To: Certain Mitt Romney Supporters
From: Mitch Berg, Reagan Disciple
Re:  Your “Ready, Fire, Aim” exhortation.

All,

I”m Mitch Berg.  You may remember me; I was busy caucusing for your guy Romney four years ago.  Let me refresh your memory; that was the cycle when a fair number of you geniuses insisted John McCain was the only viable option to run against Hillary Obama, and that we should not, could not, nominate a naif like Mitt Romney to run for office.

And eight years before that, I was the guy pushing for Steve Forbes, when you all insisted that George W. Bush was the conservative who could win.  And 12 years before that, when I said Jack Kemp might make a much, much better custodian of the Reagan Revolution than George H. W. Bush – you got your way then, too.

Remember me yet?

Of course not.  You’re the “establishment”.   You rarely remember the dirty ugly lessons of four or eight years back.  To many of you think “spin” equals fact.

And that’s fine – because you win your fair share of elections.  You’ve got the money, the oomph, the organization, the experience in power.  That counts for something.

And with that, I suppose you’re entitled to think of your agenda as “inevitable” in the party.  The problem is, some of us peasants – the people who are allied to principle first, party second (not that they need be exclusive or in conflict) – keep getting uppity and in the way.  It happened in 2006, when a knot of “establishment” figures in the Sixth CD GOP here in Minnesota got their undies in a toxic knot because Michele Bachmann flooded the various precinct caucuses with her supporters, making the local “establishment” – including many of you – claim that Bachmann “stole the nomination” when, in fact, she just did democracy and politics better than you did.

Ditto in 2008.  Maybe the influx of Ron Paul supporters split the conservative vote so finely that Mitt Romney never had a chance, and your guy Mac coasted to the nomination.  Maybe not – and it doesn’t matter much now, since between dual influences of the Ronulans and the Tea Party, the GOP finally, blessedly moved to the right.  Far enough to turn the conservative of 2008 into the moderate of 2012.

And all of that grassroots activity has made some of you – you know who you are -profoundly uncomfortable.  All us  unwashed Tea Partiers make you nervous, like John Quincy Adams supporters beholding Andrew Jackson’s entourage moving into the White House.  I’m fine with that, too.

But the reaction some of you are having to the “insurgency” (read: people doing the  democracy thing) in the GOP is telling us some things that I really would rather not be hearing nine months before an election.

Hugh Hewitt, who is a great friend of the radio show I do with Ed Morrissey, said it loudest on his national talk show – “If Ron Paul gets nominated, I’ll vote for Obama”.

Let’s come back to that in a moment here.

When I interviewed Michael Reagan last summer at the Midwest Leadership Conference, he made a great – and lamentably overlooked – point; his father, Ronald Reagan, didn’t win because he was the purest conservative.  He didn’t win because he had the most forward-looking economic vision.  He didn’t win because he promised to end the Cold War with unconditional victory.  And he didn’t win, in those days when people were still wondering what went into that seventeen minute gap in the Watergate tapes, because he was a pure establishment Republican.

He won because he convinced a whooooole lot of people who’d never have ordinarily voted for him, moderates and paleocons and RINOs and unemployed/patriotic Democrats, even – in the primaries and then in the general election – that he and his ideas were right.

Now, I don’t care if you say you’d stay home or even vote Obama if Ron Paul wins the nomination.  I don’t care in the same sense that “I don’t care if Scarlett Johannson has a chive in her teeth during our first date”, because it’s almost purely academic.  Neither is likely to ever happen.

But when you – the Establishment, with your Harvard degrees and your party apparatus and national media outlets – tell the 10-15% of the people who are coming out to GOP primaries, many for the first time, and the much larger percentage of younger voters and potential activists, “your guy, and by extension the principles for which he stands, and by further extension those for which you stand, are so risible that I’ll vote for the enemy first”, what’s that telling them?

It’s telling them that they and their beliefs, by dint of their association with a candidate who (holy hannah!) has a flaw in his past, are a bigger enemy than the President who is, by all of our mutual admissions, destroying this country.

We’re not talking about people who wrote racist rants thirty years ago; many of the people you are talking to weren’t born when Ron Paul wrote his racist screeds.  We’re not talking about people who believe the Iranians have just grievances with us; in many case, you’re talking to people who’ve put their lives on the line to defend this country (Rep. Paul has a disproportionate share of the military vote), and have been getting bombed and shot at by Iranian proxies (and probably actual Iranians).

