Support for the anti-rights “gun safety” agenda is a mile wide and an inch deep.

Support for gun rights is a mile wide and a mile deep.

Case in point:

Although Mayors Against Illegal Guns’ efforts helped defeat GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli, no one seriously expected him to win. However, of the 67 Virginia House of Delegates candidates endorsed by the National Rifle Association and targeted by Bloomberg’s group, 65 won, according to the Washington Examiner.

That’s about a 3% win rate for the splashy anti-rights group – or alternately, 97% for the good guys.

It’s been a tough year for the splashy, big-bucks rights-grabbing group:

After December’s Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, the group got behind President Obama’s call for sweeping gun control legislation. But negotiations between U.S. Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Joe Manchin, D-W.V., yielded a mere milquetoast background check proposal.

Still, the Mayors Against Illegal Guns website reported that the group got firmly behind the bill and aired a new series of ads campaigning for its passage. When the measure came for a Senate vote, it went down in flames.

It wasn’t just legislation: 

The group then tried to prevent the recall of two anti-gun state senators in Colorado. Although a reported $2 million was spent to support the lawmakers, both lost their jobs, according to Reuters.

About 10% of the mayors are voting with their feet: 

Some 95 key members of the group that targets and criticizes lawmakers backed by the National Rifle Association are losing their title of “mayor.” According to an election review of Bloomberg’s membership list of about 1,000, three quit the group, 69 retired from their jobs, and 23 were rejected by voters.

And that doesn’t even count the ones that have left office for, er, other reasons.

And I bet Michael Bloomberg would call this next factoid an “unintended consequence”, if he were honest enough:

As for that Virginia election, the number of state lawmakers the NRA rated “A” actually grew from 63 to 65 as a result of Tuesday’s election.

More of this.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Gun control laws and background checks will be obsolete, as soon as these machines become more widely available.

Of course, ammo is still the weak link.

Joe Doakes

My bet is that the government only allows 3D printers in government offices…

Speaking for myself, I can’t wait ’til Kinkos has 3D photocopiers.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails

. President Obama famously promised: “If you like your health insurance, you can keep it.” Turns out that was a lie. You can’t keep your policy if you have a “junk policy” that doesn’t cover things which we now pay for. To keep medical costs down, we’re forcing you to shift to Obama-Bronze which leaves less in your pocket, but it’s for the Good of the Nation so suck it up.

The problem with the lie isn’t that it’s a lie. The problem is it enabled Democrats to win election to protect Obama-care from repeal. And once Obama-care is up and running, it becomes the universal justification for all Nanny State intrusion into our lives.

“If you like your job, you can keep it.” Well, no, you can’t. You work a blue collar job. Your job has high risk of injury, which requires medical care, which we now pay for. So to keep medical care costs down, we’re forcing you to shift to janitor which leaves less in your pocket, but it’s for the Good of the Nation so suck it up.”

“If you like your hobby, you can keep it.” Well, no, you can’t. You jog. Your hobby has high risk of injury, which requires medical care, which we now pay for. So to keep medical care costs down, we’re forcing you to shift to collecting Hummels which leaves less in your pocket, but it’s for the Good of the Nation so suck it up.”

“If you like your home security, you can keep it.” Well, no, you can’t. You have a dog or a gun or both. Your home security set-up has high risk of injury (to yourself and also to burglars), which requires medical care, which we now pay for. So to keep medical care costs down, we’re forcing you to shift to a police whistle which leaves your family vulnerable, but it’s for the Good of the Nation so suck it up.”

Reader challenge: think of an activity in your life where Democrats could NOT justify intruding on this basis.

Joe Doakes

Correct though Joe is in  his simile, I’m behooved to announce “this post was brought to you by a grant from the American Troll-Bait Council”. 

Thanks.

Last week, we looked at a troika of “gun rights” groups and their singular and plural records.

Last Tuesday, we showed you a fundraising letter for a group called Minnesota Gun Rights (MGR) that Minnesota Second Amendment activists have been getting.  In the letter – from “Minnesota Gun Rights” executive director Chris Dorr – the sky will fall if the reader doesn’t support the group.

Wednesday, we got a perspective from Iowa on the effectiveness of the Iowa Gun Owners (IGO), run by Aaron Dorr, the brother of MGR’s Executive Director – or, according to an Iowa legislator who’s seen it first hand, the lack of effectiveness.

Thursday we looked at the ties between the Dorr brothers and the scandal that rocked the Michele Bachmann campaign in Iowa – and to the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR), a group that earned a reputation for having a big bark but not much bite for the relative impotence of its battle against the anti-rights onslaught in Colorado last session.  We also noted that “Minnesotagunrights.org” is actually registered in Van Meter Iowa.

Friday, we showed that an alarmist fund-raising letter aimed at Minnesotans from the NAGR’s Dudley Brown, that was wrong on nearly every possible point – almost too devoid of fact to have come from Heather Martens.

And today?

More on that in a moment.

In Defense:  Last week, a local Libertarian activist well-known for his involvement in the “Ron Paul” clicque takeover of parts of the MN GOP in 2012 posted the following on his Facebook page.  I won’t name the activist here; let’s call him “Paul Robertson” just to avoid confusion.

I’m adding emphasis:

I have met Chris Dorr and and have worked some of the people helping him on projects in the state. A recent hit piece from a Minnesota establishment blogger noted the connection Chris has to the National Association for Gun Rights.

I’m an “establishment blogger?”

Who knew?

I digress:

NAGR operations chief Dudley Brown is an effective political operative who, an as RNC Rules Committeemember, was a leader at the national convention fighting the establishment power grab. One gets onto the RNC Rules committee by earning the support of entire state and CD conventions, something that is impossible for sham groups to do.

