tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72194716469366598842024-02-06T21:38:30.140-08:00People's Republic of Minnesotaambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comBlogger508125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-92129446011064785422012-09-23T07:05:00.000-07:002016-06-21T22:53:14.200-07:00Fisking* Dayton's Humphrey School Lecture <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
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Recently Gov. Dayton gave a Lecture to the Policy Fellows of the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs of which local media have agreed amongst themselves to release only the audio to date. Getting the video into the public domain, where it manifestly belongs, is an ongoing story about which more later.</div>
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For now, I wanted to Fisk* the address that the Governor gave. I asked the Governor's Office if the speech existed in written form and was told it did not. In fact, no written record of any of the Governor's speeches since taking office can be found because none exist. He has no speech writer. He writes his own speeches, his communications office told me, and it shows. That he can't be bothered with a writer to craft speeches with vision and substance is telling. To be fair, he gives the same, tired, intellectually fossilized speech just about everywhere. We don't really have a full time fully functioning Governor, do we?</div>
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What follows is my best understanding of what the Gov. said Sept. 12 based on the audio provided by MPR. It can be found by clicking<span style="color: #990000;"> <a href="http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/polinaut/archive/2012/09/dayton_warns_ta.shtml" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">here.</span></a></span></div>
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Dayton begins by thanking Vice President Mondale who is in the audience, remembers he was hired by him for then Senator Mondale's staff in 1975. He learned about keeping his commitments & integrity then, you see, in that land of Jurassic Park liberalism. To change one's mind is tantamount, in this man's fixed-in-amber mentality, to betrayal of integrity. He learned everything--once--decades ago under vastly different circumstances and he's good for life, thanks.</div>
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What he means is: being dipped in stupid long ago means he doesn't need to keep up with new ideas in or out of government. This epistemic closure will soon be championed by Dayton later in his speech.</div>
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The day before his Lecture was 9/11 and the Governor told the audience he realized that on that day in 2001: "we were in for a rough ride." Well, yes, thanks so much for noticing. "Nothing will be the same after this." Right again.</div>
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He then applies the dread of post 9/11 to the current situation in our state. Why didn't we think of that? Because when I think of a budget short fall or a bloated anachronistic state bureaucracy closed for a mere 20 days, it puts me immediately in mind of the Trade Towers smoldering with the ashes of more than three thousand of my countrymen.</div>
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Apropos of nothing, Dayton brings up the recent 1988 book by Paul Kennedy: The Rise & Fall of the Great Powers. Dayton appears to be smitten by this tired, dated, middlebrow work of alarm. Nothing he says in the speech indicates he's read anything more current.</div>
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After oversimplifying the book, Dayton says national collapse is what we have to guard against. I'm in. I'm expecting to hear the alarm bells of a 16 trillion dollar national debt but it never comes.</div>
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Instead, Dayton jumps back in time (leaving the present to reminisce about the past is a disturbing feature of this Lecture) to the Clinton years to praise a budget balanced two years in a row. He fails to note that such only happened after republicans gained control of Congress. The previous two years were full of deficit, to use an inelegant phrase. I wouldn't be surprised if the the Policy Fellows themselves didn't know this. They're not exactly an impressive lot, nor, one gathers from the current state of academe, could they be.</div>
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Next? We're in the senate with Dayton again. Um, ok! Doing my best to follow, sir, because none of this hangs together and you're not yet five minutes into the speech. The senate scenes are a mashup of Bush bashing but weirdly mostly of when Dayton and Bush were at Yale undergraduate together. What happened to 9/11? Don't know, don't ask. Dayton tells one of his few W. jokes and the trained seals all laugh. There must be some comfort in life.</div>
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Dick Cheney is also thrown into the Yale Memory Mix.™ We should start a Gov. Dayton store. We could stock it with the most interesting inventory.</div>
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Continuing to recall things in ways that no other can, Dayton channelled Bush, saying the latter looked at President Ronald Reagan taking us down "a path of fiscal irresponsibility and getting away with it" and W approved. What on earth is this man talking about? Fiscal irresponsibility? "Getting away with it" from whom? Where do you locate the slight? "Getting away with it?" Sounds punitive to me. Tell us more about what makes you angry, Governor. The Humphrey School is a safe place.</div>
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Oblivious to the economic boom under Reagan (how is that even possible?), Dayton lurches toward President George H.W. Bush's political suicide of raising taxes. <i>Naturally </i>he praises it but that's to be expected of a liberal. So far, so good.</div>
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Incredibly, Dayton then says this "got us back on that track to economic growth and he paid the price politically for doing so." This is simply delusional but because it involved a tax increase it was a <i>per se</i> good. We had more economic growth under Bush One than Reagan? Anyone who believes that should not be a governor of any state nor, for that matter, in politics in a serious way.</div>
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The thinking isn't even simplistic. There isn't any thinking. This is a series, so far, of emotional associations interspersed with improvisational remarks.</div>
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At this point in the Lecture, we're not listening, we're observing the performer.</div>
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And what one sees is not reassuring: a basic, profound misunderstanding of the most simplistic economic principles, eg, tax cuts "cost" the state because all of your money (except his & his family's) belong to the state in the first instance. This is so ingrained that when you bring it to liberals' attention they really don't know what you're talking about for some time.</div>
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Dayton's memories of annual family meetings "up north" to discuss & decide wealth management issues is fascinating and as such is nowhere to be found mentioned by the Pioneer Press, StarTribune, MPR, AP or any local television station of which I'm aware. Why not? It's like he's an out of touch rich white guy: that meme is right in the media's wheelhouse. But no, nothing. It's almost as if they are covering for this appalling performance. That can't be though: local media talk truth to power and everything!</div>
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That Bruce Dayton guy made a big impression on little Marky and he's lived to please that impression his whole life, with substantial collateral damage to the public good.</div>
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Dayton travels furthest back in time in the first half of the speech when he quotes approvingly from Walter Heller. Doubtless most local media had to Google the name. I had to catch my breath: Heller is from the Kennedy Administration! Dayton is an intellectual mummy. Could he hold a sustained conversation with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker? No and we all know it. Forget running again in 2014; I worry he won't make it until then even with the media's complicity.</div>
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Why is the Governor sharing these political ink blots with us? He goes on to bemoan tax cuts in Minnesota which has set us on a downward spiral. This man is planning a revision of our state tax code after the November election. Could anything be scarier?</div>
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He sees the tax code as helping to "reward innovation and success." No thank you, sir. That's the function of the private market. Is it possible for you to stay out of it in any meaningful way?</div>
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The next disassociative moment came shortly after when he "shared" a memory from youth: his "one summer job" at Target. Oh dear. This must have been worse than the two year compulsory military service for men and women in Israel, no? Marky was tasked with inventory and all that counting made him bored! He didn't know how to handle boredom then and he doesn't still, only now we get that inability to shake boredom expressed as antiquated public policy notions foisted upon us in a speech the media won't release on video.</div>
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When he spoke about the national debt he only got it wrong by two trillion dollars: 14 instead of 16 (which, Guv, was set during the DNC if you were awake for any of it). No, you may <i>not</i> have elemental competence in your Chief Executive Officer. Dayton governs so poorly he gets the debt wrong before policy fellows. This isn't even mailing it in.</div>
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Citizens can make up their own minds simply by listening to the speech. It's only 25 minutes long. But audio is a good way for media to pretend to transparency while knowing full well the images are what do the damage in such situations. One tee vee station aired 20 seconds and even that was painful. No wonder the public has not seen the video of the speech, yet.</div>
