pryor in Arkansas shows that trying to win the friendship of the NRA by voting against sensible gun laws is a bad idea. Pryor voted against the Manchin-Toomey background check amendment. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, the NRA spent $2.9 million this election to defeat him anyway.

So – replacing a Senator that got a C- (earned in part via the vote on the idiotic Manchin-Toomey) with A-rated Tom Cotton was a “victory for ‘Gun Sense'”, then?

Huh.

Rep. Dan Schoen, DFL-St. Paul Park, sailed to victory despite being targeted as “anti-gun” by the Minnesota gun extremist PAC.

News flash:  Democrat wins easy victory in Democrat district. 

Schoen authored legislation in 2014 to get guns away from domestic abuser, a bill that won overwhelming bi-partisan support.

Huh.  And did Heather Martens mention that Schoen’s bill got “overwhelming bi-partisan support” after, and because, he worked with the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance to turn it into a law that would help victims rather than merely punish gun owners without due process? 

No?

In the 8th Congressional district, Rep. Rick Nolan won re-election over Mills Fleet Farm scion Stewart Mills. A major campaign issue was Nolan’s support for background checks on gun sales. “Rep. Nolan proudly supports common-sense gun violence prevention. His opponent represented the interests of the gun industry,” Martens said.

I don’t live in the 8th, but while I did see lots of photos of Nolan posing with shooters, including a few strategically placed “assault rifle” owners, I don’t recall any talk (outside of safe DFL havens) about “background checks”. 

Perhaps this needs to be made more public for 2016? 

“This is in line with the nationwide success gun sense candidates had in this election.”

“Nationwide success” like anti-gun Democrats losing the Senate, falling further behind in the House, watching their leads among minorities whittled away to the lowest level in a decade, falling to under 40% of state legislative chambers, seeing their gains in Colorado erased largely due to Second Amendment issues,   (after a series of humiliating recall losses driven entirely by gun owners), losing the Minnesota House of Representatives, with Second Amendment issues being a significant reason for those losses nationally and in Minnesota, including having some of the more prominent anti-gun DFLers – Shannon Savick, Jay Sieling – erased and humiliated at the polls?

Keep the “big wins” coming, Heather!

Media people, all  you Tom Schecks and Bill Salisburys and Pat Kesslers; when you have a source whose veracity burns you 100% of the time, why do you keep using it?

I’m starting to develop this theory that the Democrats’ “messaging” strategy is developing into something like this:

1. Tell voters pretty much whatever you think they want to hear.
2. Assume the voters are too incurious to check up on it.
3. There is no point 3.

Submitted as evidence:  Barbara Boxer’s speech against the Keystone Pipeline; I’ll emphasize the real howlers:

Not only would the construction of Keystone put no negative pressure on gasoline prices, an argument President Barack Obama has also made, but the California senator claimed it would have the precise opposite effect. “We’re going to see higher gas prices because of this,” Boxer insisted.

These and other comments delivered by Boxer over the course of her hours on the floor on Tuesday were equally confounding, but her most mystifying pronouncements were those in which she touted the bustling green economy of her home state.

“Ask yourself the question, is it worth exposing our people to these risks who I stood with shoulder to shoulder, and is it worth exposing the planet to these risks when we can create millions of jobs in a clean energy economy like we’re doing in my state,” she said. “And we’re going gangbusters!”

“I come from a state that is booming with hundreds of thousands of jobs with balanced budgets — clean energy future — and I come from a state that embraced cleaning up the environment and building the economy and jobs,” Boxer later added. “And they go hand in hand.”

Repeat after us:  Scarcity leads to lower prices; plenty leads to higher prices.  California is going gangbusters.  The budget – “balanced” via tax hikes – is sustainable; the California pension bubble isn’t going to burst.  Green energy is a goldmine for workers! 

It sounds good on camera.  It plays well with people who still think government still tells the truth, and that media will tell them if anything’s amiss.   It plays well with Gruber’s America. 

The question isn’t “has the Democrat party switched to an all-lie messaging strategy”.  The queston is “given their assumptions, why would they not go to an all-lie messaging strategy?”