Your attachment to the establishment – to the process, the machinery, the access, your tee time with Karl Rove, whatever – leads you to demonize a candidate with no chance of getting nominated and, more importantly, alienate a huge mass of voters that would be much better served, and in the long run would serve the party much better, with a little convincing, even if it doesn’t work right away.  People who are, in many respects, the future of conservatism and the GOP.

Ask yourself – What Would Reagan Do?

Let’s go back to the top and re-think this, shall we?

That is all.

To: Newt Gingrich’s Supporters
From: Mitch Berg, guy who really wants to like and support Newt, but juuuust can’t yet.
Re: No, the postscript in my “From” line really says it all.

All,

Loathe as I am to cite Hugh Hewitt, he did  have an excellent point for all of you Gingrich supporters last night on his show.  I’m going to turn that point into a question.

I’ll get to that in a moment.

William F. Buckley’s rule for picking a candidate was simple; pick the most conservative candidate that can win.  I follow this – after doing what I can to make the candidate who can win more conservative (see Tim Pawlenty, 2002).

Now, let’s leave aside the troubling episodes in Newt’s career – older ones, like his creakingly convoluted personal life (and I’m disregarding everything Marianne said in her loathsome interview, by the way, and only going by stuff Gingrich has admitted to, or which is in court records), middle-term ones like his trading butterfly kisses with Nancy Pelosi, and painfully recent ones like his tossing all of capitalism under the bus and his adoption of Saul Alinkski’s tactics to try and eke out a lead in South Carolina (which is the very definition of politics in its worst form over principle); let’s even leave aside the fact that Newt is in many ways a conservative (fingers crossed) mirror of his would-be nemesis, Barack Obama – albeit with more actual real-world government experience.  Forget all that.

Remember Buckley; pick “the most conservative candidate that can get elected”.

As Hugh notes, Newt has 100 percent name recognition, and 60% negative perception.

Why should I support him?

Don’t talk principles.  Don’t talk history.  Don’t talk 1994.  Don’t talk policy.  Talk numbers.  Convince me.

That is all.

To:  Ron Paul supporters
From: Mitch Berg, Former Big-L Libertarian, current small-l libertarian
Re:  Your candidate

All,

I love a David and Goliath fight as much as anyone, and much more than most.  So the idea that a candidate could come in out of nowhere, electorally speaking, and tip the GOP establishment up on its ear is something I just looooove.  Seriously.

And not only do I totally get the principles Ron Paul is espousing – liberty, shrinking government, etc – I have run for office behind them.

I don’t support Ron Paul, personally, as a candidate, for many of the same reasons I bailed out of the Big-L Libertarian Party fourteen years ago; while I agree with its core principles and high-level beliefs, there is little about your candidate, like my old party, that makes me think he’s ready for prime time when it comes to trying to run a nation of 300 million people.

But this isn’t about Ron Paul or his principles, or the wrinkles in his past that many of you would have us ignore.  This is about you.

Four years ago, you – or an earlier generation of “you” – bum-rushed the caucuses, with the intention of taking over the Minnesota GOP (as in other states).  And of the ones that got elected to go to the House District conventions, some actually showed up.  And of the ones that got elected to go to the Congressional District convention, some showed up.  And of those few left who got elected to go to the state convention, fewer still showed up.

In short, when the time for writing resolutions and declaiming about “Doctor Paul” passed, and the time to try to do the hard, boring stuff started, you – the vast, vast majority of you – sat it out.  And that’s notwithstanding the number of you that opted to sit out the election.

It’s easy – and your right – to say “If you don’t nominate my candidate, I’m going to sit this election out”.  But this isn’t about the election – this is about the party of which Ron Paul is a member; the one to whose caucuses Paul and his organizers are going to send you in your thousands in two weeks.

Getting an agenda passed takes more than just noise, intransigence, and near-religious fervor.  It takes persistence, a willingness to work within a party system (if only to co-opt it – and that’s not only not a bad thing, that’s actually how politics works!), the cultivated ability to sit in party functions and keep your ass from falling asleep long enough not only to get candidates who believe in what you do endorsed, but to keep the party in line with your principles as well.  And as someone who just spent a year as a minor elected party functionary on a libertarian-conservative agenda, let me tell you – that’s the hard part.

So, Ron Paul supporters, please answer the question:  are you ready to try to stick around, learn a few things, and try not only work with (and co-opt!) the party in which your candidate is running, and to which his son is committed?