And there’s the point, right there.

Forget for a moment that “Mr. Robertson” is referring to Mr. Brown’s role in the picayune rules battle at the last Republican National Convention that pitted “the establishment” against the thin coterie of Ron Paul delegates (a rules change I oppose, for what very little it’s worth).

The two responses to this are:

1. So What?:   The most we can take from “Mr. Robertson’s” statement is that Mr. Brown can organize caucusees into a group that creates a ruckus to no real immediate effect.
2. That’s What!:  Badda bing.  Re-read #1.

In party politics as well as gun politics, Dudley Brown of the National Association for Gun Rights would seem – by his record, even as emphasized by his local supporter, the pseudonymic “Mr. Robertson” – to be about making the big, “my way or the highway” policy pronouncements that drum up much noise but signify little-to-nothing.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with noise.  And Minnesota’s current gun-rights groups – MN-RKBA, GOCRA, and even the NRA (which for the first time in my 25 years of watching the issue in this state is finally starting to take an active role at the Capitol) create plenty of it.  Over this past session, they put thousands of people into meeting rooms, and mobilized tens of thousands of phone calls, emails and letters.  Minnesota’s legislators know where the people of Minnesota stand on the issue – which is why even though the DFL controls the legislature and the governor’s office, and their financial supporters are buying support in the mainstream media, the anti-rights agenda was humiliated this past session.

But there needs to be more than just noise.  If a group can’t deliver results at the Capitol in terms of bad policy shot down and good policy enacted, then why support them?

Minnesota’s gun rights groups – NRA, GOCRA/GOAL, MN-RKBA and the rest – have a record of not just making noise, but winning battles.  Of not just getting people riled up, but getting them focused in a direction that, in good times, expands the human right of self-defense.  Never forget – the battle for “shall issue” carry permitting lasted 10 years, from 1995 to 2005.  The goal was achieved not just by getting people riled up – but by focusing all that passion on results.  And frequently needing to do it against adversity; remember, the DFL controlled the legislature before 2002, and have held at least one chamber for all but two years in recent memory.  And we’ve had exactly eight years of conservative-enough governor in the past thirty (forget about Jesse Ventura).

The Challenge:   But there’s certainly a market for groups in any facet of politics, including Gun Rights, that lead with “death or glory”; “our way or the highway”.  Gun Owners of America (GOA) split off from the NRA 20-odd years ago because they thought the NRA wasn’t activist enough.  And they were right.  And the exodus of members concerned with gun rights spurred the NRA to more, more effective political activism.

But hard-line as they are, the GOA has actually had an effect on politics.  They’ve done things; mobilized voters, won some battles through their own lobbying and activism and shoe leather.

I’m not going to tell you what to think about “Minnesota Gun Rights”, the group we met last Tuesday via its alarmed-sounding fund-raising letter to Minnesota gun owners.

I am going to tell you to consider the evidence;

• “Minnesota Gun Rights” (MGR) is tightly related to “Iowa Gun Owners” – their directors are brothers, and both groups’ websites are registered in Iowa (here’s MGR, here’s IGO)
• As related by Iowa state representative Matt Windschitl – a pro-gun legislator – IGO has a record of being utterly useless in actually passing legislation, has actually hampered the passage of useful legislation, and claims credit for passing legislation in which they were utterly uninvolved.   You don’t have to believe me – listen to him yourself.
• The Dorr brothers were intimately involved in the scandal that has dogged Representative Bachmann – the payment-for-endorsement scandal that led to the resignation of an Iowa state Senator.  So someday if Chris Dorr testifies in front of the Public Safety committee, you think Doug Grow (of the Joyce-Foundation-sponsored MinnPost) won’t bring that up to discredit all gun rights advocates?   You think “Protect Minnesota’s” new PR guy Richard Carlbom won’t dangle that factoid in front of Tom Scheck and Pat Kessler?
• Both the Dorrs are closely involved with the “National Association for Gun Rights”, a group run by Dudley Brown.  NAGR – like Brown and the Dorrs – are closely aligned with the Ron Paul camp; that’s not a bad thing by itself, necessarily.  But it does tip you off to their “all or nothing” approach.   And whatever their political allegiance, while NAGR is long on uncompromising rhetoric, when it comes to the day to day politics of winning the legislative battle for our rights, their record gives the appearance of being all moo and no cow, or worse (to say nothing of willing to misrepresent current events and politicians’ positions here in Minnesota).

Let me be clear here, personally – when it comes to fighting the anti-rights orcs, as far as I’m concerned we should let a thousand lights shine.

But Iowa Gun Owners and the NAGR would seem to have a record of underdelivering on its overpromised rhetoric.  And MGR has no record at all, other than of association with the IGO and NAGR.

Ask yourself – should your hard-earned money be going to a run rights group that has an actual record of delivering people, votes, and policy?  Minnesota already has several of those.  We could use more – as many as it takes to get every possible Minnesota shooter to the polls, and toss every possible orc out of the Legislature and the Governor’s office.

Is there any evidence that Minnesota Gun Rights, Iowa Gun Owners or the National Association for Gun Rights have done anything documentably useful?  Bills passed (through their efforts)?  Lawsuits won?  Chambers packed?  Legislators elected?

I’m waiting to see it.

But it’s your call.

To: Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone, Hosts, NPR’s On The Media
From:  Mitch Berg, Uppity Peasant
Re:  Your Concern For Journalistic Integrity

Ms. Gladstone / Mr. Garfield

I caught your story in this week’s edition of On The Media criticizing NBC for paying, not only for footage (of this spectacular skydiving accident) but for exclusive access to the principals to the story.

This – paying for access to news – is one of those things that furrow the brows of journo-wonks.   And the two of you were audibly furrowed.  Gotta hand you that.