To: African-American families
From: Mitch Berg, public-school refugee
Re: War

All,

The Obama Administration talks a lot about “wars”; about a “war on women”, finding a “war against discrimination”, Michelle Obama’s “war on obesity”, continuing the “war on poverty”, and so on. In fact, just about the only thing the administration doesn’t call “war” is the part where they drop bombs on people who are shooting at us, or people that we are friendly with (at the moment).

But let’s be honest – the only war the administration is waging with any gusto is the war against you and your families.

That is all.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

A few years back, the local media ran big stories about government workers getting huge raises despite tough times. Outrage followed.

Wasn’t true, of course, it was “accurate but false.” Turns out that public employees are paid on a 2-week pay period system instead of being paid on the 1st and 15th. We get 26 paychecks per year instead of 24. But every seven years, payday falls on New Year’s Day which is a holiday, so the check is cut one day early and that results in 27 pay checks issued during in that year.

Is that a raise? No – the employee keeps the same hourly rate of pay. The money would have been paid in the new year, but for shifting the payday backwards. It’s a fake controversy based on a calendar quirk. It’s like claiming a 63-year-old man is 9 years old because he was born on Leap Day so he’s only had 9 birthdays. Calendar quirk.

Look for those stories again this year.

Joe Doakes

People who put these sorts of things out there as if there’s not some sort of “gotcha” involved annoy me to no end.

Fauxcahontas:  n:  Elizabeth Warren.

Oh, please.  Like I even need to finish the punch line.

But some of you have been under rocks for a while (vide Governor Messinger’s Flint Smith’s Dayton’s re-election).  So for your benefit:

“Their lips are moving, and/or their fingers are typing something”. 

To wit:  Moms Want Action sent out a post-election thank-you to their supporters (and quite a few Real Americans who get their updates as well):

Many thanks to those of you who made hundreds of phone calls in support of Sen Al Franken. His re-election means that both of our US senators are lawmakers who support gun-sense legislation. Gun violence prevention was not a major campaign theme for any federal candidate, [And why do you suppose that is? – Ed.] although a few did mention it. Notably, US. Rep. Betty McCollum’s campaign materials called it out, and state attorney general candidate Andy Dawkins of the Green Party did, too (McCollum won re-election; Dawkins failed to unseat Lori Swanson)

Side note:  Betty McCollum runs in a district that would elect a wheelbarrow full of manure to Congress, if the DFL endorsed it. 

And what Moms Want Action failed to tell you is that while Lori Swanson may be an interventionist, activist who’s continued her predecessor and mentor Mike Hatch’s policies on nattering away at private business, she is one of the better state AGs in the country on gun rights.  So the Moms would be more honest to say that the pro-gun candidate utterly destroyed the only AG candidate who explicitly mentioned support for gun control and the Bloomberg Oompa-Loompas. 

But here’s the big one.  I’m bolding it for emphasis:

All of Everytown’s endorsed candidates in Minnesota won re-election. Yay!

Oh, did they? 

Follow the link to Everytown’s extraordinarily badly-designed site.  Look for “Filter by State”, and select “Minnesota”. 

Scroll down. 

Do you see Will Morgan?   “Moms Want Action”/”Everytown” offered him endorsement; the then-incumbent was arrogant enough to figure he didn’t need the votes of pro-2nd-Amendment Real Americans to win in District 56B. 

And Roz Peterson absolutely brutalized him with an eight point upset win.

So what is it we say, again?

“If a gun-grabber group says it, it’s probably a lie”. 

Pass the word.

Two weeks ago, standing in the way of the majority was “obstruction”.

Now it’s what the minority is supposed to do.

This is from a piece of constituent mail, reprinted on a Minnesota legislator’s facebook page:

What do you think about replacing the word “free” to read “Taxpayer Funded” in all goverment paper and documents?  Like instead of schools “Free” lunch program, it would read “Schools Taxpayer Funded Lunch Program”.  It would be more truthful. 

I say submit the bill and run with it, hard.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

East Coast town wants to ban all tobacco products, for the children
. Citizens object – today tobacco, tomorrow what next?
If St. Paul banned tobacco sales, it would cut into tobacco tax revenues which the State needs to pay for various stadia projects.
Would the DFL object? “You must allow your poorest citizens to buy products we know will kill them, so we can pay for the Billion-dollar playground where Million-dollar superstars on drugs play games to sell advertising for beer companies. We demand it. For the Wilfs.”
Probably not in so many words.
Joe Doakes

Not only is politics the least effective way to allocate resources – at times, it’s the most morally repugnant as well.

