Shot in the Dark

Tag: ABM

  • Chanting Points Memo: Unclear On The Concept

    You just knew the DFL had this one planned either way. If the budget forecast had come in in the red, there would have been caterwauling about how the state needed to raise taxes to make the state’s economy stronger.  The incongruity would have escaped the media. Of course, it came in in the black;…

  • No Obvious Rant, No Overt Slant

    To: Catharine Richert, “Poligraph” writer at MPR From: Mitch Berg, mere peasant Re: Here’s a dandy story idea! Ms. Richert, You’ve been doing “Poligraph” at Mnnesota Public Radio for quite some time now.   The ongoing feature purports to fact-check Minnesota politicians’ statements. Now, a quick glance through the Poligraph page seems to show that…

  • Minnesota’s Ministry Of Truth: “People, Shmeeple!”

    One of the DFL’s more comical devices is calling themselves “the party of the people”. It’s always been a mixed bag, of course; currently, it’s the party of the people who try to make a career out of giving other people handouts, and the people who can exploit that system for more power for themselves.…

  • Stand Your Ground: It’s Go-Time

    I got this from the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance: If you do only one thing for gun rights this year, this is it! The Stand Your Ground bill passed the Minnesota House last year. It overwhelmingly passed the Senate last week. Now the bill is headed to Governor Dayton. TODAY! Call Governor Dayton’s office…

  • MN-MOT/Chanting Points Memo: Securing The Incurious Vote

    We’re getting close to election season. And Minnesota’s left-“leaning” “grassroots” astroturf organizations – Common Cause, Take Action Minnesota, Alliance For A Better Minnesota, and the various unions are following suit with doing what their various funders are paying them to do; trying to spin news, facts and info to get people to vote DFL in…

  • The Real State Of The State

    Governor Dayton will give the official State of the State address tomorrrow. I figured I’d grab a jump on him, and – in my constitutional position as a freaking taxpayer – give the real state of this state. You’re welcome. Now – all rise. ———- My fellow Minnesotans, Thanks to eight years of responsible Republican…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Beth Hawkins’ “Complete BS”

    If the Minnesoa left has a boogieman in this cycle, it’s the “American Legislative Exchanage Conference”, better known as ALEC. Founded and run by that other perennial boogieman of the hysterial left, Grover Norquist, ALEC pushes a conservative agenda by hosting get-togethers and suggesting legislation to – wait for it – legislators.  Mostly conservative ones.…

  • Will The Circle Be Unbroken

    SCENE:  MITCH is talking with Inge “Lucky” CARROLL, a meme-buffer at Alliance For A Better Minnesota, at a Cathedral Hill bar. CARROLL is sitting at a table with an empty martini glass, sipping a cosmpolitan from a second as MITCH approaches. CARROLL:  We have teh best election system in teh world! MITCH:  Um, OK –…

  • 14,000-Odd Posts

    2612 weekdays of waking up at 5:30AM and writing til 7-ish. 520 weeks of following the Minnesota news cycle. Two Presidential, three Gubernatorial, three Senate and 32 Congressional contests, plus five complete legislative election cycles and 11 Legislative sessions.  One wrestler ushered out of office; one Senatorial plane crash and two electoral train wrecks covered.…

  • The DFL’s Ministry Of Truth

    Check out Carrie Lucking of the Alliance For A Better Minnesota Ministry Of Truth, essentially admitting that Governor Dayton’s Jerbs Plan is exactly what I said it was – a sound bite that isn’t intended to pass the legislature, merely to give the DFL a chanting point designed to give the DFL something to wave…

  • And Now Let Us Wallow In Metaphor

    I found this quote in yesterday’s Strib editorial about Governor Dayton’s bonding bill to be oddly revelatory: “I learned from my father and my uncles, who were pretty successful job creators in Minnesota, the importance of focusing on downtown. … If you lose the core of the downtown, you lose the vitality of the region.”…

  • One Day At The Ministry Of Truth

    SCENE:  At the executive offices of the Alliance For A Better Minnesota.  Executive Director Carrie LUCKING sits near the center of the head table, next to an absurdly-large fake throne.  Her research director , Stephanie FORSTER, sits on the other side. LUCKNIG:  It’s a gorgeous day out there, isn’t it? FORSTER:  Um…(steals a glance out…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Bring A Shovel!