So – paying for access to a news story is bad.  Gotcha.

So is being paid by a partisan pressure group to run a news story even worse?

Get back to us on this.

That is all.

…then we need to see a lot more stories like this.

The only truly free society is the one where the government fears the people.

And government today – with police and prosecutors walking all over the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, with our government spying on us and siccing the Tax Police on dissenters, and putting virtually all civil political dissent on government watchlists – is trying to achieve just the opposite.

Moms Want Action is, apparently, a national thing.

Who knew?

Anyway – “Think” Progress, the national left borg site, claimed to be onto something; a photo of gunnies intimidating a Moms Want Action meeting in Texas.

Now, what have we told you before?  Whenever the left says anything about guns (and, pretty much, everything else)?

Distrust, then verify.

Then, almost without fail, distrust some more.

Because what the group looked like depended on the angle; what from one angle could be teased into looking like a group aggressively intimidating was, from the actual intended angle, a group portrait:

That sums it up well.

Any anti-gun-rights voices, whether activists, media (ptr) or punditry, will be presumed either liars or misinformed until proven otherwise.

And they are almost never proven otherwise.

…guns serve no useful purpose in civil society.

None.

Nosirreebob.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Waiting for these campaign commercials to begin:

Hi, I’m Al Franken. I was behind on votes until my lawyers outmaneuvered Norm Coleman’s lawyers and the courts made me the 60th Democrat in the Senate. Not one single Republican voted for Obama-care but I’m proud to say I cast the last vote needed to make Obama-care the law of the land. Without me, it never would have happened. I’m Al Franken, I’m responsible for Obama-care, and I approve this message.

“I’m good enough by a standard that includes Chuck Schumer and Barbara Boxer.  I’m not sure what I’m smart-enough for, and doggonnit, people are nuts to like me because for the first five-year period of my life, I’ve been able to stay innocuous”

I’ll urge you to read this letter to the editor from last Wednesday’s Pioneer Press. 

I’m going to point to an exerpt or two:

Your recent story on St. Paul Public Schools and race (“Facing the race issue,” Oct. 28) failed to mention the elephant in the room. That elephant is that St. Paul Public Schools currently has a black agenda, thanks to the Pacific Educational Group consulting firm.

The agenda is to place blame on white teachers for low test scores and a high suspension rate among black boys. We never want to address parental involvement, lack of fathers in the homes or education not valued (because this is common sense and may actually help students and families that are struggling).

I shouldn’t quote more under the terms of “fair use”.  You need to read the whole thing.

I’ll await the cries of “the writer is no doubt a white bankster from the Wayzata”. 

Go ahead.  Cry.

OK.  The writer 0 Aaron Benner – is from St. Paul, teaches elementary school in the Saint Paul system, and notes that he is black. 

The SPPS isn’t seeking a solution to the achievement gap.  They are seeking political cover that furthers a political and social agenda.

I’ll be back with the wrapup of my “Carpetbaggers” series tomorrow.

Is Detroit’s new-found cause célèbre ignoring the past to cloud the future?

George Clooney had the Sudan.  Bono has Africa.  Anthony Bourdain – and much of the American media – apparently has Detroit.

Michigan’s So Not Grand Central Station: built in 1912 and on the national registry of historic places. It was closed in 1988 and is one of Detroit’s estimated 78,000 abandoned buildings.

In recent months, the city of Detroit has witnessed two narratives arise in Phoenix-like fashion from the economic ashes of the city, often in conjecture with themselves.  One is the purported economic revitalization of the city that gave birth to Motown and the American automotive industry.  It is a narrative fostered by Quicken Loans founder (and Cleveland Cavs owners) Dan Gilbert who, among others, has put millions into Detroit to try and restore its grandeur.  The other narrative, the so-called “ruin porn” seen in picture form below, depicts Detroit as a third-world ghetto.  A Somalia on the St. Clair River.

The former delights the denizens of Detroit with hopes of a better future.  The latter rankles them.  Gilbert himself expressed outrage when 60 Minutes balance their report on the Motor City between Gilbert’s altruism and the destruction of the out-lying portions of the city, comparing it to Dresden after the Allied bombing of World War II.  Gilbert tweeted a defiant message, stating “a city’s soul that will not die was the story & they missed it.”  But even a sympathetic, blue-collar soul as Bourdain, whose CNN show Parts Unknown highlighted the city last night, saw the need to balance Detroit’s attempts to pick itself up off the ground with the stark realities of a city undone.

The Fisher Body Plant: once part of the GM empire

Both narratives ignore the Chrysler in the room – how Detroit got to where it is today.

If the “ruin porn” industry renders pity without judgement, the acts of Dan Gilbert and others, as well-intended as they obviously are, seek a future for Detroit without acknowledging its past or present.  Not once in 60 Minutes‘ coverage did the story’s telejournalism deal with the political causes for Detroit’s decay – a corrupt, one-party institution burrowed like a tick into City Hall.  Equally, if differently, ignorant are the views of Gilbert et al who believe that once their plans to remove all of Detroit’s blight (78,000 buildings), capital will come easily rushing back into the city:

Gilbert is no fan of urban farming, though. When he envisions land cleared of  blight, he sees developers rushing in to build anew…

“When that blight is gone, maybe we don’t have to be talking about shrinking cities because it will be such a rush of people who want to get into low-value housing — when all the utilities are there and the land is pretty much close to free— not exactly free, but close to it — and all the utilities are there, it becomes very cheap for a builder/developer to develop a residential unit, and they are going to develop them and develop them in mass as soon as we get the structures down and maybe we don’t have to worry about raising peas or corn or whatever it is you do in the farm.”