 Democrats are fond of claiming that demographics favor them; that as America becomes less white, it’ll become more Democrat.

That presumes two things, of course; that  the GOP never changes, and that demographic groups never change.

The first is always an open, entertaining question. 

The latter?  This past election put that in question, at least among Latino and Asian voters:

2. Hispanics represented 8 percent of voters in 2014 and 10 percent in 2012, and those percentages will rise. But they’re not unanimously Democratic. They voted 62 percent Democratic in House elections this year, but that figure was buoyed by the nearly 40 percent of Hispanics who voted in heavily Democratic California, New York, and New Jersey. Hispanic Democratic percentages were significantly lower elsewhere, including Texas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, and Colorado.

And the reasons?

Well, they’re pretty much exactly what some of us on the right have been saying:

Evidence suggests that gentry-liberal causes — abortion absolutism, gun control, and opposition to fracking — have been repelling rather than attracting Hispanics. Polls also show they’re more interested in jobs and education — and dissatisfied with Democrats’ performance — than in immigration, on which they are miffed at both parties.

And Asians – who are stereotyped as people who value free markets and the ability to be entrepreneurs?

3. Asians, 3 percent of the electorate, have been oscillating wildly in exit polls: 73 percent to 26 percent for Obama in 2012, 50 percent to 49 percent for House Republicans in 2014. These may be small and unrepresentative samples. But note that California Asians squelched an attempt by gentry liberals, Hispanics, and blacks to overturn the state’s voter-imposed ban on racial preferences in higher education.

It remains to the GOP to give Latinos and Asians a better option – as opposed to anger at Obama’s broken promises – to turn this into a trend.

I give it 50-50.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The nation’s problems have been solved. They must be, if the Feds have nothing left to investigate besides painkiller use in the NFL to make sure million-dollar superstars aren’t taking drugs to help them win by playing while hurt.

I notice they didn’t investigate the Vikings. Nobody playing there, hurt or not.

Joe Doakes

It’s the fans that need the painkillers.

For the better part of a decade, I’ve been saying two things:

• The GOP needs to engage the voters in the 4th and 5th CDs – including the dreaded “inner city” voter – better.  I’m not the only one to say this, of course – but so far, Dan Severson and his Minority Liberty Alliance have been the only real cow to go with the moo. 
• While black, Latino, Asian and immigrant voters tend to vote overwhelmingly Democrat (for reasons that are less related to patronage and force of habit than some would like to think), it remains a fact as well as a stereotype that Latinos are socially conservative, Asians do place a premium on education and initiative, and African-Americans are among the most passionate advocates of school choice, and they should be, eventually, amenable to a message that reflects that. 

Below is the outline of a speech that I’d love to see a (presumably white) Republican (although the candidacy of Abdimalik Askar against Phyllis Kahn is a hopeful sign) give to an African-American audience in the 4th or 5th CD.  The candidate won’t be me, natch – there’s no way I’m ever running for office.  I’ve given oppo researchers almost 15 years of smear-fodder.  It’s just not gonna happen. 

But for someone else – someone who actually belongs running for office? 

Here’s an idea.

(more…)

The DFL has a long, filthy history of dropping hit pieces in the closing hours of campaigns that would make people who care about petty annoyances like “right and wrong” and ‘truth” puke up their skulls.  Classic example – this piece from 2010, which tried to whip up ingorant anti-Arab sentiment against King Banaian – who happens to be of Armenian descent. 

But the people who do Democrat “Farmer” Labor Party hit pieces don’t bother with right and wrong.  Their ends justify their means.

I cited this piece, dropped against Stacey Stout in House District 43B, on the show over the weekend.  I called it “Evil”. 

It is. 

Here’s the front:

Uh oh.  An abusive guy (are there any other kind in the DFL’s world?  Other than Pajama Boy, I mean?)

And here’s the back:

This ad proves that the DFL is counting on finding a plurality of incurious cretins.  And in 43A, it apparently worked. 

Let’s go through this point by point:

Stout, like most people who don’t see “people with swastika armbands” as a government model to emulate, opposed a DFL proposal to take guns away from people accused, as opposed to convicted, of domestic abuse. 