Or are you going to collapse into epic disappointment again?

Because if it’s the former, I’d love to talk with y’all.

That is all.

To:  Rick Santorum supporters
From: Mitch Berg
Re: Your Case

All,

Any of you Santorum people, please fill me in:  other than…:

• He’s pro-life
• He’s anti-gay marriage
• He’s got an R by his name
• He drives libs insane

…what precisely is the case for your guy?

Don’t get me wrong – I support all these things, to one degree or another.

But what’s the case for nominating Santorum?

That is all.

To: Arby’s Restaurants
From: Mitch Berg, rare customer
Re: Bad Mood

Dear Arby’s,

I don’t go to Arby’s much.  While you have the odd good item on  your menu – potato cakes are proof God not only exists but loves us – your restaurants are not usually the kind of place I go out of my way to get to.

But to the extent that it ever was, you’re rapidly blowing it with your current ad campaign, featuring “RB”, the annoying slacker who tags every spot by singing “It’s Good Mood Food”

It’s one of those notable ad campaigns that started bad – the line “we all look the same way nude” was not something I’d like to associate with fast food, ever – and got worse (the tortoise congo line and the “angry bank robber” bits)…

….reaching their nauseating nadir, the “Fisherman” spots. Which start out less obnoxiously (and more predictably) than most of the “RB” spots, it’s true – but that just lulls us into a false sense of hope.  The spots end with “RB” singing “I’m on boat…”, through autotune.

Annoying? No.  Justification for a rogue Iranian submariner declaring a unilateral campaign of no-quarter destruction against fishing craft? Yes.

That is all.

To: Senators Franken And Klobuchar

From: Mitch Berg, Potential Target

Re: SOPA Pillaging

Senators,

Everyone from Wikipedia to Keilth Ellison is blacking out their sites today to protest the idiotic “Stop Online Piracy Act”, which would “stop piracy” by giving the Executive Branch the ability to wantonly shut down websites for linking to sites that had so much as one pirated file among thousands of others, even inadvertently.

I don’t have time to muck with this site’s code to that extent, but I’ll give an excerpt:

We know – your Hollywood backers want this bill.  They want their man Obama to be able to crush anything that saps their revenue.  And they paid good money to get you both elected.

So go work for them.  In Hollywood, not DC.

Ditch the bill and take your lumps.

(And yes, even if you do withdraw SOPA, I will dog you about it until you leave office, and beyond; you deserve it.  But them’s the breaks)

That is all.

To: Governor Dayton
From: Mitch Berg, Bears fan
Re: Just a suggestion

Governor,

Just a quick point of order; badgering…

“It’s time for leaders of the Legislature to show some leadership to get this project approved,” Dayton said at a Capitol news conference.

…is not “leadership”.

The Democratic governor said he was prepared to unveil his stadium plan Monday but postponed his proposal last week after Republican leaders told him they opposed a special legislative session to consider a stadium bill.

Sort of like all your budget plans?

I digress:

Two rank-and-file Republican lawmakers have been drafting stadium legislation, but House Speaker Kurt Zellers and Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch have not proposed any ideas for funding a stadium and don’t want a special session to address the stadium issue until someone else offers a plan for them to consider.

Dayton asked of the leaders, “What are you for? What are you willing to support?”

Not sure what you think they’re supposed to do, Governor.  Drop everything to become the de-facto PR agent for a billionaire (or really a convention of billionaires) that’s trying to shake the citizens of this state down for another billion we don’t have and don’t want to spend?

Like you are?

Just saying.

That is all.

To: The Entire Twin Cities Media
From: MItch Berg, Schlub Taxpayer
Re:  Think, For Crying Out Loud

Jackals,

Watching your “coverage” of the Vikings stadium issue, I have to wonder if you haven’t taken a leave of absence from your DFL gigs and taken on some sabbatical work for the Vikings and the NFL.

Look – we all know your management all want a new stadium; it means more money for your organizations.  We get that.

But get real; The NFL wants and needs a franchise here; it’s one of the best football markets per capita in revenue and ratings. Jacksonville, to pick one, is a bad, former expansion team in a market that only cares about college ball; it only makes good business sense for the Jags to move – if you care about good business.  And the NFL does; it’s just that as the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce will tell you, “getting free stuff from goverment” is good business – at least, in the short term.

The NFL is bluffing us. They, and Wilf, are like a bunch of spoiled teenagers manipulating their parents.

