How is it that the Administration is absolutely double-dog certain that Assad launched chemical weapons – in an area with no US presence, much less sovereign control – but after one full year still claims not to know what happened in Benghazi?
It’s been 12 years since 9/11. What do we have to show for it?
The answer depends on who you ask. And depending on how awash in partisan politics they are, that answer might change depending on what side of January 20, 2009 you ask them about.
I’m not going to try to sort that out now.
I’m just going to refer you back to a piece I wrote on 9/11 last year, that some of the people at whom it was aimed appreciated a lot.
I’m happy to note that freedom and liberty won a round last night.
The recall effort against two gun-grabbing anti-civil-rights fops in Colorado succeeded wildly last night. Colorado state reps John Morse and Angela Giron were flushed from public life by their voters:
The election, which came five months after the United States Senate defeated several gun restrictions, handed another loss to gun-control supporters. It also gave moderate lawmakers across the country a warning about the political risks of voting for tougher gun laws.
You can tell it’s the NYTimes writing this piece; they think “moderates” in the west don’t already know better.
The recall elections ousted two Democratic state senators, John Morse and Angela Giron, and replaced them with Republicans. Both defeats were painful for Democrats – Mr. Morse’s because he had been Senate president, and Ms. Giron’s because she represented a heavily Democratic, working-class slice of southern Colorado.
The Giron race ought to make outstate DFLers who supported the Paymar gun grab – I’m looking at you, Shannon Savick – sit up and take notice; Real Americans aren’t amused by your noodling.
Even better? The avalanche of liberal money didn’t do the job (emphasis added)!:
While both sides campaigned vigorously, knocking on doors, holding rallies and driving voters to the polls, gun-control advocates far outspent their opponents. A range of philanthropists, liberal political groups, unions and activists raised a total of $3 million to defend Mr. Morse and Ms. Giron. Mr. Bloomberg personally gave $350,000.
There are so many upsides to this election. The personal rebuke to The Nanny Mayor is in the top three.
Mr. Morse’s hand was on the tiller during much of that debate. A former police chief, he said he found himself in a position of not just rounding up votes, but actually explaining the mechanics of guns to fellow Democrats. He brought a magazine to show his colleagues how it worked. In an emotional speech in March, as the debate reached its peak, Mr. Morse stood on the Senate floor and spoke of gun violence and “cleansing a sickness from our souls.”
(Koff koff Jim Backstrom koff koff).
Cleanse this, ex-Legislator-boy.
And in this is a lesson that conservatives need to re-learn – and teach our idiot consultant class – every two years, rather than every 30; grass-roots activism works:
Angry constituents around Pueblo and Colorado Springs started to ask one another what they could do. In living room conversations and on Internet message boards for gun enthusiasts, the idea for a recall campaign against gun-control supporters began to jell.
“We’d never been to a rally or town halls,” said Victor Head, a plumber in Pueblo who borrowed money from his grandmother to kick-start the recall against Ms. Giron. “We’d never done much politically other than voting.”
Colorado is one of 19 states where voters can recall state officials, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and no evidence of fraud or official misconduct is needed to gather the signatures necessary to schedule a special vote.
I personally don’t favor recall elections for anything other than fraud, official misconduct or criminal activity, as a matter of policy.
But then, attacking the Bill of Rights is official misconduct.
Anyway – two down. Thousands of orcs to go.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Everybody who works for President Obama must echo the party line, from the Vice-President down to the UN Ambassador. They have no choice.
But here are some of the people outside the Administration, who think it’s a good idea for America to go-it-alone and start a war against Syria:
This list of names alone convinces me it’s a stupid idea.
Joe Doakes
Note to Joe; you left out Ellison.
I’ve been doing radio for a while. I’ve interviewed a lot of people – Senators, Congresspeople, State Legislators, Governors, candidates for all of the above, Miss Minnesotas, authors, public intellectuals, fake intellectuals, Princesses Kay of the Milky Way, plate-throwers, journalists, bloggers, athletes, coaches – you get the picture.
And almost every time when I walk into an interview, I know more or less what I’m going to hear.
Now, I don’t normally do a ton of interview prep. I like to approach a subject from the same perspective that the audience has, from a complete white slate; it’s one of the best bits of interviewing advice Larry King ever gave. That being said, I’m rarely surprised by what I hear in an interview. I blog a lot, so I’ve had my mind on a lot of different subjects over the past 12 years.
But last Saturday was a huge exception. During the second hour on the NARN, I interviewed Linda Bell and Kirsten Block, from Minnesotans Against Common Core.
Now, I figured I was going to hear more talk about national standards. I oppose them, by the way – I don’t think the federal government should be telling the nation how to educate its children.
But it’s worse than that. In fact, it’s so much worse that for one of very, very few times in all of my years of interviewing people, I was actually dumbfounded by what I was hearing. It was so much worse than I – a cynic who expects nothing good from our national education system – expected that I was nearly speechless.