The Highland Park Police Station: even Detroit’s police stations no longer want anything to do with the city

And what will cause developers (yet alone individuals or businesses) to return to a city with the highest property tax rate in the country?  What will encourage retail industries when Michigan’s sales tax is 6% on top of that?  Detroit’s backers can honestly claim that the city ranks no where near the top of the tax chain (Detroit ranks 92nd nationally; Minneapolis is 52nd by comparison).  But the tax climate is far from ideal, especially the dubbed “most dangerous city in America” with a murder rate 10-times the national average.  Throw in a 58-minute response time for police, to attract businesses back, Detroit may literally need the fictional hero RoboCop (to whom a statue is being built – seriously).

There isn’t much evidence that Detroit is about to change its ways.

The Merrill Fountain at Palmer Park: has sat empty for 50 years since being moved from the Opera House. Vandals have stolen much of it.

Since Governor Rick Snyder’s decision to appoint emergency manager Kevyn Orr last spring, Detroit’s journey to bankruptcy has been managed with minimal (some would say no) input from City Hall.  As the case has headed to court, where Orr has testified about Detroit’s long-term debts of $18 billion, city officials have fought the measure almost every step of the way.  The election of Mike Duggan as mayor, the former head of the Detroit Medical Center, has been advertised as the promotion of a turnaround artist.  But while Duggan had success revitalizing the city’s Medical Center, Duggan also ran on opposing Orr’s decisions and comes as a political protégé of former Wayne County Executive Edward McNamara – an official who backed the cartoonishly corrupt Kwame Kilpatrick and had FBI agents and state police raid his own office in November 2002, over alleged corruption in airport contracts and campaign fundraising.  Meet the new boss.

The American Hotel: built in 1926, the hotel is 11 stories high with over 300 rooms. It has remained vacant since the early 90’s.

Oh, there have been the requisite platitudes.  Duggan and Orr have broken bread in what was described as a “very good first meeting.”  And Duggan has said all the right things that a reformer would state, such as being “a huge believer in lean processing. If you are not excellent at making systems work, you cannot survive…”

But the inertia of the status quo has been apparent even after only one week from the election.  The Michigan House Appropriations Committee ranking Democrat Rep. Fred Durhal, Jr. is angry that Duggan hasn’t called him yet.  Metro Detroit AFL-CIO President Chris Michalakis essentially threw down a polite ultimatum that Duggan must “honor” his commitment to working families, while suggesting the labor doesn’t trust the new mayor.  Duggan claims he just wants a seat at the table as Detroit’s debts are solved, and if Synder and Orr are smart, they’ll allow it.

Wilbur Wright High School: closed in 2005, this building actually is among the few on this list that has been demolished. 10,000 buildings have been torn down in Detroit since 2010.

The decision to abrogate Detroit’s city government in the bankruptcy process may have been politically necessary (Detroit certainly hasn’t come to grips with its position despite many, many, many opportunities), but doing so has allowed Snyder and Orr to play the villain while the usual suspects who caused this economic disaster play the victim.  However, it’s also allowed Snyder to take all the credit too.  67% of Michigan voters approved the move back in March (including 41% of Detroit), and the decision has given Snyder a welcome bump in his approval rating.  That’s a short term political fix to a long-term structural problem.

Mike Duggan may be a product of the system that failed Detroit, but he’s viewed warily by both it.  Orr’s contract expires in the fall of 2014; Duggan and the City Council can vote whether or not to renew it – almost literally the only voice they have in the process.  If that’s the first time Duggan has to impact the process, he’ll have likely caved by then to labor, vote to end Orr’s tenure and – more importantly – work to undo reforms set in place.  Should Rick Snyder not return in 2015, an opportunity to address Detroit’s deeper fundamental problems will have passed and a new administration will slap a band-aid bailout on the city, and hope more journalists write about Dan Gilbert than urban hunters who live off of raccoon to supplement their meals.

Christie’s Real Weight Problem – the punditry’s baggage of Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 bid

Does Chris Christie have a Rudy Giuliani-sized lump on his body politic?

While the fat jokes about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie started long before he was elected (recall Jon Corzine’s much-maligned ad from 2009), Christie’s political weight has been the only thing in the governor’s mansion packing on the pounds in recent months.  Thanks in multiple parts to a weak Democrat challenger, a compliant press corps, and a Democrat-leaning special election held weeks earlier, Chris Christie’s 22% margin of victory in ultramarine blue New Jersey has vaunted him to the top of the incredibly-too-early-to-reasonably-speculate GOP sweepstakes.

Christie’s critics suggest his numerous derivations from conservative orthodoxy and penchant for picking fights with his own party spell his early primary doom – presumably because they’ve never met Mitt Romney or John McCain.  But the early line of attack that does seem to be gaining some traction with the only segment of the electorate who cares this early – the punditry – is that Christie is too east coast, too combative.  Too Rudy Giulianiesque: Read the rest of this entry »

In my native North Dakota, 35,000 people have lost or will be losing their insurance so far.

Against that, 30 have successfully signed up.

Hint to the national GOP; “hope for change” might be a good tack to take.

If you can actually offer either, naturally.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

President Obama repeatedly promised that if you like your insurance, you can keep it. Liberals now say he meant you could keep it if it met the requirements of the new law. What are those requirements?

The Affordable Care Act requires every health insurance policy to cover 10 essential categories of services, with details to be approved by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The essential health benefits package must cover the following general categories of services:

Ambulatory patient services

Emergency services

Hospitalization

Maternity and newborn care

Mental health and substance abuse disorder services, including behavioral health treatment

Prescription drugs

Rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices

Laboratory services

Preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management

Pediatric services, including oral and vision care

Policies that didn’t include all those coverages are being dropped by insurance companies. People are being offered more expensive replacement policies that cover all the services.