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Disjointed. Incoherent. Devoid of leadership or ideas for the next few years. Keep in mind the title of this Lecture was:</div>
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"Minnesota's Future: Opportunities & Challenges"</div>
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All Dayton offers going forward is a listening tour. Original! He says he expects to hear "some" about taxes in a sort of "see how I suffer for you" attitude. Taxpayers are a bother, you see.</div>
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Near the conclusion of this train wreck of a Lecture, Father Bruce Dayton makes another appearance for, you see, he told young Marky, older Mark Dayton informs his audience, that "if you're going to put all your eggs in one basket, you better take mighty good care of that basket."</div>
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Just what the hell is the Governor talking about? What basket? Why would we put them all in just one anyway? What has this got to do with our state's future? He then gets off a few sentences about the University of Minnesota (if we can just identify and support its essential missions then economic prosperity will return to the state) and abruptly concludes.</div>
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This was the Lecture to the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs Policy Fellows before Vice-President Walter F. Mondale and current University President Eric Kaler?</div>
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No goals are outlined. No detailed synthesis of his first two years in office is provided. No mention of why republicans believe what they do and what, if anything, he can do to move toward the majority party in the legislature. He reveals his profound misunderstanding of Obamacare in saying that because "they" couldn't raise taxes enough on millionaires "they" had to shift the tax to medical devices. Does Governor Dayton mean "they" as in the democrats who alone passed Obamacare? That they? What if in his own mind Dayton associates "they" with republicans? It's entirely possible; entirely that unwell.</div>
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Dayton is as economically ignorant as Obama but for different reasons. How lucky for Minnesotans to have failed executives on both the national and local level, together with a national and local media that seeks to protect them at all costs. Strange days.</div>
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ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-86994270796729053572012-09-16T20:58:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.631-07:00The Unbearable Lightness Of Gov. Mark Dayton <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfAd2GlWsrBsfK7zBiKMlKBDM_h_BbZ1Ubjc4GUg31OEbMMfgV9FM07eX3Yjm14W5u9-ESxzxZYV24ibnsng2O7Z5yljPpAPicGsr_vahS7Z1w2Wcuc8DJ2ONCcWqDcmFhwDsGUVBkh5g/s1600/Dayton.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfAd2GlWsrBsfK7zBiKMlKBDM_h_BbZ1Ubjc4GUg31OEbMMfgV9FM07eX3Yjm14W5u9-ESxzxZYV24ibnsng2O7Z5yljPpAPicGsr_vahS7Z1w2Wcuc8DJ2ONCcWqDcmFhwDsGUVBkh5g/s400/Dayton.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Why is it some children of enormous inherited wealth react to their condition by inflicting themselves upon the greater public under the misnomer of public service? If quizzed, none of us would recall asking these strange creatures for any assistance that they, by chance, might possess in governing ourselves. No, we're good, thanks.<br /><br />Were that it was so easy to stop them. Minnesota's misfortune is to have had Mark Dayton insist that his destiny lay in such oppressive public service on our behalf. First he acted out on the national stage as a senator and failed as only such a hot house creature could. After his single term of absolutely no consequence (hint: that's called waste) some of us had hoped he'd do the "I want my own vineyard" bored wealthy thing or perhaps gotten involved in artisanal chocolate production. For those who main goal in life because of wealth is not to feel irrelevant, the possibilities were endless. Could he not have glommed on to Bill & Melinda's feel good social experiments? Surely from among the panoply of useless United Nations programs and causes there was one he could internalize? If it were sheer ego, why not freshen up a salad dressing line with his mug on the bottle and give Paul Newman a run for his money? He could have meetings and everything!<br /><br />No, not our luck. In what had unavoidable masochistic overtones, Dayton decided he wanted to act out on the state level (again) by insisting he was governor material. That he won the office is no proof whatsoever of that premise and to date his performance is irrefutable evidence of its lack. He jammed his own party by running in the primary and using his own money. Either or both of these conditions usually elicits the loudest of clucking from democrats but, after Dayton beat Tom Emmer by a 8,000 vote whisker, they soon enough fell in line. The governor could be managed, they were told.<br /><br />Gov. Dayton's first two years have been abysmal. What was it he wanted to do as governor anyway? Wouldn't a house and senate controlled by republicans offer him the perfect opportunity to lead? To show compromise? To get things done as these political types like to pretend they can? If one was a real leader instead of a lost soul looking for external housing to shore up the inner, yes. But a leader is not who Gov. Dayton is and it is not who he will be in the coming two years, either.<br /><br />Last week the Governor, sounding like a vaguely fascist mandarin, simply insisted without any intellectual depth or sustained engagement that taxes must increase because of his perceived need of all that government must do. His idea of the size & scope of government is not open to discussion. There is no opting out from it because he knows best. What's that called again?<br /><br />He made his statement at what, until just yesterday, I had been led to believe was simply a speech reported on by the press. Instead, as MinnPost reported the day before (as did the Pioneer Press), it was a University Lecture. MinnPost polished the knob by saying that the title "university lecturer" could be added to Mark Dayton's resume. No, really.<br /><br />Yet what shocked is that this was a lecture grandly titled: "Minnesota's Future: Challenges and Opportunities" given to the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs Policy Fellows (there's more intellectual diversity among supporters of Ron Paul by orders of magnitude; the Fellows are the stuff of David Mamet's nightmares). This was a liberal/progressive/left confab with Little Lord Fauntleroy in attendance.<br /><br />But wait there's more! The event was closed to the public.<br /><br />Pardon? Is this possible? Is Common Cause Minnesota on it? From whence shall our help come? Surely the event was taped and surely I will get my hands on it. Try making it private. The entire speech and question and answer session should be posted on the Humphrey School's website without delay. This event was not a private function.<br /><br />Why would the press acquiesce in this? Access? Or just the usual hot dish politics? Both?<br /><br />I listened to the audio of the Governor's 25 minute speech. It is appallingly bad. To learn only <i>after the fact</i> that it was a university lecture proper for a set of fellows was mind boggling. He spoke from notes as best from what I could tell. Meandering, at times pointless, at others a non-sequitur minefield, his speech revealed that there is serious trouble with our Chief Executive.<br /><br />Our Governor's visual performance at this public event is what is being deliberately withheld from the public. What an odd thing to say about Minnesota politics.<br /><br />But if the visual matches the audio, voters may well be in for a shock. Listening to several bizarre passages on the audio, none intrigued me more in wanting the visual as when Gov. Dayton spoke about his family's annual gathering to discuss wealth management. He reminisced about advice concerning the public good from his father and uncles. He's still executing orders from childhood! I wanted to clap my hands together loudly to snap him out of it while listening to this psychological excursion.<br /><br />MPR and the StarTribune failed to note that this was a resume enhancing "university lecture" before the Humphrey School Policy Fellows with the President of the University of Minnesota in attendance. MinnPost stated that "Some media may attend, but it's not open to the public."<br /><br />Do you see? People like us are not allowed in. Media, who are liberals by another name, "may attend." In other words, no one here but us squishes and we squishes will report on it. Media criticism can't possibly be this easy in this town, can it? Because I'll become quickly bored.<br /><br />It's telling that media do not consider themselves the public. Has this ever been said before? Remember, these people think exceptionally highly of themselves and as having a combative posture toward power. What a laugh! In fact, if power flows from their favored party, they are eager to be co-opted and, as their publishing shows, used to advance that party's interests.<br /><br />The StarTribune reported only that Dayton spoke "at the University of Minnesota." Not untrue and therefore meets the StarTribune's low threshold for accuracy and completeness.<br /><br />MPR reported that he spoke "to a group" at the University of Minnesota. Also not untrue and apparently reported this way less any MPR listener assume that the Governor was walking around campus talking to himself.<br /><br />The Pioneer Press was fuller, saying that the Governor gave "a speech at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs." Even that, however, was insufficient to convey the importance of the event to its own participants. Minnesota University President Eric Kaler attended the Governor's Lecture to the Humphrey School Policy Fellows. Indeed he should have: it was a very big deal.<br /><br />"Some media may attend, but it's not open to the public." Remember that phrase.<br /><br />In his so-called lecture, the Governor proclaimed that the failure to raise taxes would be the death of this country. <i>Failure to raise taxes would be the death of this country. </i>I swear you can hear the sounds of bobble heads on the audiotape. Revenue or death!