They’re not going to move.  But they will try to make the taxpayer think they will – and like any spoiled teenager they will manipulate you, the media, with your need to keep your own bills paid (and I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re not actively shilling on the NFL’s behalf – which is a bit of a stretch, WCCO and Star/Tribune, if you catch my drift).

That is all.

To:  “Occupy…” in all your various and seemingly indistinguishable forms.
From: Mitch Berg – one of the 53%
Re: You Blew It.

Dear Occupant:

I’m Mitch Berg.  Most of you who are huddled down at Government Center – sorry, I just can’t call it “People’s Plaza” – right now probably think of me as “the enemy”, on one level or another.  But I’m a guy who works for a living, and pays taxes (oh, lord) and is not “too big to fail” and who reacted to the bailouts on Wall Street with the same anger – albeit not the same response – that you folks had.

And a call from my old friend Tom Swift on my show a week or so ago got me to thinking.

Tom pointed out that the “Occupy” movement had the potential to be every bit as big a deal as the Tea Party – if they had stuck with themes that really resonate with actual Americans; the revulsion with government (of whichever party) picking winners and losers, pouring public money into bailing out banks that then sat on the money (for whatever reason), and the roots of the foreclosure crisis, which is hurting the responsible just as much as the wanton these days.

But y’all blew it.  As Dave Ramsey notes, rather than protest around and about a clear message – like the Tea Party, which for a movement with no cohesive leadership is very “on-message”, as they say – the “Occupy” movement, says Ramsey, is…well, just a big fuzzy cloud:

The beauty of being vague is that anyone who has any emotion can get caught up in the excitement and join your crusade. They’ll just get mad at something and assume that you’re both mad about the same thing. Put a few hundred of these people together, and boom. You’ve got a crowd, a headline and a lot of attention … but no message.

And Ramsey isn’t one of those people telling you Occupiers to take a shower and get a job, necessarily:

A lot of people on Twitter are saying I totally agree with the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) demands and goals. The only problem is that I have no idea what their demands and goals are. And neither does anyone else. If all you ever do is stomp around, yell and hold up signs protesting a million different things, sure you’ll get some attention, but over time, you’ll just look foolish. You end up coming across like a three-year-old having a temper tantrum.

This is what’s happening to the OWS movement. They’re being discredited because no one has stepped forward and really stated what it is they’re after. The whole group is just coming across like a bunch of jacked-up, jobless, wannabe hippies. That’s not going to change anything in this country. You’ve got to state your goals clearly if you want to accomplish something.

And that’s the big difference between the Tea Party and the Occupy party; the Tea Party got angry about something and seized on protest (and lots and lots of action) in response. Seriously, everybody can sum up in one sentence why the Tea Party exists, even some of its less-dim detractors.

But the Occupiers seemed to protest first, and try to figure out why later.  At a General Assembly meeting.

To: The Regional Mainstream Media
From: Mitch Berg, Prole
Re: Your Coverage of the “Overentitled, Overeducated White People For Big Government” Rally

All,

“Field of Dreams” was a great movie. And one of its hook lines was, indeed, “If you build it, they will come”.

But repeating “The rallies are building! The rallies are building!” (koff koff Alix Kendall and Tom Bultler) several times every newscast doesn’t actually mean that this exercise in Obama-fluffing is ever going to become an actual populist “uprising”

That is all.

MBerg

(PS – Seriously – I know you want to have a big headline story, but this is the kind of stuff that people are going to be laughing about for years.  The Channel Nine morning news at 7AM devoted a solid four minutes to the protests, clogged with references to “watching the nationwide protests as they spread across the country”, as if it’ll actually happen if you say it once an hour).

There are those who say that political blogging is dead – replaced by Twitter.

To explore the issue, I present a Point/Counterpoint debate between myself and my evil twin brother Jed.

MITCH:  Is political blogging dead?  Who cares?  As long as I enjoy doing it, it’s alive!

JED: Solipsistic as always, Mitch.  The larger point is this; if all political communication is going to have to squeeze down to 140 characters (less links), then completing the de-evolution to Duckspeak is really just a formality.

The winner:  Both of us!

To:  Chris Cilizza
From: Mitch Berg
Re: Durr.

Mr. Cilizza:

In the past, I have criticized your “best blogs” lists for being myopic assortments of blogs driven mostly by fanboy response.

Then I saw “CBS Minnesota”‘s – that’d be WCCO’s – assortment of blogs in their “Most Valuable Blogger” awards.