Standardized Poltroonery: If you listen to some of the GOP’s talking heads who’ve come out in support of Common Core, you might think that’s the extent of it; the idea that a national set of standards will help ensure that our children all get a better education (because that worked so well with “No Child Left Behind”).
It’s wrong, of course. When you nationalize standards, you accede to having them set via a political process, and political processes don’t work any better for allocating expectations in education than they do for allocating resources in an economy.
That, alone, is reason to fight the Common Core.
But it gets so much worse than that.
Orwellian: Indeed, very little about the “Common Core” has much of anything to do with “Core” educational subjects at all.
From the Fact Sheet at MACC’s website:
Any school, public, private, charter or home, that gets any shred of federal assistance will be subject to the rules.
Common Core is an abomination, and needs to be repealed.
I’m a small fish in a small pond – but I will actively work against any and all politicians who don’t condemn and work to repeal the Common Core as it is currently slated for implementation; with the intrusions, the lack of local involvement, the continued centralization of public education (and private and home-schooled education, as well.
Whatever their party.
Last week – voters toss a carbon-taxing, border-opening, “War on Womyn”-pimping government in Australia, ushering in a conservative government.
And in Norway – yes, Norway – a center-right coalition toppled the socialists.
I know – “conservative” is relative around the world. There was a time when the conventional wisdom was that European “conservatives” were like American Democrats.
That was before American Democrats became the extremist party, of course.
The Shorter Anti-War (2003-2008) Liberal: “We oppose war, until it means someone would call us nasty names“.
Joe Doakes from Como Park:
Hey Mitch, do SITD readers eat Booya?
I’m trying to decide whether to put it on my Bucket List, or give it a pass. Let’s take a poll: what’s the readership’s opinion?
Joe Doakes
Como Park
I switched to WordPress in November of 2006, right before the mid-term elections.
And in that time, I (and my various co-authors over the years, Johnny Roosh, Bogus and First Ringer) have published 9,999 posts.
And this is number 10,000.
(That’s on top of about 2,400 published under my “Movable Type” system, from 2004-2006, and probably 1,800 more on the original blog on Blogger.com, going back to 2002).
Apropos not much. Other than “wow”.
To: Carrie Lucking, “Executive Director”, Alliance for a Better Minnesota
From: Mitch Berg, uppity peasant
Re: Chain Of Command
Ms. Lucking,
The “Special Session” to deal with disaster relief teed up a few hours ago.
Just a hint; it might behoove you to copy your audioanimatronic marionette “Governor” Dayton on any legislation that gets proposed, or especially passed. The vision of your audioanimatronic marionette our “Governor” proclaiming shock at legislation that the DFL has jammed through embarasses this state makes your chain of command look “not ready for prime time”.
It’s pretty simple; route things from Governor Ms. Messinger, to you, to handler “Chief of Staff” Bob Hume, to Mr. Dayton. And spend some time making sure he really knows what’s getting written into law.
You’re welcome.
That is all.
When Representative Ryan Winkler talks, people listen.
And then the smart people snicker.
He tweeted this yesterday:
My favorite point in this op-ed: low wages do not cause poverty. http://t.co/jBfXzKYSiF. Only an economist could be so enlightened.
— Ryan Winkler (@RepRyanWinkler) September 8, 2013
Of course, he had the point of the op-ed all wrong. Read it for yourself.
The point is that low wages aren’t the sole cause of poverty. In the great scheme of things, they aren’t even especially important, in and of themselves.
Much more important? When there is no opportunity to earn higher wages.
How does that happen?
To further address the point, though, I’d like to ask Rep. Winkler (or his defenders) this question: at what minimum wage hourly rate will poverty disappear?
Put a number on it.
That’s the question I’d like to ask. In fact, I asked it.
Hopefully we’ll see an answer.
I’m sure we will.
How many jobs a month do we have to add to bring the level of employment back to pre-recession levels?
How long will it take to get back to pre-recession employment at current – or any – rate of job “creation?”
Hint – at the current rate (169,000 a month, before adjustments), we’re ten years away. Although the calculator doesn’t distinguish between full-time and part-time jobs – although under the Obama notion of “recovery” the same number of jobs doesn’t mean the same kind of prosperity.
If, as Keith Ellison and Betty McCollum wish, the Obama Administration drags us to war in Syria, the big victims will likely be the nation’s Alawites (Assad is an ethnic Alawite) and the nation’s beleaguered Christian minority.
Why do Betty “Blood and Guts” McCollum and Keith Ellison hate Christians and Alawites?
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Now Investors Business Daily is claiming that while the IRS was holding up Conservative groups to make sure they didn’t actively campaign to get-out-the-Conservative-vote and thereby run afoul of tax laws, the IRS was also actively teaching Black groups how they could actively campaign to get-out-the-Black-vote without running afoul of the tax laws.
This isn’t the first time in history that the entrenched bureaucracy has chosen the new leader, but it’s not the Change I’d been Hoping for.
And where is the shock and outrage in the press? Uncaring? Or complicit?
hat tip: instapundit
J Doakes
I keep forgetting; does “just following orders” count as complicity?