<br /><br />How is this relic our Chief Executive? He called raising taxes an acid test of his. Could anyone in the press appreciate how astonishing that truly is?<br /><br />Not really. The introduction to the story in the Pioneer Press started out: "Count on Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton to swim against the tide."<br /><br />Really? That wet a kiss?<br /><br />The StarTribune wrote that Dayton had come back from a summer of silence "roaring." There's a neutral term. Fact check, please. It also wrote that the Dayton-responsible statewide government shutdown last year was "bruising." Actually, no one noticed the shut down very much (myself I felt filled with more liberty) which led to Dayton's capitulation 20 days later to the republican legislature's budget. But it is "bruising" now because an election is upcoming and that's how democrats want the issue colored. Consider it done!<br /><br />"Some media may attend, but it's not open to the public."<br /><br />Dayton is wildly out of touch with the times across this country. Where has he been since 2008 for him to have said that "public investments do create jobs." Is there even a flicker of a brain wave there? They create jobs but the wrong kinds of ones and even then frequently they don't last. Public investment does not equate to economic growth. This fundamental economic principle is exceedingly difficult for liberals to grasp because spending makes them feel like they are doing something. That their policies fail so routinely and disastrously without another thought also keeps liberals from holding themselves to account. Detroit is the physical manifestation of liberalism. Imagine if that city came to the end it has under republican governance. Democrats with a byline, as Rush Limbaugh called the media, would be all over that important story.<br /><br />Did anyone get the chance to ask Gov. Dayton if he'd chatted up fellow democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo about his work in New York state? It's an open question whether he'd take Dayton's call but that's another matter altogether. Has our governor heard of reformist democrat governors? We seem to have a leader who is intellectually uncurious about whether anything on the policy side may have changed since he first got into politics just yesterday in 1975. Are his handlers equally thick? Perhaps it's all one encompassing bubble? I hadn't considered that before.<br /><br />Besides taking money from you in the amounts that he knows best in order to spend it on your own good, Gov. Dayton last week also disassociatively proclaimed he'd like to open trade with Cuba.<br /><br />What? No, just no Governor. What are you thinking? You're aware you're in 2012, aren't you sir? Minnesota is surrounded by vastly more economically vibrant states. You may have heard of something called a boom (but not a firework so relax) in North Dakota. South Dakota has been siphoning jobs and businesses from Minnesota for decades now. Wisconsin? You know, Gov. Scott Walker who you are so very not?<br /><br />How does our Governor bring nothing to the table of ideas but stale, failed ones? The laziest of postures are being struck. This begs the question just who are the Governor's current handlers? Who actually is part of the process that informs him as to what he thinks is good governance? We don't really get much coverage of that important and interesting subject. The lecture to the Humphrey School Fellows was just such an opportunity and therefore went largely unreported.<br /><br />There was, fortunately, a ukulele player on Almanac last week so our media didn't let us down completely.<br /><br />Eric Ostermeir, blogging at Smart Politics, had a fascinating overview of the dark, strange, paranoid, apocalyptic words the Governor used in his speech. Is this how liberals make themselves feel alive? More alive? Purposeful? (I feel assaulted when that word is used.)<br /><br />The article is not lengthy but it is extremely observant in distilling Gov. Dayton and his performance last week. To read it click <span style="color: #660000;"><a href="http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/smartpolitics/2012/09/through_the_dark-colored_lense.php" target="_blank"><span style="color: #660000;">here.</span></a> </span>It's almost as if Eric is onto something. Like a story.<br /><br />It's telling that Gov. Dayton has nothing but exaggeration and the gloomiest of language with which to go into this fall's election. Grounded optimism requires a leader. General "can do" attitude usually works wonders with people. But this strangest of all Minnesota governors has no capacity whatsoever for that which smacks of the positive. To the contrary, his internalized conflicts leave him continuously searching for solutions which he then projects onto us by way of out of touch, top down, diktats whose implementation gives him psychological satisfaction. Of course that last bit was sheer psychoanalysis but wasn't it fun?<br /><br />The reporting, as it were, suggests that democrats will increasingly use Gov. Dayton as legislative races heat up. I hope they're correct about the upside offsetting the down because this governor is the best reason why the DFL shouldn't get the legislature. Making him your poster child is fine with me. But having Gov. Dayton urge voters to increase taxes by voting democrat may not be the best way to get said votes.<br /><br />Perhaps democrats didn't notice there's no shortage of issues with which to run against Minnesota republican legislators. But the lemming instinct is strong among progressives; when your ideas are weak continuous mutual reassurance they are strong is essential. What cliff? Forward.<br /><br />If the Governor wants to make raising taxes the "acid test" of this election, it's an open question whether democrats can deflect that mistaken approach with something more likely to bring them to a majority in either chamber or, God forbid, both. I don't pretend to know the inner workings of the DFL, its legislators or activists and so can't hazard a guess as to which is more likely to win out.<br /><br />I do know if it's a battle over raising taxes to fund more useless government, republicans will have the upper hand consistently across all legislative races. Why Dayton is channelling Walter Mondale's 1984 convention promise to raise taxes I've no idea.<br /><br />I do know that it didn't work then and it won't work now.<br /><br /><br /><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-21786075339738357942012-09-13T21:43:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.572-07:00Twitter & The End Of The Fourth Estate<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinM8yNB9sHgPXox8nHUyLrB1SNU9WXcuyDlzwvLx5jyrIL9pEZft4tLTqUezoYsI3QHlJSVSyeoeIHwpIgNElj8V4hy3-zIP-9NqGOJ8sX5ivDXD8QtW8JuD_pL_P1_gmW-V_b3hyOFjg/s1600/the_fourth_estate.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinM8yNB9sHgPXox8nHUyLrB1SNU9WXcuyDlzwvLx5jyrIL9pEZft4tLTqUezoYsI3QHlJSVSyeoeIHwpIgNElj8V4hy3-zIP-9NqGOJ8sX5ivDXD8QtW8JuD_pL_P1_gmW-V_b3hyOFjg/s320/the_fourth_estate.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>Twitter has destroyed journalism as we have known it to date in America. The worst mistake anyone in the press or the media or journalism (do those words have sustained meaning today?) could have made in the age of the internet, smart phones and tablets was to have joined yet another new social medium which counterintuitively limited not just your words but your very keystrokes.<br /><br />The mainstream media was reduced to its essence. The result was its demise.<br /><br />On Twitter, journolists (shall we let them in on that word?) found themselves in the cyber presence of equally if not demonstratively sharper minds, much, much quicker wit & an ability to marshall facts as readily as the imagination of Bob Woodward. The few good ones from the herd shone. The rest, refusing to admit they were subtantially less special than before going on Twitter, gamely strode on.<br /><br />Unfortunately, in doing so they brought the scenery down of what was left of the media game. The royal family in the United Kingdom, say what one may, did manage to survive its encounter with the media. Not so the media itself, which must be the definition of meta.<br /><br />On Twitter, the media were defeated by journalism itself. Not by just the bright activists on both political sides but by the ability for other media from other countries on Twitter to link to a fascinating array of stories about the United States which our own press, as it were, kept from us. Why would they do that?<br /><br />The question didn't last long and people starved for information instead of rubbish were off and running. It wasn't that these websites weren't online before Twitter; they were. What Twitter does is make the static web dynamic and with its rich content you have something unlike we've ever seen before. I've thought long enough about this to think the media as constituted today is at an end. I can see it from my house in my pajamas you might even say.<br /><br />Media personalities, reporters and producers on Twitter, at various times and in sometimes quite revealing ways, eventually could not but help let their personalities come through. On the one hand, we were reassured that they were human. On the other, they themselves (take a bow) confirmed every known defect, vanity and shortcoming conservatives had long ago come to believe they possessed.<br /><br />I'm not really sure if media and liberals on Twitter realize that the conservatives there stand around looking at the wealth of confirmatory evidence, wanting to shake our heads. Because we can't, we use avatars, our own buzzwords (this means you won't know you're being mocked), and hash tags (the pound sign #) which have almost become the exclusive provence of the right.<br /><br />In hash tags conservatives reign supreme. Hash tag games are our most deadly weapon in this aspect of Twitter and largely for our own, self-congratulatory amusement. Again, some media standouts are in our league. See how the tables have changed?<br /><br />Information is the name of the game though, no? Yes. Here marginal or clearly erroneous information is corrected quickly and efficiently. There is the speed of light, which we can't experience, and then there's the speed of Twitter, which we can. I recommend you experience it for yourself.