Now, I don’t much care about the Dining, Sports, Entertainment, Heath or “Everything Else” sections – because I don’t read any of those categories, ever – I gotta say the “Local Affairs” selection is…

…well,  you be the judge).

In a state full of heavyweight blogs that actually make a difference, WCCO provides this list of blogs ranging from the unknown to “Cantina Band” who have only their liberalism in common…

…ah, gotcha.

Anyway, Mr. Cilizza, all is forgiven.

That is all.

MBerg

(more…)

To: GOP Legislative Freshmen  Freshpeople Freshlegislators Newbies

From: Mitch Berg

Re: Good job.

Dear…you know who.

Good job.  You took your unprecedented mandate and held the line against a governor who was never anything but hell-bent to uphold his special interest agenda.

So far so good.

Now – do something about your upperclasspeople.  Keep ’em on the beam.  Some of ’em make me nervous.

That is all,

Mitch Berg

To: Opponents of Gay Marriage Amendment

From: Mitch Berg, small-“l” libertarian

Re: Your Sudden Conversions

Dear Gay Marriage Supporters,

Over the weekend, as the House debated the Marriage Amendment, I saw a lot of  you talking about “Civil Rights” and “Liberties” and “Principles”.  About how civil rights are not, no-how, not never, up for popular vote.

Great!  Today we are all libertarians!

So tomorrow, we’ll count on your support on…:

• Abolishing Campus Speech Codes.  Young citizens are citizens too! And there is no “civil right” not to be offended!  And just as you claim gay marriage won’t destroy breeder marriage, certainly being exposed to ideas that challenge or even offend them won’t destroy students’ education. Right?
• Second Amendment Rights.  Unlike gay marriage, our Right to Keep and Bear Arms is in the constitution, right next to speech, assembly, the press, jury trials, searches and seizures and the whole gamut. You may not understand the Second Amendment – most “progressives” don’t  – but it’s a right, not for trivial restriction – or how closely-knit it is with the Fourteenth Amendment – but  I expect to see you calling your legislator the next time she votes against, say, the “Stand Your Ground” bill.  It’s a civil right.  And a human right.  Pardon the redundancy.
• Enumerated Powers: You can stop calling people “Tenthers” and claiming that defendin the Tenth Amendment’s enumerated powers is akin to supporting slavery.
• Property and Possessions: You can not gabble about civil liberties without duefending the civil liberty that crosses all races, orientations, faiths, and other divides; the right to keep as much of what you earn as possible, as opposed to feeding it into the stifling maw of big government.   You’re all gonna be tax hawks now, right?
• Self-determination: Government mandates to buy heathcare are a civil-liberties abomination.  I’ll trust you’ll join me in attacking Obamacare.

I’ll expect the same level of civil-liberties absolutism that you have developed on the make-or-break issue of gay marriage.

See you at the barricades!

To: MNGOP Legislative Leadership

From: Mitch Berg, UppityConservative

Re: Vikings Stadiium.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

In case the November 2010 mandate you got wasn’t clear enough, repeat after me.

No public financing for a Vikings Stadium.

Everyone – all together now:

No public financing for a Vikings Stadium.

No public financing for a Vikings Stadium.

No public financing for a Vikings Stadium.

No public financing for a Vikings Stadium.

No public financing for a Vikings Stadium.

No public financing for a Vikings Stadium.

No public financing for a Vikings Stadium.

No public financing for a Vikings Stadium.

No public financing for a Vikings Stadium.

No public financing for a Vikings Stadium.

No public financing for a Vikings Stadium.

No public financing for a Vikings Stadium.

No public financing for a Vikings Stadium.

No public financing for a Vikings Stadium.

Keep repeating it until it sinks in.

We sent you there.  We can send someone else that gets the message.

That is all.

To: William Hailer

From: Mitch Berg, “uneducated racist”.

Re: Your ““NPR Exec says modern GOP party is controlled by the Tea Party whom are fairly racists and uneducated… I guess truth gets you fired” tweet

Dear Mr. Hailer,

Ryan Winker called.  He said to chill out, you’re giving “smug, elitist twerps who write rhetorical checks they don’t have the intellectual funds to cash” a bad name.

That is all.

MBerg

To: Chris Wallace, Fox News

From: Mitch Berg

Re: Your interview with Shirley Phelps

Mr. Wallace,

As you are aware, debating lawyers is entirely do-able.