Learn more about the reality of Common Core from “Minnesotans Against Common Core“.
And here’s the North Metro Tea Party.
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!
(All times Central)
So tune in to all four hours of the Northern Alliance Radio Network, the Twin Cities’ media’s sole guardians of honest news. You have so many options:
Join us!
Unemployment down to 7.3% – almost entirely due to people leaving the workforce; the Labor Force participation rate is down to 63.2%, the lowest since the depths of the Carter Malaise.
That means the percentage of the workforce actually working is down to 58.5864%.
America’s work force is still in full recession mode.
Democrats were pleased to call the recoveries of 2003 and 1983 “jobless recoveries”. Especially if you’re one of the Afrian American voters who turned out for Obama twice now.
This one seems to be a “recoveryless recovery”.
…that if we voted for Mitt Romney, the government would push for war with Syria.
And they were right!
For the first time since before the 2008 election – actually, probably since 2006 – I re-read my 2004 series, “Secession Diaries“, the other day.
After the 2004 election, pouting lefties proposed allowing the blue states to secede and unite with Canada, creating two countries – the “United States of Canada”, the progressive blue/Canadian union, and “Jesusland”, the red states.
My series explored the results of a potential split. And it was fictional.
Or…was it?
In rereading the series, I was a litte amazed at how many of my comic japes from nine years ago have actually come to pass. Example: in the story, a hurricane devastates the Mid-Atlantic. Relief efforts are hampred by union goons ejecting non-union relief workers. Fact or fiction? Both!
I will submit it for your approval. And partly to start my head churning for an update.
It’s almost a week old – but this is the most glorious smackdown of urban enviroweenies ever.
Of course, it’ll take more than a great op-ed; it’ll take defeating the DFL – since those enviroweenies are the ones that control the DFL, and are strangling the livelihoods of just about every Minnesotan north of US 2 that isn’t working for government or a non-profit.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
I know we’re only half-way through, but can we take a moment to consider Barak Obama’s legacy as President? How’s he shaping up against his competition?
Reagan and Bush I ended the Cold War.
Nixon opened China.
Johnson – civil rights. Like it or hate it, he made it happen.
Kennedy – I credit the inspirational ‘put a man on the moon speech’. That was a pivotal moment.
Truman won The War by dropping The Bomb. World changing event.
Slick Willie, Carter, Eisenhower – nothing much happened, good or bad, they’re as forgettable as Hayes or Cleveland.
The Light Bringer? So far, the subjects for his legacy include:
the worst economy since the Great Depression
the worst race relations in 50 years
global terrorists rebounding bigger, stronger and more confident than ever
alienating our allies and destroyed all hope of working relations with our associates (China, Russia for example).
destroyed the concept of rule of law with scandals such as IRS, Fast and Furious, GM bailout
executed American citizens without trial, hearing or oversight
increased surveillance of American citizens to levels the KGB only dreamed of
has drones over everyone
has people reading this email
This is Barak Obama’s legacy – The hope and change – so far. It’s bad enough. And we have three years left.Maybe if we invade Syria, things will get better?
Joe Doakes
Bill Glahn – who has become one of the essential bloggers in Minnesota – notes something I picked up on in the 2010 race; all “reporting” that might discomfit Democrats takes place at times in the cycle when even wonks are hard-pressed to pay attention, much less Joe and Jane Casual Voter.
I noted it in 2010, when the Twin Cities media issued one – precisely one – “report” on Mark Dayton’s mental health and alcoholism during the campaign cycle. Eleven months before the 2010 election. When nobody, but nobody, cared. The Strib could tell people honestly that they had covered the issue; it was just at a time when nobody in the world was paying attention. They buried the story just as effectively as if they’d put it on page E-18.
As Glahn notes, they’re at it again:
Some 8 months after the data became available, the Minneapolis Star Tribune finally gets around to an analysis of campaign spending in the 2012 election.
The article (headlined “Spending on Minnesota legislative races has doubled in 10 years”) describes how much more money has poured into races for the state legislature in recent years.
Not surprisingly, they bury the lede. Yes, lots more money is coming into these races, but in recent years, it’s almost all on the Democrat/liberal/progressive side of the ledger.
Of course they do.
Read the whole thing.
And chalk it up to the pattern; too little, too late, too early.
Just like the DFL needs it.
Remember when his supporters said that one of the dreamiest things about Barack Obama was that he was a “constitutional scholar?”
I said at the time that a President – a good one anyway – needs to know about as much about the Constitution as a good policeman does, and that a Constitutional Lawyer was nothing if not more prone to use his “knowlege” to circumvent rather than uphold the Constitution.
A “koan” is a paradoxical riddle, more or less.
Here’s an example: “If you have ice cream, I will give you ice cream. If you have none, I’ll take it away”. (It’s an “ice cream koan”).
As Pejman Yousefsadeh points out, the paradoxical riddles about Obamacare aren’t nearly as amusing, to say nothing of sweet and creamy.
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