<br /><br />Tonight we're waiting to see what the American media will do with an explosive report from the British newspaper The Independent. From the material there, it seems very likely that Secretary Hillary Clinton was knowingly and grossly deficient in her prime directive as our Secretary of State: to safeguard the lives of her State Department employees. The story can be read by clicking <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/revealed-inside-story-of-us-envoys-assassination-8135797.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #990000;">here.</span></a> This comes, of course, as we learn President Obama did not attend approximately 60% of his daily intelligence briefings.<br /><br />The point is that much more information is needed and the media have no natural interest in obtaining it. They will be forced to report about their team. It has been a very long time since they did. It's at junctures like this that I recall the attitudes of those going into journalism: high minded if not prideful, certain of their commitment to truth and a belief that life could not inculcate in them sometimes wildly contradictory beliefs and opinions. And, of course, worship of that mythic goddess Objectivity.<br /><br />What makes this development all the more remarkable is that it is coming at the end of a tumultuous week within Twitter & the media given the sickening and catastrophic murder and violence in Libya and Egypt.<br /><br />Doesn't everyone know where they were when they learned "our Ambassador" to Libya had been murdered? I believe they do. I know I do. It almost never happens. When it does, that veneer of civilization is thin to the point of disappearing.<br /><br />Without recapitulating days of back and forth, conservatives on Twitter were astonished to see the instinctive herd mentality of the media form almost immediately upon the news of a dead Ambassador, three more American citizens, and a consulate burned out if not to the ground. Carter! we heard their Borg-like minds shriek in the Twitterverse. We expected the usual apologies for incompetence that they'd automatically provided throughout the Obama administration.<br /><br />What we could not have known is that in their feral, corrupt panic they'd have the shamelessness to attempt to make their journalistic reason d'etre the blaming and destruction of Mitt Romney. Ambassador Stevens died a horrible death: choking to death in a burning building. Romney put out a statement and the rest is well known: the media liked neither its content nor its timing. Obama condemned the statement before he condemned the violence at the American Embassy in Cairo, Egypt.<br /><br />Any number of misrepresentations and lies were made by the media in its ongoing attempt to sustain a negative narrative against Romney. But the various narratives kept suffering from factual, ethical cardiopulmonary failure and couldn't be resuscitated. One by one they were cast off. Those for whom the media pretend to write were having none of what they wrote.<br /><br />On Twitter, for the first time, media encountered a kill zone with them and their biases the kill. It is said that information wants to be free and with Twitter the media were not able to contain all the information before it had been shaped to their desired narrative. I wasn't the only one who saw, in real time, journalists deal with being out journaled. Fascinating, actually. I'm wondering now if it wasn't even anthropological?<br /><br />Because conservatives were looking for the facts, any errors were quickly remedied. Some facts might be bad news for our side but we wanted them anyway. Yet because the media were now hopelessly propagandizing for President Obama, their narrative held no weight, being made out of their political prejudices and professional, ethical betrayals. Contempt for the media was involuntary.<br /><br />And for themselves? Media were largely unaware of the fatal damage done. Over four consecutive days, across every platform imaginable, most of this country saw institutions which pride themselves on the enormity of their duty to the public in regard to truth and veracity debase themselves for the most pedestrian of political reasons. Repeatedly. Stupidly. Mindlessly.<br /><br />Twitter was where all the action took place because it was the unknowing kill zone for media lies. Because lies were, at times, what it became: conservatives watched most of the Fourth Estate lie in the interests of a failed democrat President and say to us they weren't doing what was manifestly the case. We thought we'd seen it all when NBC News deliberately edited audiotape of George Zimmerman to make him look racist because the overwhelmingly white, liberal, guilt-riden media are obsessed with race. If only their attention resulted in racial progress instead of tension. Progressives so dislike progress they make sure it rarely happens.<br /><br />The story remains to be played out for some time. I'm hardly predicting media vanishes per se. But its encounter with its dishonest, dirty self is one it will not be able to withstand. This post is best seen as a downpayment on a longer essay on this topic.<br /><br />In the meantime, Twitter, like money, changes everything. Between now and the enormously important election of November 6th, there will be more battles with the media. This week's battles, however, mark a turn from which things can never return.<br /><br />Everyone tweets and blogs now. Everyone, so it seems, has a smart phone. Everyone's a journalist but Twitter makes it impossible for the old order to endure.<br /><br />Because when everyone's a journalist, there is, mercifully, no journolism.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-70468998082163869482012-09-11T15:31:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.595-07:00Mutual Media Seduction: FOX 9 & Brodkorb<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIx2Y5E8T8OscVDjSChcY1XoxY6yoyQytSNnZ4OYzCUu6IAZyV4IlLW0yy3vq6IBBA_PTZJeSFELpLxrTFwef5yorsKX0Pq7ILg2MIcI7kSvlequzkqeZ3Z4tsZeV_BRc6sWhx7i0RriI/s1600/media+.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIx2Y5E8T8OscVDjSChcY1XoxY6yoyQytSNnZ4OYzCUu6IAZyV4IlLW0yy3vq6IBBA_PTZJeSFELpLxrTFwef5yorsKX0Pq7ILg2MIcI7kSvlequzkqeZ3Z4tsZeV_BRc6sWhx7i0RriI/s320/media+.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Michael Brodkorb, continuing his return from the land of the politically dead, went on FOX 9 News last night to talk politics on a show which looked like a pilot for something FOX wants to run up against "At Issue." Watching the show I was reminded of Faye Dunaway copulating atop William Holden to what looked like a more than satisfactory climax all the while talking market share in the landmark movie "Network." Paddy Chayefsky is what Aaron Sorkin hopes to be in the next life.<br /><br />I was put in mind of Dunaway & Holden's mutuality, as it were, by what I saw last night on my tee vee after attending the media ignored (double agent Cyndi Brucato was there) John Fund appearance in support of voter photo id.<br /><br />I hadn't wanted to launch Minnesota Media Monitor™ right now because I have my hands full. But after taking notes from last night's show, I realized that this post would be my initial entree into that thankless task. Having said that, don't look for another media blog post from me any time soon.<br /><br />The show started out pretending to report news: a substance free report on the Chicago teachers strike. This story was reduced by FOX to disputes over evaluations and principals' discretion to fire demonstrably lousy teachers. Nothing about drop out rates, illiteracy and the outrageous salary demands by these people who should be fired outright.<br /><br />Next came two stories: first, a small Minnesota fire but everything is BIG when it involves the land of hot dish politics. You heard about Obama's shout out to Minnesota, dincha? Almanac had several segments on it.<br /><br />Second, mere seconds of air about the Stillwater lift bridge being closed temporarily for repairs because lift bridges.<br /><br />Now on to the main bill and the get of the year: Michael Brodkorb is in our petting zoo.<br /><br />First, of course, came window dressing and badly at that: some talk of presidential fund raising, a mashup of polls (just guess who they favored? Hint: this isn't national FOX, it's local urban farmers FOX). But the axis question of the show came soon enough, more or less, to whit:<br /><br />"What does the President need to do to keep up his lead?"<br /><br />This is called a media narrative because the truth is the opposite of what is being reported: Obama is in big trouble so consequently he is ahead. Yes but the bounce? Look up the definition of bounce: they end. The point is to show in a favorable light the candidate they prefer. And to keep that partisanly framed narrative going through election day. Don't forget early voting (an abomination) will start soon. This style of coverage is designed to effect that under the rubric of news. I'm feeling postmodern.<br /><br />Next came a token bit of a clip by Jeff Goldberg talking to a man and woman on, you know, the street.<br /><br />It was as you might expect from Jeff's producers (hello Minnesotans, news is "produced." Yes, I realize you don't know what that means) and it was hot dish, not hot that scatological word. Hot dish politics, (as utterly representative of the reporting scene generally), puts the journalistic bar so low they make Kurt Bills look like a winner. I'm hearing some blue buses bearing bromides are coming on the market November 7th.<br /><br />I also understand it finally dawned on the hapless Kurt Bills that he was used as a tool by Keith Downey in order to further the latter's gubanatorial ambitions. After Pawlenty & Dayton, the governorship bar is not low, it doesn't exist. How else to explain Kurt Zellers thinking he's leadership? I was hardly by my self in watching him fail. He, alone, seems to have missed his own performance. Is there a Hazeldon for political staffers who have risen too far above their abilities?<br /><br />Speaking of which: the MNGOP seems to reaping the whirlwind of its appeasement of the Ron Paul crazies whom, with empirical evidence, are not, in point of fact, republicans. New blood, these Vichy Republicans told me, oblivious to vampires. If you're sick of hearing me talk about this topic, imagine me! More on this another time soon.<br /><br />Back to FOX 9's Brodkorb Fest (FOX 9 ran promos in the afternoon about Brodkorb's appearance which is how I understand MN GOP Chair Pat Shortridge learned about it). A telephone call between the two, at the instigation of the Chair, ensued and yes, I heard both sides. Unhelpful.