I was going to say that debating cultists – as in your interview with Shirley Phelps, daughter of Phred Phelps, and the lawyer who won Westboro Baptist Church’s case at the Supreme Court on the nature, and even contradictions, of their cult theology – is just not.

But then immediately afterwards, watching you flense Dick Durbin, I realized you were just sandbagging.

That is all.

To:  Program Director, Clear Channel Twin Cities.

From: Mitch Berg

Re:  Your open position :  “Job Title: Morning Show Host – 100.3 FM”

Dear Madam or Sir:

I’m Mitch Berg.  Perhaps you’ve heard of me; I’m one of the guys who completely dominates the all-important weekend political talk market in this town.

I’ve noticed that you are advertising for a new morning guy.

Let’s go through the position, piece by piece:

Employer: Clear Channel Radio – Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN

Ooof.  Not a good start.  Clear Channel is known to be mercurial and just a little executive-driven.  But we can work that out.

Onward:

Job Title: Morning Show Host – 100.3FM News/Talk 100.3 FM (Minneapolis/St Paul) is looking for its next great morning host.

And I’m going to help see to it that you find him or her!

If you think you’ve got what it takes to propel a morning show into instant relevance in a highly competitive market, if you’ve got compelling and unique takes on the news of the day, if you love digging into and ‘owning’ local stories

Wow.  That reads just like yours truly!

if you truly ‘get’ social networking, unique online content, and the value it adds to your show

As in “writing one of the region’s better-read political blogs, having a decent regional twitter following, and helping put the “social” in the  Twin Cities alternative social media?

Wow.  It’s almost like an engraved invitation!

plus a strong sense of humor to boot

You think titles like this come from just anyone?

– please email cover letter, resume and any other information to: [redacted]@clearchannel.com Subject line should read: 100.3FM Morning Show Host No calls please. Clear Channel is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Well, as much as it reads like kan engraved invitation, I gotta confess that it’ll take a lot to drag me away from Salem (owner of AM1280 The Patriot, where I do the Northern Alliance).  Because while I would love to get pelted with dead presidents for doing talk radio, in a way Salem pays me something that’s worth even more; the ability to do a great show without any pencil-necked execu-dweebs trying to tell me what to do.  I’ve got something that hardly anyone in the broadcast industry has; the freedom to kick ass; any ass I want, any way I want.

At Salem, Ed and I report only to God.

Well, no, I got a little carried away.  We do have some terrestrial accountability.  But in almost seven years on the air, we’ve not had a single Bill Lumbergh-like executive mince into the studio and go “aaah, riiight, why don’t you try to sound a little more…orange?”

And that is worth more than gold.

So thanks, Clear Channel.  But no thanks.  Nice try, though.

(And shut up and hire Bob Davis permanently.  Jeez).

Lets’ dignify  your absurd allegations with speculation –  more than they deserve.

All it proves is that a conservative with Alzheimers is a better president than a liberal.

That is all.

Deficit, Schmeficit; Jesse Jackson Junior feels nervous:

Just last week, the House voted to slash its operating budget by 5 percent, or $35 million, as part of the GOP drive to reduce federal spending the cut the deficit.

Jackson wants that money restored, plus 10 percent, in order to augment security in the Capitol and in districts, where he said some lawmakers may need to hire security for constituent events and install surveillance cameras in their district offices.

“After the events of last weekend, it is clear that our district staffs are vulnerable,” Jackson said in an e-mail. “Members should have the resources and the latitude to take appropriate security measures in order to protect themselves and their staffs.”

Representative Jackson: there were over 430 homicides in Chicago last year; that’s seventy Tuscons, each one as bloody, horrible and ghastly as the one in Tuscon.  There were 25 murders in December – more than four Tuscons, over the holiday season.

The people in your district are hunkered down against a three-year-long rash of gang warfare; more prosaic, perhaps, than an insane man shooting up a congresswoman and her constituents at a store, but really no less insane.

Hire an off-duty cop when you make your rounds of your constituents, if you still do that, and shush.

Lawmakers are also nervous about security inside the Capitol complex, despite the hundreds of armed police officers who already guard it each day and the extensive screening required for those entering Capitol Hill buildings

And those “lawmakers” are being just a tad dramatic.  The Capitol has been like a maximum security prison – only for people coming in – for decades.

To:  The new Republican majority in Congress

From: Mitch Berg, First and Fourth Amendment Buff

Re: In re the FCC

Dear new majority,

Please see to abolishing the Federal Communications Commission.