The “Gun Show Loophole” is a fraud; every gun show I’m aware of requires an NICS background check, and require a police-issued “Permits to Purchase” to buy a gun.  The bill the DFL refers to would have required people to transfer all firearms via a Federal Firearms Licensed dealer.  That means if you’re handing a gun down to your kid, or lending a shotgun to your friend for duck season.  This does nothing but raise the price of firearms (FFLs don’t work for free) and create a paper trail for every gun – the same trail that police departments in Connecticut and New York are trying to use to confiscate firearms. 

As to her opposing a background check for “assault weapons?”  That was a proposal that would have added a second,  utterly redundant background check for buying such weapons. 

Stout made the right call in all three cases – if “following the law and the Constitution” is what you care about, which for the Democrat party it is not. 

Taking those stances, in favor of the law-abiding citizens’ civil liberties, and turning them into “support for rape and domestic abuse?”

If you’re a DFL official, you might want to steer clear of me today. 

And if you voted for Peter Fischer over this ad?   Sorry for all the two-syllable words.

Feminists – including some, no doubt, who think “slut walking” is an “empowering” thing – are overshadowing discussion of a major scientific achievement (including, no doubt, the work of female scientists) over what a nerd was wearing. 

We’ve come a long way, baby.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

This is why the cities of Brooklyn Park, Waite Park and Lake Park need to pay more taxes: so Saint Paul gets more LGA for an $8 million public library in the city’s wealthiest neighborhood, Highland Park.

Meanwhile, my street still hasn’t been plowed or even sanded, and the Mayor wants Congress to pay for street repairs.

No reason to prioritize when you’re spending Other People’s Money.

joe doakes

Proponents of the system will tell you that the money comes from two different sources; that there’s no way the library money could be spent on the streets.

In other words, they’re “Grubering” you.

Here’s David French’s piece on Gruber.

Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network – America’s first grass-roots talk radio show – is on the air! I will be on from 1-3PM today!

I’ll be talking about how “stupid” American voters are. Also some more going over the election, and – this should surprise no one – the way forward for the Republican Party. According to me, naturally.

Don’t forget – King Banaian is on from 9-11AM on AM1570, and Brad Carlson has “The Closer” edition of the NARN Sundays from 1-3PM.

So tune in the Northern Alliance! 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!

A barrel full of a nauseating-looking stew of what looks like sputum, blood and pus appears on the Nicollet Mall. 

Behind it is a large sign, set off by bright, blinking lights: 

BARREL MIGHT CONTAIN
HIGH CONCENTRATION OF
EBOLA VIRUS!

Exposure Could Very Possibly
be Fatal!

If true, do not Lick, Drink,
Rub on Skin or Smear on Face!

(Also, it might not.  You’ll have to
lick, drink or smear it on you
to find out what’s in the barrel)

Let’s assume there are three groups of people walking past this barrel:

• Epidemiologists, Virologists, and other people with the medical and science background to know what a “Barrel full of Ebola virus” means – figure maybe 1/1,000 of the passing audience
• People who without medical or scientific training, but who think the idea of licking, drinking, or rubbing a concoction rich in Ebola viruses on their face is a bad idea, and refrain from doing so
• People who say “Yes, We Can!”, and lick, smear their faces with, or guzzle a pint of the concoction. 

Question: Of the three groups above, who are the stupid ones? 

Just curious.  

Elizabeth Warren is your only intellectually-honest choice in 2016.

Accept nothing less.

…in big parts of the rural USA, more and more, you can’t keep your hospital.

Obamacare is leading directly to the closure of rural hospitals. 

Just another way of weeding out the bitter gun-clinging Jeebus freaks, I suppose.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emailed:

The President is preparing an Executive Order to open the Mexican border.

Border Patrol upper management just recalled half the M-4 carbines used by Border Patrol officers, for “refurbishment.”

M-4’s aren’t unique – couldn’t they borrow some from the Army? Why are Border Patrol agents being disarmed just as the borders are being flung open?

Wait, maybe I just answered my own question.

Joe Doakes

it’s never a hard guess…

Time Magazine is stealing some of my material.  But it’s for the greater good, so I’ll let ’em get away with it for now. 

Time apparently has started an annual “Which Word Should Be Banned” poll. 