<br /><br />After Goldberg's pointless clip with two white people on Marquette Avenue the topic changed, with no segue, to the Electoral College. Why?<br /><br />To continue the media narrative. After rattling off OFA talking points about the latest manipulated polls, Jeff summarized for the exceptionally stupid Minnesotan who had not yet gotten the message: "things are looking a little bit tough for [Romney]." Well thank G-d for that, no?<br /><br />By this time it wasn't just Jeff who was looking stupid: it was everyone on the show thus far. I could not imagine it would get worse. Which is to say . . . .<br /><br />Tom "I used to be an investigative reporter, the only one in the Twin Cities, come to think of it" Lyden then said: Romney's pulled his ads in Pennsylvania. False Tom. Romney wasn't up on air in PA. Brodkorb didn't know enough to refute that. That is a measure of how off he is on his game. I'd rather have a dead Brodkorb than a neutered one.<br /><br />That we are lied to our face by the media daily is but a truism. They went into journalism to change the world. Nothing self-aggrandizing in that. They think highly of themselves and you should, too.<br /><br />Lyden, reprising his role in slashing Andy Brehm to ribbons on air a few weeks back [for whose unpreparedness in that interview there is no excuse], then said:<br /><br />"Is there a way for Romney to win?"<br /><br />Gee, Tom, I don't know. Maybe in something called an election? But you tell us because, you.<br /><br />Why isn't your question: "Is there a way for Obama to win?"<br /><br />We all know why. Why belabor the point?<br /><br />Remember, these ace reporters had not yet mentioned the economy to this point in a presumed educated (for television) environment in a presidential race. And they think themselves knowledgeable enough to lecture us. Right.<br /><br />Brodkorb proved entirely co-opted which is why he should not appear on tee vee for some time. Which, of course, is precisely why FOX 9 News wanted him in the first instance. We won't allow him, however, to become our Steve Schmidt.<br /><br />Yet he was David Brooks in moronically saying that Mitt Romney needs to move to the middle, at which bobble head Randy Mier readily agreed: da midl. Anything about President Infanticide moving from the outer edges of the left political universe? No.<br /><br />Mitt Romney? He IS the middle and I've been road kill for him locally fending off purity crazies and Ron Paul zombies. As someone said about these types on Twitter: forget elections, let's win arguments!<br />But for Brodkorb to say something as useless, if not outright wrong, as that is indefensible.<br /><br />The intro to this segment by Lyden was classic media herd narrative: Romney has had a change of heart about some aspects of Obamacare. Untrue but on he droned. Pro tip: Yuval Levin on NRO's The Corner and anything Jennifer Rubin. I'm confident when you find the truth you won't report it.<br /><br />The side show then moved on to Michele Bachmann. One stood in awe of the bravery of local media bringing her up. Such courage. The usual questions were asked. Norah Ephron, I mean Nancy Nelson, provided the more naked talking points the hosts couldn't quite bring themselves to say. Brodkorb punted but I give him full points. Some senate caucus staffers (aim high!) at O'Gara's last night were said to be unimpressed with his defense of Congresswoman Gardasil. Such an observation reveals why they remain staffers.<br /><br />Still, Brodkorb erred by going on tee vee, even under the fake auspicies of FOX local which is a head fake to those used to viewing FOX NEWS cable nationally.<br /><br />Being forced to watch local news was something of a revelation to me; I never watch. I knew why last night again.<br /><br />Norah was suitably effusive in congratulating Tom & Randy on their new show at the beginning of her segment. The viewer who didn't know that this was the pilot for FOX's competition with "At Issue" would have wondered what the fuss was about. The hosts drank it in, South Park-like.<br /><br />Weirdly, Tom Lyden whined about Michele Bachmann not being accessible to the local press. But she's the stupid one, right? He claimed she was allergic to the local media.<br /><br />She has a great deal of company.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-67775273141690422742012-09-02T15:39:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.592-07:00The Clint Eastwood Political Rorschach Test <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWBflIDKZ0gb8GfN7kVUcxmbX94iPm-winnAXPky4OaBeU9uM9knYy1rZVwxkhrMT6aCmoMEM0ZYgu9k3jkVNUPWNYOuvM24SUUkhoHIDs327SDNWZDEQ1xt5C9pvP3tlauJtkGI8aXPI/s1600/eastwood_chair_jef_120830_wg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWBflIDKZ0gb8GfN7kVUcxmbX94iPm-winnAXPky4OaBeU9uM9knYy1rZVwxkhrMT6aCmoMEM0ZYgu9k3jkVNUPWNYOuvM24SUUkhoHIDs327SDNWZDEQ1xt5C9pvP3tlauJtkGI8aXPI/s320/eastwood_chair_jef_120830_wg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Clint Eastwood's brilliant interview of an absent President Obama during the Republican Convention's final night is a singular example of an earthquake happening while the political classes and media pretend not to notice.<br /><br />Of course, they <i>did</i> notice but only to bemoan the performance they completely failed to comprehend. Media, dishonest & low as ever, dilated on the unscripted nature of the performance. Really, it doesn't take much thought to realize had Eastwood been scripted the effectiveness of his address would have been muted to the point of failure. It worked in large measure because every moment while we watched him we knew Clint was making it up as he went. Authenticity is often demanded by the media yet when it is encountered in real time--at a Republican National Convention no less--the whining begins.<br /><br />Make no mistake: the press understood instantly that Eastwood had broken through their filter with a withering criticism of a failed president the media has protected at all costs, including the scraps of whatever integrity they possessed. <br /><br />More distressingly to me, however, were those on my side who didn't get it. The Empty Chair has become a national meme. Twitter is filled with pictures of various empty chairs in an enormous range of settings and locales. The symbolism of an empty chair is perfect for the vapid, badly educated Obama and his disastrous administration. Photos of empty chairs will remain a hilarious leitmotif of this election down through November 6th. <br /><br />Here's a tip to my fellow republicans: if media collectively start screaming bloody murder about something we've done or are doing, carry on. That's the surest sign that we are effective in the moment.<br /><br />And it was just a moment. Some say it knocked Romney off message but there's approximately zero evidence for that. To the contrary, his and Ryan's appearances since the convention concluded have been packed. August represents the third consecutive month Romney has raised 100 million dollars. The selection of Ryan fundamentally changed, to use an Obama phrase, the presidential race. At a minimum we've argued Medicare to a draw, if not slight edge. The enthusiasm gap terrifies the democrats, as well it should. Media know it and consequently will never write about it. <br /><br />I've gotten a sense that a lot of people are changing their minds since last Thursday night. Eastwood gave something unlike anything anyone had ever seen before at a national political convention. But by today there's not much excuse for seeing this performance piece as anything but brilliant. Do yourself a favor and watch it again. Click <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoqKdWY692k&feature=my_liked_videos&list=LLgfMgrLsdY9nNxzSLp5i3TQ" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">here.</span></a><br /><br />That sensible democrat Mickey Kaus noticed the shift in how to understand Eastwood. He wrote the day after:<br /><br /><div class="entry"><strong>Old CW:</strong> <a class="external" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clint-eastwood-riff-distracts-from-successful-romney-convention/2012/08/31/f2e9e418-f386-11e1-adc6-87dfa8eff430_story_1.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Eastwood</a> a <a class="external" href="http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7420182n" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">disaster</a>.<br /><strong>New CW:</strong> Eastwood <a class="external" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/eastwood-and-media-certainty/2012/09/01/7da56e3e-f467-11e1-adc6-87dfa8eff430_blog.html#pagebreak" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">brilliant</a>, but Romney<a class="external" href="https://twitter.com/peterfeld/status/241978555410571265" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> incompetent</a> because <a class="external" href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/scocca/2012/08/clint_eastwood_gop_convention_the_romney_campaign_sells_out_its_surprise_speaker_.single.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">his advisers fell for previous CW</a> that Eastwood a disaster.</div><br />Too many republicans, and not just Romney advisors, fell for that media generated conventional wisdom. Do you think Andrew Breitbart would have? Well do you, punk?<br /><br />Equally astute was Teri Christoph, co-founder of Smart Girl Politics, who tweeted:<br /><br />"The fact that Obama and his campaign team are now saying nice things about Clint Eastwood tells me Clint is very popular with independents."<br /><br />That's pretty much the game, isn't it? Let's hope republicans can be as smart as Team Obama, enjoy the laugh Eastwood provided, smile at the new verb "Eastwooding" and suppress laughter at the discomfort it brought the media. Phew, how much more can one 82 year old man do in a 12 minute speech?<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-88063907860596524592012-08-27T21:03:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.635-07:00Hitler Learns Mark Ritchie Loses Voter Photo ID<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/omUT8SWVgqU?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Yesterday the Minnesota Supreme Court decisively rebuffed the lawless political thuggery of Secretary of State Mark Ritchie in his attempt to subvert the role of the Legislature in fashioning constitutional ballot initiatives. Not only did it refuse to strike from the ballot entirely voter photo id as requested by the arrogant and now far left League of Women Bolshevik Voters, it required Mr. Ritchie to use the title for both the traditional marriage amendment and voter id.