Julius “Seizure” Genachowski, Obama’s current puppet as chairman of the FCC’s board, is involved in an epic power grab that indulges the classic liberal conceit that “if we can make the law say it’s right, then it must be right”.  Scott Johnson shreds Genachowski’s legal approach.  Kevin O’Brien gets the rest of it in this Cleveland Plain Dealer op-ed, noting that Genachowski’s latest power grab has something for everyone to hate:

[MN Senator Al] Franken wrongly believes the FCC can make the rules. He just finds what is proposed too generous to big corporations — a legitimate concern. When the feds make rules, they tend to preserve the primacy of whoever the industry leaders are at the time. As Franken wisely notes (now, there’s a phrase you may never see in this space again), if the big boys like it, be suspicious.

[SC Senator Jim] DeMint, while properly dismissing the FCC’s authority to require anything at all of Internet providers, is more worried about a government takeover of the Internet. He’s right, too.

The idea that this is all about consumer protection and a level playing field is plainly ludicrous. It’s just another a power grab, nobly camouflaged in the familiar progressive guise of Making Life Fair.

Leftyblogs’ cases for Obama’s power grab usually involve plaintive pleas of “why shouldn’t everyone have equal access to the Internet?”.  For the same reason that I don’t have equal access to your refrigerator or your retirement account; it’s not theirs.  The Internet’s costly grows almost exclusively due to private investment; it’s not been a government or academic preserve since DARPA let the genie out of the bottle.  The Internet is not like the broadcast spectrum, as dubious as the FCC’s case is for regulating even that.

The end result would be an Internet tied up in rules and regulations, with government setting rates and stifling competition. It can’t go any other way, because it never goes any other way.

In a speech announcing that the FCC would ignore the courts and dare the Congress to stop it, Genachowski unwittingly explained just how unnecessary it is for his agency to “protect” us:

“Internet companies have started as small startups, some of them famously in dorm rooms and garages with little more than a computer and access to the open Internet. Many have become large businesses, providing high-paying, high-tech jobs in communities across our country. It’s the American dream at work.”

The rest of the speech was unadulterated bunkum, but he was right about that.

It’s time to shut down the FCC.  Please see to this ASAP.

Use the Air Force if necessary.

That is all,

MBerg

Thank you for the one thing you did for us “shocked” Minnesotans: My license tabs used to be $105-195.

Today I paid $360 for a 2008 model car. The tabs are a very cool color – red – for 2011. It’s a shame to stick them on my plates because I paid enough for them to be jewelry. I’m glad the DMV takes Visa because that way I am able to spread out the payments.

I’m sure that money will be well-spent on our awesome Minnesota streets, roads and highways.

I miss you (at the moment). Say hello to Terry.

That is all.

To: All Inner-City Parents with kids in the Minneapolis or St. Paul School Districts

From: Mitch Berg, who’s been there, pretty much.

Re: An Invitation

All,

I’m Mitch Berg.  I live in Saint Paul.  A few years back, I pulled my kids out of the St. Paul Schools, and went into the charter system.

And when I got into the charter school system, I was astounded at what I saw; in Saint Paul, the vast majority of the families were black, latino or asian.  Many were recent immigrants.   And they were among the most passionate advocates for school choice I’ve ever met.  Because they – you – are not stupid.  You can see that your school districts have among the worst “achievement gaps” in the nation between your kids and white kids.  You know that our educational-industrial complex’s boasting about the quality of our school system rings hollow along Plymouth Avenue, and down Rice Street.

Most of the parents I met, like most of you that I’m writing to now, naturally, voted DFL.  Not a few of them spat tacks at the mention of Republican politicians.

And it was fascinating, watching the cognitive dissonance when I mentioned to them that in May of 2007, when the DFL proposed a bill that would cap the number of charter schools in Minnesota, the DFL voted an almost-straight ticket in favor of capping charter schools (six of them broke with the party, only one of them from the metro). The GOP voted as a straight ticket against the cap, which was defeated by the skinniest of margins.

Let me re-emphasize that, all you parents out there: the DFL voted to cut off your kids’ lifeline, the charter schools that you all quite rightly judge to be your kids’ best shot at a quality education.

Today, the NAACP urged parents like you to pull your kids out of the Minneapolis Public Schools. But they did it for all the wrong reasons:

The Minneapolis branch of the NAACP on Wednesday urged parents to consider pulling their children out of the Minneapolis School District in response to Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson’s recommendation to close North High School.