Dog Gone echos the new Liberal lie, saying the old policies were “junk policies,” being replaced by newer, better policies, so they’re worth the increased premium.

My wife and I are in our late 50’s. Our children are in their 30’s. We have no need of maternity and newborn care. We have no need of pediatric services. 20% of the policy coverages do us no good but are included in the premiums. Adding more bells and whistles that I cannot use does not add value and does not make the policy worth the extra premium.

Lies, to justify Lies, to explain Lies, to cover up Lies. My grandmother used to say “For shame, for shame, all the dogs in town know your name.”

I’m glad she’s not here to see this.

And she were, she’d be paying for well child visits on her plan…

Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network – America’s first grass-roots talk radio show – brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism, as the Twin Cities media’s sole source of honesty!

• I’m in the studio today from 1-3.  I’ll be talking with Brian Strawser and Mike Okern of the new Minnesota Gun Owners Political Action Committee.  Also – healthcare, and more GOP circular firing squad.
• Don’t forget the King Banaian Radio Show, on AM1570 “The Businessman” from 9-11AM this morning!
• Tomorrow,  Brad Carlson is  back!  I“The Closer” airs from 1-3 Sundays!

(All times Central)

So tune in to all six hours of the Northern Alliance Radio Network, the Twin Cities’ media’s sole guardians of honest news. You have so many options:

• AM1280 in the Metro
• Streaming at AM1280’s Website
• Streaming on IHeartRadio
• On Twitter (the Volume 2 show will use hashtag #narn2)
• Via my new UStream video and chat channel.
• Send us an SMS text message – 651-243-0390
• Good ol’ telephone – 651-289-4488
• Podcasts are now available; for my show and for Brad’s
• And make sure you fan us on our new Facebook page!

Join us!

Obama apologizes for loss of heath plans…

…that, last week, were “junk plans” that we’re better off without?

What Obama Said:  “If you like your doctor, you’ll be able to keep your doctor (and 22 variations thereunto).

What Obama Didn’t Say:  “Doctor, schmoctor.  You might not even be able to keep your spouse“.

Tuesday, we showed you a fundraising letter for a group called Minnesota Gun Rights (MGR) that Minnesota Second Amendment activists have been getting.

Wednesday, we got a perspective from Iowa on the effectivess of the Iowa Gun Owners (IGO), run by the brother of MGR’s Executive Director.

Yesterday, we looked at the ties between the Dorr brothers, Aaron (of the IGO) and Chris (of MGR) to the scandal that rocked the Michele Bachmann campaign in Iowa – and to the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR).  We also noted that “Minnesotagunrights.org” is actually registered in Van Meter Iowa. 

We’re going to look more into the NAGR today.

Interpretations:  Last year, Minnesota Second Amendment activists hailing from a variety of groups got together and pulled off an amazing feat; in a state government completely controlled not only by Democrats, but dominated by extremist, gun-hating Metrocrats, managed to completely shut down a concerted anti-Second Amendment attack, in the wake of one of the most horrific school massacres since the 1920s.

It took a lot of work; painstaking mobilization of thousands of activists, fundraising, intensive lobbying of legislators, communications both on Capitol Hill and all across Minnesota.

Most of all, it took coalition-building.  Gun rights advocates from all groups had to build working relationships with legislators from the famously gun-unfriendly DFL, because – in case you missed in the first time – the DFL had complete control of the legislature and the Governor’s office.

Remember – the DFL started with a raft of bills; expanded gun-free zones, magazine restrictions, bans on weapons that looked cosmetically “assault”-y, handing control of carry permit applications over to the police (who unlike the sheriff do not answer to voters, ever), and a good half a dozen other noxious provisions.

Minnesota’s Second Amendment community had to get legislators on both sides of the aisle to agree to push back against the gun grab bills.

Remember – if Minnesota Democrats had merely closed ranks behind the Metrocrat hamsters that control most of the party’s agenda, today Minnesota’s gun laws would look like New York State, Colorado or California.

Politics – especially when you’re in a minority – is always a matter of give and take.  And yet Minnesota’s Second Amendment movement gave much worse than it got – in large part because of the tsunami of popular support they mustered, week in week out, and kept in legislators’ faces.

Here’s the important part:  the victory (and it was a victory) was won not by “stating a principle”, turning off the phone and chanting like a robot.  It was won by knowing the principle, (“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”) and fighting a sharp, well-organized political battle to build a diverse coalition that would, via acceptable compromises, ensure the actual policy that got enacted didn’t violate the principle, if not reinforcing it. 

And in a session where the worst was not only possible, but in terms of absolute political numbers very, very likely, the mainstream Second Amendment movement won a victory.  No, not a “victory” in the sense that we dragged Heather Martens and Michael Bloomberg onto the deck of the USS MIssouri to sign articles of surrender.  More like Keith Park winning the Battle of Britain.

Which, whether your opponent controls all of Europe or all of the apparatus of Minnesota government, is a win. 

Alternate Reality:  Dudley Brown is in charge of the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR).  The group bills itself as the conservative alternative to the NRA, which it regards as squishy moderates and accomodationists.  The group is closely tied with the Iowa Gun Owners (IGO) group, which we showed yesterday is closely tied with Minnesota Gun Rights (MGR).

And I think it’d be fair to sum up NAGR’s philosophy is “better to lose a symbolic battle for perfection than win battle for good if imperfect policy”. 

It’s a philosophy shared by not a few very ideological activists – pro-lifers, pro-abortionists, Libertarians, you name it. 

And during Minnesota’s gun debate last session, Brown sent an email to his group’s supporters in Minnesota about the Hillstrom gun bill – which I called “The Good Gun Bill” on this blog, because it focused on criminals and bad behavior, rather than attacking the law-abiding gun owner (which is something many Second Amendment supporters call “the goal”). 