And while I’ve never even heard of some of them, there’s one that I agree with wholeheartedly:

feminist: You have nothing against feminism itself, but when did it become a thing that every celebrityhad to statetheir position on whether this word applies to them, like some politician declaring a party? Let’s stick to the issues and quit throwing this label around like ticker tape at a Susan B. Anthony parade.

Good lord.  No kidding. 

Look – “feminism” in the sense of supporting women’s legal and moral equality, hardly anyone argues with.  Certainly not me – which is one reason I’m the Twin Cities’ best feminist.  And take a moment and smoke ’em if you got ’em, because that battle’s been pretty much won (and like any battle, they’re all “pretty much”, rather than to an absolute numerical limit, won). 

But the term has become a cliche.

Living as I do in the Fourth CD, watching wave after wave of excellent candidates go forth to do battle in Saint Paul (Sharna Walgren, Tomy Hernandez, Teresa Collett) and across the river in Minneapolis in the 5th CD (Doug Daggett, Chris Fields), it’s easy to get discouraged.  It feels sometimes that there just is no hope.

And then you see a story like this…

…and you suck it up and you carry on for next cycle.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Modern cars have computers that act like a Black Box data recorder and the data can be used as evidence against you in court. The Minnesota Court of Appeals recently upheld the conviction of a woman charged with Reckless Driving, based on data the State Patrol downloaded from the computer inside her wrecked car after the accident.

I’m seeing a market for a Black Box Eraser device. Involved in an accident? Afraid it might be your fault? Push a button and ZAP, the Black Box memory is wiped and can’t be used against you. Order before midnight tonight. Don’t leave home without it.

Joe Doakes

I bet Alice Hausman reads this and submits a bill regulating such devices in the Transportation Committee before the next session.

SCENE: Mitch BERG is walking through the woods in Como Park, looking for a place to practice the bagpipes.

Suddenly, Avery LIBRELLE jumps out from behind a tree. 

LIBRELLE:  Hey, Merg!  Your sides has been owned again!

BERG:  Er, Avery?  What are you doing in the middle of the woods?

LIBRELLE: Stakeout for climate criminals.  So anyway, we were talking about how your side has been owned again.

BERG:  “We” weren’t.  You were. 

LIBRELLE:  Hahaha.  And it comes from Canada.  Here.  Read it. 

LIBRELLE: So yet again, a Canadian proves he knows what’s best for us better than the American electorate does. 

BERG:  Well, no.  He’s shown he’s absorbed Deb Wasserman-Drescher’s chanting points like a Macalester College poli-sci grad.  Pretty much every point Richard Brunt of Victoria British Columbia says is wrong. 

LIBRELLE:  No way!

BERG:  Way.  Corporate profits are high because companies are sitting on cash, rather than investing.  The “under 6%” unemployment number is a sham; the percentage of people in the workforce who are working is essentially unchanged since the lowest point in the depression.  The GDP growth rate Mr. Brunt is bragging about is the slowest of any recovery in the post-war era. This is especially noteworthy because, normally, steep sharp recessions have steep, sharp recoveries (see 1982). This one was a steep recession with a painfully-slow recovery. How painful? The current GDP growth is equal to the WORST quarter of growth in the recovery from the 1982 recession.

Gasoline prices are “falling” to about $1 more than they were when Obama took office. Worse than that when you adjust for inflation. 

LIBRELLE:  Hah, Merg!  There is no inflation!

BERG:  Does you or Mr. Brunt ever buy bread, beef, chicken, eggs or health insurance?  …? CPI shows low inflation, but that’s largely a function of the price of debt – which is being kept artificially low:

Oh, yeah – and oil imports are declining partly due to the slow economy, and partly due to drilling in the Dakotas, which is basically happening over Obama’s, let’s just say, passive-aggressive objection.

As to the “respected around the world” bit? That’s just delusional.

LIBRELLE:  That’s just like a typical Repblicon.  A message based on fear!

BERG:  Fear?

LIBRELLE:  Yeah.  Fear of black people!

BERG:  How did fear or black people enter the conversation?

LIBRELLE:  You’re afraid, aren’t you?  Boo!  There’s a black guy sneaking up on you!

(BERG turns, inflates the bag on his pipes, and starts playing random noises to drown LIBRELLE out as he walks back to his car).