I understand – North is, to some people, a center and rallying point for that troubled community.

And to the administration?  Well, it’s part of their meal ticket:

The accusations were an affront to Johnson, who grew up in segregated Selma, Ala. “We have the responsibility of providing a high quality education to our students regardless of where they live,” Johnson wrote in a statement to the Star Tribune. “All of our students deserve educational opportunities that will prepare them to be global citizens. I am committed to providing them with those opportunities.”

Parents – if someone, a salesman or a boss or a teacher, spoke that kind of empty gobbledygook to your face, you’d laugh at them and walk away, wouldn’t you?

The woman said nothing!

Look – closing North High should be a cause for celebration; North High, with its atrocious achievement and yawning achievement gap and by-the-numbers mediocrity that fully lived out what George W. Bush called “the racism of low expectations”, was just a cog in a machine that devalued your children just as surely as any plantation owner ever would have 160 years ago; a symbol of an education establishment that exploits your children no less cynically than any drug kingpin. Oh, their intentions may be more benign than Simon LeGree’s and Plukey Duke’s, but when it comes to the education your children got at North – at any Minneapolis Public School, or Saint Paul for that matter, look me in the eye and tell me that the intentions made a stitch of difference?

[Minneapolis NAACP President Booker] Hodges issued a statement calling for parents “who value their children’s education or future [to] seriously consider other options for educating their children.”

And I – a cracker descended from North Woods rock farmers, myself – will stand up and yell “Amen”.  Hodges is right.

Now is the time to free your children from the Minneapolis Schools’ racism of low, or no, expectations.

Of course, the Minneapolis School Board and the Minneapolis Public Schools are only the tip of the iceberg, just as they are in Saint Paul.   The problem is that the cities’ school districts are controlled by people who owe their livelihoods and futures to the Minnesota Federation of Teachers, and the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party, first and foremost.

Not to you.

Not to your children.

And they are counting on you – the African-American parents, the Latino families, the H’mong clans who votes for them by imposing margins in every election, year in and year out – to remain ignorant of the fact that for all of the DFL’s yammering about education spending, it is the GOP that supports your right to choose where your kids go to school.  It is the GOP that supports initiatives like School Choice, Charter Schools and, in many states, Vouchers to give you, the motivated, dedicated parents that I see and know from my time as a charter school parent, the power and tools – to say nothing of economic freedom – to make those choices and make them stick.

You can say “he’s just talking politics”.  And you’re right – this is about politics.  But politics control your childrens’ education just as surely as their teachers’ qualifications do.

So look at the record.  The DFL – the Democrats, the people you have been voting for since time immemorial – are actively supported by those who are harming your children.

You want hope, for your children, for real?  It’s time for change.

[I just sent the following to Mark Dean, director of Common Cause MN, which just filed a complaint against conservative PAC “Minnesota’s Future” for doing exactly what “Alliance For A Better Minnesota”, “Win Minnesota” and “The 2010 Fund” have been doing – or about 10% of what they’re doing, anyway…]

Mr. Dean,

I’m Mitch Berg, one of the hosts of the Northern Alliance Radio Network on AM1280 in the Twin Cities.

I’d like to invite you to appear on the “NARN” with Ed Morrissey and I one of these next weekends to discuss your complaint against “Minnesota’s Future”; we’re curious why Common Cause has neglected to file a similar complaint against “”Alliance For A Better MInnesota”, “Win Minnesota” and “The 2010 Fund”, which are doing exactly what you allege Minnesota’s Future has done, only with many times more money.

On the chance it was all a ghastly oversight, I’ll bring a complaint form. We can fill it out on the air together.

While the request is pointed, the Northern Alliance prides ourselves on doing civil, respectful interviews. Previous “non-partisan” guests include RT Rybak, Dane Smith, Eric Black and Rochelle Olson.

We would sincerely love to discuss this before the election.

Let me know if any of the next few Saturdays work. Our program airs from 1-3PM.

I do hope to hear from you.

Sincerely,

Mitch Berg

Co-host, The Northern Alliance Radio Network,

AM1280 (WWTC-AM) Radio.

“Shot In The Dark” (www.shotinthedark.info)

“True North” (www.looktruenorth.com).

To:  Madames and Sirs

From:  Mitch

Re: Huge Mistake

To whom it may concern,

Get  “Mike’s Hard Limeade” back on your shelves immediately or face the consequences.

That is all.

Mitch Berg