Here’s the text of the bills in both the Senate and the House.  You be the judge.

I’ll include the email from Dudley Brown in its entirety below the fold – along with some commentary where called for.

Read the rest of this entry »

To:  Principled Libertarians
From:  Mitch Berg, Uppity “Establishment” Tea Party Peasant
Re:  Bamboozled

My Libertarian Friends,

I likely agree with you all on more than we disagree.  Some of you like to focus on the disagreements, which makes for fun rhetoric, but whatever; I would call myself a constitutional limited government conservative.  The battle to limit the power of government is a long, uphill slog – against the gleefully statist Democrats, and against a GOP establishment that has plenty of constituents that benefit from the Big State, as well as a crucially large Tea Party faction that is quite the opposite. 

Whatever.  It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Anyway.

Now, one of you folks’s signature lines is that you’d rather be irrelevant at the polls than violate your principles.

And generally – and I say this with all due respect – Libertarians achieve that wish with flying colors.  Their irrelevance at the polls is legendary; most LP candidates are doing well to poll in full single digits – to the left of the decimal point, anyway. 

And the big “Ron Paul” takeover of the Minnesota GOP has had mixed results.  Some districts – like my SD65 – saw excellent efforts by solid candidates that turned out lots of new GOP voters.  Others – the 5th CD – turned out more like frat party gags gone awry, run by people who chuckle amongst themselves about the contempt they feel for the GOP and Republicans. 

As a general rule, Libertarians (with the Big L) are happy to remain magnificently above the scrums of daily life, gazing down on all the silly worker ants and their door-knocking and sign-pounding, focusing on big thoughts and dreaming of the utopia we’ll all share (from our neutral corners) once  you get those damn brainwashed sheeple to see the light. 

All is in its place, right?

So for the Virginia Libertarian Party, it must have seemed like Free Pot and Raw Milk day; someone gave them actual money to run a campaign. 

Of course, that “someone” was an Obama bundler. 

And the Libertarian candidate for Governor came in with a little over six percent of the vote.  And I’m going to hypothesize with little fear of contradiction that in and among the people who wouldn’t have voted anyway there was a preponderance of a couple of Republicans, maybe several, for every Democrat. 

Which was precisely why an Obama bundler rounded up all the money, of course – for the same reason that Liberals With Deep Pockets ® donated to Tom Horner.  To siphon votes. 

Now, many of you believe there’s no difference between the two major parties.  I reject that premise (while stipulating that the GOP has a ton of room for improvement, which is why I’m firmly in the Tea Party wing of the party, and have been since long before there was a Tea Party). 

But whatever it is you believe about the difference (?) between the two major parties, I gotta ask you; what do you think about having your movement and its principles co-opted in all their above-it-all grandeur to help solidify the control of the most gleefully, overtly statist of the parties?

“It’s not my fault” might be true and is still an evasion. 

Only Libertarians and Republicans in the comment section on this one, please; the kids have all sorts of other places on my blog to romp and play; comments re the Democrat point of view will likely be deleted without ceremony. 

I don’t do that often – but I am today.

It’s my blog.  Don’t like it?  Talk to the hand. 

Generally, when I get involved with someone, I try to do it for the long term.

But I’m almost tempted to try to get into a serious relationship – ideally something with a hip-hop theme, no matter how convoluted – if only so I can break up using the line “you got 99 problems, but a Mitch ain’t one”. 

OK, just so you don’t have to ask your kids…

On Tuesday, we showed you a fundraising appeal from a group, “Minnesota Gun Rights” (MGR).  MGR is making an entry into the Minnesota Second Amendment battle.

Yesterday, we talked with an Iowa State Representative, Matt Windschitl, who pointed out that a group called the “Iowa Gun Owners” (IGO) had been talking big talk, but not delivering much – indeed, making things worse in terms of practical, day-to-day pro-Second-Amendment legislation.

As Representative Windschitl pointed out, the leader of IGO was an Aaron Dorr.

And as we saw from the fundraising letter, the Executive Director of MGR is Chris Dorr.

Who are the Dorrs?

To introduce the Dorrs and their group, we’ll start in the Minnesota Sixth Congressional District.

Your Niche Is On My List:  Few outside the world of professional and semi-pro wonkery really understood the scandal involving Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Iowa state senator Ted Sorenson.  There were allegations of payments to support Bachmann (and Ron Paul).  Eventually, the allegations led to the Iowa Senate Ethics committee investigating Sorenson, and finally his resignation from the Senate.

Aaron Dorr – the leader of the IGO – was, according to this piece in the Iowa Republican, intimately involved in the deal to buy Sorenson’s support away from Bachmann and for Ron Paul.  I’ll add some emphasis:

New information has been provided to TheIowaRepublican.com that details the courting of Sorenson by the Paul campaign, which began in October 2011, long before his public endorsement of Congressman Ron Paul on December 28, 2011.  The documents also show that Sorenson was negotiating with Ron Paul’s national campaign chairman, Jesse Benton, who is now running Mitch McConnell’s 2014 re-election campaign in Kentucky, and John Tate, Paul’s 2012 campaign manager.

Also involved in the elaborate scheme to persuade Sorenson to defect from Bachmann to Paul is Aaron Dorr, the Executive Director of Iowa Gun Owners Association.  Dorr served as an early negotiator between Sorenson and the Paul campaign.  It was Dorr who drafted a three-page memo outlining Sorenson’s financial demands to get him to jump ship from the Bachmann campaign.  This memo not only discloses the financial compensation Sorenson sought to obtain, but also details his financial agreement with Bachmann.