<br /><br />Local press on Twitter let their masks slip as news of the decision broke. Laughably, few of them cared to explain--even in Twitter form--the holding of the majority decision and its rationale. Instead, lowest-common denominator like, they quoted from the most reactionary and intellectually unsubstantial justice on the court, Justice Page. I was surprised I was surprised.<br /><br />The worst, of course, were the democratic politicians who preened and twirled, fainting onto their Twitter divans. The end of Minnesota was nigh, according to their none too persuasive analysis. I expect David Schultz to be trotted out as the fake neutral expert that he's been created by the media to be and hold forth in sonorous terms about how the legislature can now lie to the people of Minnesota. If you want an unserious justice, welcome to the shameful jurisprudence of Alan Page, from whose opinion this idea sprang, as it were.<br /><br />I had the above video ready to go for the last week or two. I tweaked it today in order to take out some more colorful dialogue. Minnesotans will lap up "Fifty Shades of Grey" but feign shock at blunt language on blogs and in tweets. I'll have more to say about the Court's extremely important decision but for now, the hypocrisy of the DFL is sufficient. As I tweeted (in far fewer words) earlier: you might be a liberal if you approved of Chief Justice John Roberts deferring to Congress in the Obamacare decision but are upset with the Minnesota Supreme Court for deferring to the Minnesota Legislature. <br /><br /><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-87632048462507964692012-08-25T12:15:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.633-07:00Paulers Lose Rules Vote, Whine About Tyranny<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW6ZvmTJ38BblO0URBG0jEW9gnU52wdzPwYYJsqI89Mt9CtYanlJDYS85N375f2jDIHjyOI-_LhtoJ5rUUA6J5wwlJS5tI_az12MgvCP7O79VWauIo499zQtU0x9OODtpuGpBU6_X6RmM/s1600/republican-national-convention1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW6ZvmTJ38BblO0URBG0jEW9gnU52wdzPwYYJsqI89Mt9CtYanlJDYS85N375f2jDIHjyOI-_LhtoJ5rUUA6J5wwlJS5tI_az12MgvCP7O79VWauIo499zQtU0x9OODtpuGpBU6_X6RmM/s320/republican-national-convention1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Friday the Republican Party in Tampa, through its rules committee, voted to tie the selection of convention delegates to the results of each state’s Republican primary. How extraordinary is this? Not very to any balanced observer but to the Ron Paul zombie delegates and their toadies it was the definition of "an Establishment power grab." Please.<br /><br />As the Washington Post put it: "Romney allies said primary voters expect national convention delegates to be loyal to the primary winner." Again, just how out of control is this expectation and now rule? Why have primaries at all if the results will not carry through to the convention delegates?<br /><br />Unfortunately, the usual Ron Paul drones decried the move, effectively bemoaning that a political party acted in its own perceived interest to keep it for those who believe in its principles. The bastards! Ron Paulers, by their own admission, are not republicans. Am I the only one listening to them? Perhaps. At this May's endorsing convention I was called by The Weekly Standard the convention's "persona non grata." I was so pleased by that I could hardly stand myself (thereby joining many, no doubt).<br /><br />Marianne Stebbins, the accomplished organizer behind the strength of Ron Paul in Minnesota, said last week in an interview that liberals had many good ideas. What would those be, pray tell? Partial birth abortion? Confiscatory tax rates? Oh, sorry: legalizing pot. Got it. This is a small, intellectually stagnant world. You're welcome to it. No Jews allowed.<br /><br />Sen. Julianne Ortman rightly observed on Twitter that the rule change was a good thing. No, she was promptly scolded (what is it with scolding in the MN GOP?) by Chair Pat Shortridge. It's a bad thing. That was it. Ex Cathedra like. Why preventing the damage the Paul people have done to the state party is something he can't grasp is only a mystery until one realizes he was put in place with the help of Pat Anderson and just enough "liberty" types at last year's State Central Committee meeting. Here, however, the national party had to step in because of the manifest incompetence and shameful collusion of the state party (Minnesota isn't alone, however). I suppose it's natural that children whine when adult supervision appears. <br /><br />Both Anderson and Shortridge asked me to stop tweeting about Ron Paul and his insane supporters for the two weeks before that meeting in order to woo enough of them to put Shortridge over the top. I did because I wanted Shortridge to be chair. Nothing has changed in that regard despite the two of us slapping each other around a bit on Twitter last night. I personally loathe Twitter fights so I feel I've let myself down. And Shortridge doesn't have a proper forum to explain why he thinks this is bad for the future of the Republican Party because he's busy in Tampa. I would invite him to write something for this blog about his perspective and I will publish it unedited. I ask only one thing: has he forgotten all the non-Ron Paul people in the party? Anything for us from leadership?<br /><br />Stebbins tweeted a link to the laughably left-wing Buzz Feed (which probably has the most disliked "reporters" on Twitter) that carried a story which was negative against the change generally and against Ben Ginsberg in particular. Go figure. <br /><br />Fired RNC Committeewoman Pat Anderson tweeted that the vote was "fairly close." The vote was 63 to 38. Words must have different meanings when you're high on liberty and in Tampa.<br /><br />She also said that "this was a states' rights issue." Stop and appreciate this comment.<br /><br />What does Anderson think is a states' rights issue? No matter her response, the self-regulation of any political party of any political creed is not a matter of states' rights by definition. Political parties, this just in, are not sovereign states. Anderson plans, I'm told, to vote for Ron Paul. Q.E.D.<br /><br />Pat, a bogus 10th Amendment bromide to the tribe is best directed to the Tea Party. Your melting base in the MN GOP are the Ron Paulers. You do know, don't you, what they say about Answered Prayers?<br /><br />Equally pandering but considerably more constipated was Jeff Johnson. Jeff. Johnson. Tweeted he:<br /><br />"Convention Rules Cmte supports allowing RNC to change Party Rules w/o convention vote. Terrible change."<br /><br />He never elaborated but hopefully he's taken his own smug advice condescendingly given out to the state convention in May and gotten over it. Get over it, Jeff. How does it feel? <br /><br />I understand MN GOP Deputy-Chair Kelly Fenton flew to Tampa on Saturday. She's used to figuring out which way the wind blows so I'm not worried about hurricanes. <br /><br />Herewith how she, Kurt Bills, Doc Severson & Pete Hegseth appeared on your television Thursday:<br /><br /><br />John Gilmore & Barbara Malzacher. Yes, this is what its come to. We're as alarmed as anyone.<br /><br /><br />I was contacted late Wednesday evening and told Kurt Bills would endorse Romney the next day. Delegates and Alternates were being sent an email that night and media the next day would be alerted with a "kick ass" statement. A written statement was all that was being planned. I could hardly believe my ears.<br /><br />I hung up and called Mike Osskopp, campaign manager for Kurt Bills. I stressed that this was a perfect earned media opportunity that should not be missed. Hold a press conference, please. I could feel the heat of the light bulb going off over his head through the phone. He thanked me and said he needed to talk to David Fitzsimmons and Dave Strom. Right. Before the call ended, I encouraged him to edit the press conference video, embed it in an email and send it Friday morning to every republican in the state asking for ten dollars.<br /><br />When Hegseth arrived for the press conference he noticed there was no signage. He contacted Malzacher for help who in turned contacted Kelly Fenton. She was at the state fair. No one had contacted the party to alert them of this endorsement and press conference. She dropped everything and got there timely. Signage appeared as well.<br /><br />So while Pat Shortridge can sneer to me on Twitter that he'll put his time in the trenches up against mine any day, I was trying to help the senate campaign as best I could, as was Barbara Malzacher. We're not exactly fans of Kurt Bills but his endorsement of Romney was an overdue and welcome development. One could say we got over it and jumped in--unpaid and scrambling--to help pull off an unremarkable press conference. The bar is so very low.<br /><br />Obviously I can appreciate Shortridge's view that people who blog and tweet don't really do much for the party, although messaging is always important. Speaking of which, it would have been nice to have had some push back when our imbecile of a Vice President, Joe Biden, came to town. But no, nothing. When Romney came, the vapid mayor of Minneapolis pushed back and the usual tattered group of people happy to be dependent on government were trotted out for a fake protest near one Romney fund raising event. See how this works?<br /><br />The fund raising was enormously successful from what I've heard; close to four millions dollars. Or eight Alida Rockefeller checks. Still, such is the state of republicans in Minnesota that Jack Meeks was unable to successfully beg for a mere $25,000 to stay behind. I can't blame the Romney people; why waste money? <br /><br />Today the whining by the fake republicans reached fever pitch. In a press release that is the, shall we say, gold standard of sore losing, Stebbins complained that "Liberty Republicans" were being frozen out. Excellent. Ron Paul and his supporters are a kook fringe element that have no place in mainstream, conservative republican affairs. Instead of showing leadership in opposing them in Minnesota, Pat Anderson, Jeff Johnson, Pat Shortridge and Kelly Fenton, each in varying degrees and kind, accommodated them with disastrous results. They should be the last to complain about matters being set right, having made a hash of things themselves. Your narrow self-interest is not synonymous with the party's. <br /><br /><br />Nauseatingly, Stebbins claims the high road of principle when she's never addressed Paul's long, well-documented history of anti-semitism, belief that 9-11 was an inside job and other odious ideas. Instead, she brays that “[e]ven non-Ron Paul delegates and MNGOP party officials recognize the significance of the RNC actions goes beyond its direct effect on Liberty Republicans."