    If the local leftybloggers have it right, the Governor apparently wants to staff up a bunch of do-it-yourself projects. I first saw it on Minnesota “Progressive” Project last night – Governor Dayton has announced his “bonding plan”. And here was the claim: In contrast to the upcoming ballot measure open season the Republicans will be…

  • Chanting Points Memo: “Tergeted Jerbs”

    With much fanfare from the media and the DFL’s press-release bloggers (most of them), the Dayton Administration released its “jobs plan”. Call it “porkulus with a side of lefse“.  It’s a dumb plan – and there’s language in here that shows the DFL knows it (emphasis added): Saint Paul – Governor Mark Dayton and DFL…

  • Out For Drinks With “Lucky” Carroll

    I met my old friend, Inge Carroll (whom everyone calls “Lucky”) at a local watering hole to compare notes about politics the other day.  Lucky is a DFL operative. CARROLL: So did you see teh article?  Teh Republican party said came into offices saying they were going to create jobs,but they have cost 16,000 jobs!…

  • Back To The Future

    Here’s what I’m hoping happened on Tuesday: The Senate took a move to reassure people in and outside the party that the GOP is a sane, sober, grown-up party that, despite the press’ giggly and untoward obsession with the Koch “scandal”, is in the business of running a solid government in pulling former minority leader…

  • What The Hell Do We Do About The MNGOP, Part V

    More about the GOP Chair race,and the future of the position, later in the week. The question for today is “what should a party look like these days?” The DFL has followed a model similar to many IT companies; they are basically a shell.that administers groups of programmers in India, Ukraine and the Philippines. The…

  • Chanting Points Memo: “Peasants! Your Masters Are Displeased!”

    Last week, we reported that according to the latest Minnesota Management and Budget figures, Minnesota’s state government took in almost $900 million more than it spent in the last year. As I noted, it’s not all good news, for quite a number of reasons.  Some of the extra money came from the Feds.  Some of…

  • Same-Sex Marriage: Six Theses

    As we start heading toward the next round of elections, both sides – the GOP and the DFL – are planning to make the biggest electoral hay that they can out of the Same Sex Marriage issue. The GOP majority in the legislature put the issue of a Marriage Amendment on the ballot for next…

  • Reality Is Conservative

    Every once in a while, when I drop some factoid or another into a “debate” with a lib, I’ll wrap it with a bit of a verbal end-zone happy dance; “Sometimes”, I’ll say, “reality is just plain conservative”. With that in mind – the five-member Judicial Redistricting Panel has ruled on the rules to be used…

  • The Plutocrat

    Over the weekend, Baird Helgeson at the Strib did a piece – the first I’ve personally found – on Alita Messinger, the largest non-union bankroller of the various “progressive” pressure groups that have been doing all the DFL’s actual work for it this past couple of years.  As I’ve been reporting for the past year or…

  • The Later Debate

    Why, yes – I did spend a bit of time talking redistricting over the weekend, now that you mention it. On the NARN, it was my pleasure to interview MNGOP Chair Tony Sutton and his deputy, Michael Brodkorb (punctuated by a surprise appearance by Wisconsin governor Scott Walker; I’ll be posting the podcast link as…

  • DrawTheLine MN: Giving “Potemkin” A Bad Name

    According to Russian legend, Catherine the Great’s consort, minister and general, Grigory Potemkin, built fake villages, just shells and faςades and a few serfs going through happy-serf-like motions (see also SEIU – Ed.) along the banks of the Dniepr river – which he’d just seized from the Ottomans in a costly war he’d advocated and led, to…

  • Astroturf Rising, 2011

    Minnesota is heading for a battle over redistricting that may just make the just-passed budget battle look like a stroll in the park. And, just like with every such battle lately in Minnesota, there is at least one “non-partisan” non-profit claiming to have the interests of average, non-affiliated Minnesotans at heart.  There are a couple…

  • One Day At DFL Headquarters

    (SCENE: Denise CARDINAL, head of Alliance for a Better Minnesota chair of the Minnesota DFL, wallks into her office, sits in an overstuffed chair) (KEN MARTIN walks in to room). MARTIN: “Hello…” (MARTIN stops abruptly as CARDINAL motions downward with her index fingers.  MARTIN sighs, gets on hands and knees in front of CARDINAL’s char.…