In addition to the alleged payoffs, Bachmann’s angle involved allegations of stolen mailing list of Iowa homeschoolers,  provided to the Bachmann campaign by – according to the Strib – Chris Dorr was the one who nabbed the mailing list:

In a recent affidavit, [here] Sorenson aide Christopher Dorr acknowledged going into Heki’s office and downloading a database from her computer in the belief that it was a campaign e-mail list. “The office maintained an open environment,” he said. “There was never a need for stealth activity.”

Dorr’s account, however, contradicts a 2012 affidavit from former Bachmann campaign manager Eric Woolson, who said Sorenson told him “we took ” the list and that those involved “stood watch” while Heki was out of the office.

Campaign insiders have suggested that the NICHE list was important to help Bachmann check the momentum of GOP rival Rick Santorum, who was making inroads with Christian conservatives on his way to winning the Iowa caucuses.

Waldron, who has also given an account to investigators, said he told Bachmann about the incident on December 18, 2012, but that the campaign took no action against Sorenson, who later defected to the Ron Paul campaign.

Both of the Dorrs, by the way, are the sons of longtime Iowa political consultant Paul Dorr, who in all honesty I need to point out is not only a scorched-earth political absolutist, but the winner of a lawsuit that is very important for gun owners – and especially skeptics of gun owners’ “slippery slope” – to be familiar with.   The elder Dorr is a longtime Liberty activist.

So – who are the Dorrs – leaders of the Iowa Gun Owners (Aaron) and Minnesota Gun Rights (Chris)?  You be the judge.

The Faint Smell Of Scorched Earth:  One more thing – the Iowa Gun Owners is closely affiliated with the National Association of Gun Rights (NAGR), a national group led by Dudley Brown.  NAGR posits itself as a conservative counterpart to the National Rifle Association, which it constantly portrays as a bunch of squishy, anti-gun accomodationists – rhetoric very similar to that used in Chris Dorr’s fundraising letter, which Representative Windschitl noted looks nearly identical to NAGR’s fundraising boilerplate.

NAGR seems to spend as much time fighting the NRA as they do the gun-grabbers.

And – like the IGO’s counterproductive grandstanding that Rep. Windschitl noted yesterday – when it comes to the politics involved in actually getting legislation passed that actually protects gun owners and the Second Amendment, they can be frightfully amateurist.

How does this relate to Minnesota, and the MGR fundraising letter we talked about on Tuesday?

More tomorrow.

I Mix Them Up Myself:  By the way – as one might expect, the “Iowa Gun Owners” website is registered in Iowa.

And so is the site for Minnesota Gun Rights; Chris Dorr registered the site in Van Meter, Iowa.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Diagram showing the value of politicans, the media and the public, in each other’s lives

 

.
Note this chart does not show the importance – politicians can screw up a much larger area of our lives and the media can influence as much – the chart shows the actual value of their contributions to our wellbeing.

Hat tip: smalldeadanimals.com   

Yesterday, we discussed a package that Minnesota gun rights activists have been receiving from a group calling itself “Minnesota Gun Rights”. 

I ran a bit of video from Representative Matt Windschitl, running down a group called the “Iowa Gun Owners”.

It was a pretty acerbic video. And it opened up some questions; what was the argument about? Who did what to whom?

And who are “Iowa Gun Owners”?

Blown Up: I called Representative Windschitl yesterday.  We talked for about a half hour.  The keystone of the conversation was an incident in the Iowa legislature in 2011.  As Windschitl relates, the GOP caucus was pushing a bill in both chambers to allow combat veterans who’d suffered from PTSD, and had that notification put into the national NICS databases (disqualifying them from gun purchases) an avenue to get their rights restored. 

There had been, earlier in the session, a debate about introducing “Alaska Carry” – legalizing carry without a permit, as in Alaska, Vermont and Arizona – and/or “Constitutional Carry” (making carry laws a part of the Constitution) in Iowa.  The bill had died…

…but the measure to restore veterans’ rights was alive and well, and had passed the Senate.   All it needed was to pass the House. 

Said Windschitl, “we took months to get everyone in on it.  The NRA, Aaron Dorr (leader of Iowa Gun Owners) – we were going to write some bridge language [to make the bill mesh with the Senate version for easy passage].

Then, says Windschitl, “an hour before the final debate on the bill [to restore veterans’ rights], a [junior GOP rep and IGO supporter] intorduced a “kill all” amendment reintroducing “Constitutional Carry”. 

The Speaker and the legislator spent hours on procedural maneuvering – attempts to suspend the rules and other parliamentary shenanigans, all of which failed. 

As did the prospects for either restoring veterans’ rights and “Constitutional Carry”, in that session. 

“It killed the bill”, said Windschitl. 

Came On Strong:  Windschitl – who describes himself as a strong Second Amendment legislator, and his record supports the claim – recalls first hearing about Iowa Gun Owners. 

“When I saw my first letter, I thought “all right”.  At that time, the NRA had been pretty much absent from Iowa”.  Windschitl noted that IGO’s tough rhetoric was attractive to legislators who wanted to mobilize some serious muscle to fight for gun rights in Iowa – a state that was very late to the table in liberalizing gun laws. 

But the honeymoon was short-lived, said Windschitl; “I saw all kinds of representatives get taken in – and get burned”. 

The  problem – one of the problems, anyway – was all that tough rhetoric meant exactly that; if they didn’t get everything they wanted, they wanted nothing.  If you supported them 99%, it was the same as opposing them. 