<br /><br />Even? That's telling. Don't be fooled, Marianne, that the Gang of Four with you in Tampa represents Minnesota republicans. Does 51.5% ring a bell with you?<br /><br />Even Craig Westover was dragooned into Stebbins' press release [or maybe even wrote it; something about the tendentious style was familiar], obediently saying that Romney might just be as bad as Obama. Now there's a mainstream republican sentiment! At the end of the day, the Ron Paul people, as befits any cult, are simply tiresome. <br /><br />Apparently Paulers are getting the vapors on that thing known as Face Book and predict some sort of dramatic floor fight over these changes. Rest assured the rest of the convention delegates loathe you even more than the substantial majority on the rules committee. The changes will be approved in a flash. Minnesota republicans thank Ben Ginsberg and the other adults at the RNC for solving a problem our local leaders not only refused to confront but collaborated with for their own gain. I hear housing prices in Tampa are cheap. Perhaps the Minnesota delegation should think of buying. There's nothing here for them should they return. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-38298899489590040452012-08-20T21:33:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.580-07:00Those Conservatives Who Put Winning Second <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnc6Qez8cU75ca7MeMTCQLRv3QLzMiFSDZdSSUXI2DKTV0WTSfUcvRPN_sODIfwnPO7kzm-lRyZWL3lcCCCF2gZWBzyIEgDKN8OdarzUnyS8R3bhib0BhjQ0F2EWsIA_1oqF8DIQ7Pisw/s1600/2004county.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnc6Qez8cU75ca7MeMTCQLRv3QLzMiFSDZdSSUXI2DKTV0WTSfUcvRPN_sODIfwnPO7kzm-lRyZWL3lcCCCF2gZWBzyIEgDKN8OdarzUnyS8R3bhib0BhjQ0F2EWsIA_1oqF8DIQ7Pisw/s320/2004county.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>One person on Twitter reduced the fatal statement of Todd Atkin about rape, pregnancy and abortion to this observation: "Conservatives don't really help themselves when they attack their own.” Why yes, that's what this is all about. <br /><br />How about conservatives who are terminally stupid and wield campaigns of utter incompetence but whose self-promoted high moral courage is more often spoken about than lived? <br /><br />Todd Atkin, winner of the Missouri republican primary, challenger of Claire McCaskill, essentially said that if raped women have a biological function that is triggered to prevent pregnancy. Does the reader have any idea what it's like to have typed that sentence as a conservative?<br /><br />If he hadn't missed a one-shot groveling apology with which he could truly abase himself, Atkin could have gone to ground, quietly raised money, shared his psychiatric records with potential donors, and have been rolled out in late September or early October for a decent win. Claire McCaskill is the electoral opposite of Amy Klobuchar. This seat is one of four US Senate seats needed to retake the majority by republicans. Everything that could go amiss, did.<br /><br />First, Todd Atkin won the primary. In this, MO resembled MN in offering up its weakest candidate because oh look, over there, purity. See how it shines, my precious? <br /><br />Next, Atkin gave an interview in which, somehow, he said what is summarized above. Baffling, to be honest. How does one invoke the abortion topic in such a profoundly ignorant manner?<br /><br />Realizing the mistake if not its enormity, Atkin's issued a weird, non-apology apology, both underlining his original misstep while apparently trying to repudiate it. When conservatives have a hard time discerning what a conservative is saying, rest assured the media will run even more riot with it than is their usual shameful custom.<br /><br />Sean Hannity, whom I find impossible to listen to, as opposed to Rush Limbaugh, fairly begged, from what I could read, Atkin to realize the gravity of his mistake and to leave the race. No he said, for reasons I've yet to grasp.<br /><br />Then came the surreal news that this train wreck was going to appear tonight on Piers Morgan. More bafflement but by this time the temperature of conservatives on Twitter was quite high. Enough. This is the balance of the US Senate and we know full well what is in that balance. Must we nationally come down like the proverbial ton of bricks and change the state of affairs?<br /><br />Yes.<br /><br />Next, it was let be known that the hapless Atkin would not, after all, be appearing on Piers Morgan. The mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging conservative collective let out--what else?--a collective sigh. Alas, no taxpayer funded Heart of the Beast puppet masks were available to us in which we could celebrate. The oppression of The Man lay heavy on our hateful shoulders. <br /><br />Morgan's producers, of course, were not about to let a good ratings thing get away and so they embodied the American national press by interviewing an empty chair. Who was dumber, we conservatives on Twitter wondered, Piers Morgan who personifies the louche state of American media, or the chair, who, with that lighting and all, did, one could say, have more dignity than Joe Biden?<br /><br />I could, I must confess, see Don Shelby, our Ted Baxter, in that empty chair. Talk about meta. <br /><br />Previous to this money had been vanishing all day for Atkin. It's a very odd experience to see money for a campaign disappear like that on Twitter. Perhaps some dull witted but self-esteem heavy layabout could apply for a Minnesota Legacy Grant to explore that further someday. <br /><br />The next act in the scene was out of Star Trek: he's dead, Jim.<br /><br />It seemed too late in the news cycle, especially after the spectacular bungling all day long, for the Atkin campaign, if anything was left of it, to say it was over.<br /><br />Would anyone in America not begrudge Todd Atkin the best sleep he is possible to manage? No. Then quit in the morning with our thanks that you will not be forgotten.<br /><br />Amazingly, some "name" conservatives were wondering if sanity wasn't really a ruse for madness? Who knows, once you travel to the intersection of Crazy & Purity street? Atkin should stay; their tone-deafness making them all the more convinced. Comparisons were made with democrat scandals where the curr managed to survive. But this is like pointing to a cadaver and imploring him to realize others were not dead. <br /><br />Erick Erickson. Dana Loesch. Both bemoaned wanting to win, which requires removing Atkin, with eviscerating conservative principles, which it manifestly does not.<br /><br />Do they need to get out more? Leave the post-Breitbart (I die a bit every time I write that) cocoon and talk to others?<br /><br />I don't know. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-79181766445920074432012-08-15T00:15:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.625-07:00Primary Day: Kurt Bills Falls Into The Abyss<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4t1vwHtUWrStp41dYtZisYJoWQQ29Zl8GzIf8uptiMFuJW60o55kiVGFWwAd_JLJx_Qd3uxdYR9vweY06G9V0N9qtYf6iMLQq2urffEogISA_byxtWxmcBz-UZjj8TrUMRmrSvfWR56E/s1600/Kurt-Bills-Missing-Ad-on-milk-carton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4t1vwHtUWrStp41dYtZisYJoWQQ29Zl8GzIf8uptiMFuJW60o55kiVGFWwAd_JLJx_Qd3uxdYR9vweY06G9V0N9qtYf6iMLQq2urffEogISA_byxtWxmcBz-UZjj8TrUMRmrSvfWR56E/s320/Kurt-Bills-Missing-Ad-on-milk-carton.jpg" width="218" /></a></div>Tonight Ron Paul hand picked first time candidate for statewide office and cheesy high school teacher Kurt Bills put in one of the worst performances of a Minnesota Republican Party endorsed candidate in tonight's primary election. As of this writing, the results show Bills received a naked 51.31% of the vote in his race for the US Senate. David Carlson, a veteran of thre tours of duty in Iraq, received 35.21% of the vote while the very strange wayfarer Bob Carney, Jr. received 13.48%. Both competitors were invisible, for the most part, before today's primary. <br /><br />How does the crackerjack Bills campaign respond to such a calamity? By bluster and bravado in a press release issued while its candidate was being made a national laughingstock. Here is that press release:<br /><br /><div id="single"><br /><br /><br /><article class="post-908 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-news tag-amy-klobuchar tag-deficit-of-leadership tag-jobs-the-economy tag-kurt-bills-for-us-senate tag-obamacare tag-republican-primary" id="post-908"> <header> <h1 class="entry-title">Kurt Bills Wins Big in MN Senate Primary</h1><time class="updated" datetime="2012-08-14T23:21:48-05:00" pubdate="">Posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2012 at 11:21 pm.</time><div class="byline author vcard">Written by <a class="fn" href="http://kurtbills.com/author/chris-mattson/" rel="author">Kurt Bills for US Senate</a></div><div class="byline author vcard"><br /></div></header> <div class="entry-content"><div align="center">Kurt Bills Wins Big in MN Senate Primary</div><div align="center"><br /></div><div align="center"><i>Tea Party, Ron Paul, and “Paul Ryan” Republicans Unite Behind Bills</i></div><div align="center"><br /></div>BLOOMINGTON, MN—High School economics teacher Kurt Bills soundly trounced his Republican primary opponents, setting up a contest between Bills and incumbent Senator Amy Klobuchar.<br /><br />It was a contest between the Tea Party/Ron Paul wing of the Minnesota Republican Party and their establishment opponents. Bills, a political newcomer, is a high school economics teacher who first ran for office only 4 years ago; he won a city council seat in 2008, defeated a Democrat incumbent for a state legislative seat in 2010, and won the Republican endorsement to run against Klobuchar in 2012.<br /><br />Bills has run unapologetically standing up for free enterprise, for a common sense foreign policy, and against monopolies and crony capitalist ventures such as bailing out wall street banks.<br /><br />Bills’ meteoric rise in the Republican Party coincides with the growth of the Tea Party and Ron Paul movements in Minnesota. As an economic teacher, Bills has run as an unapologetic proponent of ending government intervention in the economy, and scaling back US military interventions. He is a strong opponent of the Federal Reserve. Bills’ campaign theme is “Econ101.”