Windschitl isn’t the only one to notice this.  The left-leaning “Bleeding Heartland” blog, in a piece written by “DesmoinesDem”, notes (with emphasis added by me):

 Founded in 2009, Iowa Gun Owners is quick to bash Republicans and other groups it considers unprincipled. Its leaders have even labeled GOP State Representative Clel Baudler, a member of the National Rifle Association’s board, as “notoriously anti-gun.” How far out there do you have to be to consider the NRA anti-gun? Iowa Gun Owners refuses to get involved in supporting gun legislation that supposedly doesn’t go far enough in protecting the Second Amendment.

Windschitl – with a long record as a Second Amendment torch-carrier – notes that Iowa Gun Owners have attacked him.  “It’s like any hint of compromise means you’re out of the club!”.

And Nothing At All:  Of course, IGO isn’t the only group in politics that considers any effort focused less than 100% on principle as no effort at all.  It’s satisfying rhetoric, of course – but it also means that any time you don’t have absolute control of the legislature, you get nothing you want passed into law to form actual policy. 

Like losing the restoration of Second Amendment rights for veterans, over a doomed attempt to get a “Constitutional Carry” provision that was not going to pass under any circumstances. 

There are times, especially in politics, where perfect truly is the enemy of good enough. 

But for that to be an issue, you have to actually be trying for either. 

With that in mind, let’s go back to the video of Representative Windschitl from yesterday:

Here’s the transcript of the video:

“This morning I saw an email from a so-called Second Amendment organization. That organization, in a roundabout way, was trying to take credit for helping to get this [pro Second Amendment] bill to the floor and working it through the process. It’s not the first time this organization has done that. I want to be clear to Iowans – I want to be clear to anyone that’s watching this video right now; that organization’s executive director is Aaron Dorr; he’s the executive director of Iowa Gun Owners. Here’s the message; he did not lift a single finger to move this [pro second amendment] legislation forward. In fact, he never even chose to register on the original house file, House File 81. And he did not choose to register on this [pro second amendment] legislation before us now. The organizations that have brought this legislation to us today, to protect Iowans, are the National Rifle Association, the Iowa Firearms Coalition, the Iowa State Sheriffs and Deputies Association, and the Iowa Police Association. Those are the organizations that have spent time and effort to make sure we’re doing right by Iowans. So for those Iowans out there who have been getting these deceptive, misleading emails, rest assured – we are doing your business in an up front, honest manner…

 What happened there?

Windschitl told me the clip was “about a bill that would have made carry permit data private information, to prevent newspapers from  publishing the names of people with permits”. 

“There was no contact from Iowa Gun Owners on the bill.  No support at all”.   The newspapers – especially the Des Moines Register  – were pushing to stop the bill; newspapers love harassing the law-abiding gun owner.  Still, as the vote drew near, things were looking good.  The GOP caucus and the various other Second Amendment groups had the votes.  The bill was going to pass.

The night before the final vote on the bill, Windschitl was directed to a posting on the IGO Facebook page; “The Iowa Gun Owners took credit for the bill!” 

The next morning, the Speaker of the House – Kraig Paulsen, another Second Amendment stalwart – told Windschitl “you have the bully pulpit”, in Windschitl’s words.  

The results?  Well, you’ve seen the video.

Asked who were his points of contact from the Iowa Gun Owners, Windschitl responded “I worked with Aaron and Chris Dorr”.

Aaron Dorr, of course, is the president of Iowa Gun Owners.

Chris is Aaron’s brother.  And he’s the one whose signature is on the letter we talked about yesterday, sent to Minnesota gun owners on behalf of “Minnesota Gun Rights”. 

More about the Dorrs – and their two organizations – tomorrow.

That’s what got Betsy Hodges the victory in Minneapolis’ mayoral election last night.  About a third (36.55%) of a 34% turnout in the first round.

Cam Winton came in just under 10% with 7,500 votes.  Which is about ten percent better than a Republican did in the last Minneapolis mayor race.  Or the one before.  Or the one before that.  Ad infinitum (or at least back to the nineties, which was the last credible GOP candidate I can recall in Minneapolis).

Now, we know there are more than 7,500 Republicans in Minneapolis.  240,000 people in Hennepin County voted for Mitt Romney, for crying out loud – and the “Republican districts” in Henco would fit into a phone booth and leave you enough room for someone to come in and ask you what a phone booth was.  If even 20% of those 240,000 were in Minneapolis, and they’d come out to the polls last night, Winton would have crushed Hodges.

But Republicans never come out for local races.  My theory:  they’re so used to getting beaten down in local, county and Congressional elections, they only come out for statewide and federal races, where their votes actually end up mattering; a GOP vote from Longfellow is worth exactly the same as a GOP vote from Dassel.

The upsides last night?  The fake Republicans, Bob “Let’s Build a Bike Skyway” Carney and Ole “Will Run For Office For Food” Savior, got less than a percent of the vote.  In a cycle in which the 5th CD GOP started out being run by people whose main goal was to destroy the GOP, that’s not a bad job of protecting the brand – although most of the credit goes to Winton, who ran a great race.

Nationwide?  I can’t be too disappointed.  Christie isn’t my favorite Republican, but he had my favorite result – crushing his opponents in a blue state.

Ken Cuccinelli outperformed expectations immensely last night, coming within two points in a race everyone counted him out of – and (this is important) losing to a Democrat vote surge in the only part of the country that’s doing well financially right now, the DC suburbs.

Takeaway?   A good candidate is better than a bad candidate.  A well-organized party in an area is better than a party that’s a Bulgarian goat rodeo.  A two-party city is a better prospect for a challenger than a one-party cesspool.   And all three factors matter, every election,every time.

And it’s going to take either a Detroit-style calamity, or several cycles of rebuilding the GOP as credible contenders, to change either Minneapolis or Saint Paul.  Which would mean spending less time in a circular firing squad shooting other Republicans and more time actually making a case to actual voters.

And I think I started saying that seven years ago, and it’s only gotten worse in the metro.