<br /><br />It’s a message that resonates in populist Minnesota. One of his opponents, David Carlson, ran a harsh television advertisement directly taking on Bills’ ties to Ron Paul; it backfired.<br /><br />“Don’t underestimate the Tea Party energy out there,” said Bills.<br /><br />“Grassroots Republicans aren’t just angry at Democrats for mortgaging their future; they’re angry at Washington DC.,” argued Bills.<br /><br />“There is a prairie fire of populism in the Midwest. Romney’s pick of Paul Ryan for VP is feeding that fire. Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa are now all in play in the presidential race. That same energy will carry my own campaign across the finish line,” Bills concluded.<br /><div align="center">-30-</div></div><footer> <br /><a href="http://kurtbills.com/tag/republican-primary/" rel="tag"></a><br />Which stoned intern wrote this fiction? Does the campaign think the reader doesn't notice a lack of numbers in the release? Soundly trounced? A 51 to 49 win is not trouncing, even for the marginal liberty denizens. Bills has run a lousy campaign, going to safe areas (parades!) and never reaching out to moderate democrats and independents. Indeed, Bills has made no overture to the base of his own party which he and his unserious, moronic Paul supporters pretend he represents. Tonight the base told something the Bills campaign didn't, apparently, understand until tonight: we're not that into you.<br /><br />And a backlash against David Carlson's completely true ad about Ron Paul? Toke up! Andy Parrish asked me if I had a hand in that ad and I told him no. This happens to be the truth and the truth about Ron Paul is available to anyone with an internet connection. Carlson had exceptional production values and was up on TV air before Bills. Who do they blame for that? The Jews again? <br /><br />Amusingly, the Paul supporters on Twitter tried to blame the base for not endorsing the alien transplant who has done nothing to make himself a real republican instead of a living sock puppet of the failed, odious Ron Paul. One friend of mine, a candidate this time actually, blamed the embarrassing primary numbers on low turn out. How do you educate such a mind set? Then again, she thought Emmer's tip credit idea was a teachable moment so I may as well never try. <br /><br />The amazingly stupid & out of touch "film" 'Staring Into The Abyss' the campaign released weeks ago introduced Bills as a fool and illegitimate candidate. He's running for the Senate. There are only 99 others. One might wish to take note. <br /><br />The second attempt at video coherence was incoherence bordering on plagiarism: Busy Kurt, also known as ripping off the dead Paul Wellstone. This was a frame by frame remaking of Wellstone's video showing him in fast motion having government control every aspect of our lives. OK, I jest but the idea was terrible. That no one killed it, instead of green lighting it, shows just how poor the talent is on the Bills campaign. But really, is it any worse than the candidate himself? No. <br /><br />Bills' legislative supporters were noticeably absent on Twitter tonight (shades of the legislators who supported Emmer but ran away after his endorsement because, well, they're losers). Party leaders, such as they are, were mute in their praise of this smashing win. The requisite MN GOP press releases were issued so one is at least comforted that the mechanics of a functioning state-wide party were in order. But Shortridge, Fenton, Johnson & Anderson lead a fool's brigade to Tampa. They made a conscious decision to align themselves with what they thought was the ascendant movement in the party. Yes, the very definition of leadership, that. Someone should break it to Jeff he'll never be governor. One assumes the other three know how to dog paddle. <br /><br /><br />Bills' abject press release attempts to co-opt both the Tea Party and Paul Ryan. Sorry, the first is legitimate, organic, decentralized, not crazy or Jew hating and doesn't think 9/11 was an inside job. Paul Ryan has, literally, nothing to do with Kurt Bills but, given that he voted for TARP, would not the Paul zombies have problems? Yes. No matter. When you almost lose your own primary in a party that heretofore respected greatly the endorsement process, you ought look to yourself for fault instead of, Obama-like, blame others who have nothing to do with your incompetence. <br /><br />Kurt Bills demonstrably cannot do this. That he let the above press release go out shows he knows nothing of personal responsibility or any understanding of the fundamentals of politics. This augurs poorly for the general election against Amy Klobuchar, who is Minnesota mediocrity incarnate. But, as the saying goes, you can't beat something with nothing.<br /><br />My friend Maggie Mulvaney coined the Twitter hash tag #TwentySevenPercent. It's a way of saying, on Twitter, that we don't think Bills will get above that amount of the vote come November. All of us who use that hash tag would be delighted to be wrong. After tonight, though, we might have to lower our expectations to comport with the new reality that set in. And the idea that the Bills campaign will take down just those who are on it is fanciful. Too many were involved in stepping aside at every level of the MN GOP for this spasm of Paulism to have taken place. We actually know who you are because you told us so to our faces.<br /><br />I'm told elephants don't forget. <br /></footer><footer></footer><footer></footer><footer></footer><footer><br /><br /><br />Graphic: http://www.wrywingpolitics.com/missing-kurt-bills/</footer><footer> </footer><footer> </footer><footer>Correction: This post initially said, incorrectly, that David Carlson had served two tours of duty in Afghanistan. It has been corrected to reflect three tours in Iraq. </footer><footer></footer><footer></footer><footer></footer><footer></footer><footer></footer><footer></footer><footer></footer><footer></footer><footer></footer><footer></footer><footer></footer><footer></footer><footer><br /><br /><br /><br /> </footer> </article> </div>ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-61155056095782391622012-08-13T19:30:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.589-07:00The Unsurprising Return Of Michael Brodkorb <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh59Mdh-FapviA64w_SXa4S-3pwlkwt2jpupM9QB9hohxZZWoJjlmINCbYNp7_G1XYwSXHtdDO7BYhDR32vbQ1jc_Ge_9z3ie5tUK3P_fzEf9VdnHY86Gw8ADRMHnaTCSjndUKsBBqLlQE/s1600/brodkorb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh59Mdh-FapviA64w_SXa4S-3pwlkwt2jpupM9QB9hohxZZWoJjlmINCbYNp7_G1XYwSXHtdDO7BYhDR32vbQ1jc_Ge_9z3ie5tUK3P_fzEf9VdnHY86Gw8ADRMHnaTCSjndUKsBBqLlQE/s320/brodkorb.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Today Michael Brodkorb announced the launch of his new website: www.politics.mn With this he announced in no uncertain terms his return to the world of politics, both locally and nationally. I am a close friend of Michael's, as he is of me. We make no apology for our bad judgment in this regard.<br /><br />What is interesting is the reaction to the launch of his website: almost universally praised, even by his ersatz opponents. Minnesota politics became milquetoast without his presence and republicans generally missed his leadership with, yes, Amy Koch. His lawsuit proceeds apace and it is for him to speak to that, when and where, not I. This isn't what happened today.<br /><br />What happened is one of the sharpest, albeit bald, minds has return to Minnesota politics. For my side, this is a cause for celebration. For the democrats, it's an object lesson in the transitory nature of morality, of whom they are its least defenders. Republicans understand human nature; democrats deny it. I know full well who has the better of the argument.<br /><br />His website was launched in a timely manner given that state primaries are tomorrow. Who has better insight into those DLF and GOP races than Brodkorb? No one, especially the lazy Capitol Hill reporters he used to spoon feed and with whom he still desires a good relationship for purposes of spin and mutual manipulation, unlike this writer. Someone has to tell it like it is.<br /><br />So I do. Gone is the third person of Minnesota Conservatives.<br /><br />Welcome back Michael.<br /><br />"The future is unwritten." <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-87168522737851709592012-08-02T08:36:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.632-07:00Hubert Humphrey: The Happy Failure<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPDIAZfAZFIwk8ujEvHSL8g7RvNUn1BI04GWo2jZa3UqXIhsumnR5G86QtfMawuUfDd_WFbxHHbGB1BUrFZejOqKj-nz7qoIs9cb_QDYVsXsWZr559xcJqz4L-Vah2T_tO12ourH2B5j4/s1600/Humphrey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPDIAZfAZFIwk8ujEvHSL8g7RvNUn1BI04GWo2jZa3UqXIhsumnR5G86QtfMawuUfDd_WFbxHHbGB1BUrFZejOqKj-nz7qoIs9cb_QDYVsXsWZr559xcJqz4L-Vah2T_tO12ourH2B5j4/s320/Humphrey.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>On August 4, 2012, in quintessential Minnesota fashion, a statue to Hubert Humphrey will be unveiled at the Minnesota State Capitol. No measured reflection on his failed legacy has appeared to date in local media. To the contrary, puff pieces on the Institute for Mediocrities, also known as the Humphrey Institute, have popped up in local and national press. How unsurprising.<br /><br />Let's review this failed life which will shortly be honored for all the wrong reasons by the unctuous perjurer Bill Clinton and numerous lesser lights, which makes for dim viewing indeed.<br /><br />First, the one, unqualified moment of excellence in Humphrey's life came rather early, in 1948 when as Mayor of Minneapolis he bravely spoke before the Democratic convention and addressed segregation and anti-semitism. Fine and well but hardly substantial and long lasting enough in and of itself to warrant a statue and the resulting adulation. One should keep in mind, though, the penchant of the Left to lie to itself (current presidential polls come to mind but the examples are legion).<br /><br />Humphrey then went on to burnish his liberal credentials in the 50's only to sell out to Lyndon Johnson by becoming his vice-president. The arc of this failure and eclipse is set out succinctly in "Remembering Hubert Humphrey" at The Heath Post. It can be read in full <a href="http://www.heathpost.com/2011/05/remembering-hubert-humphrey.html"><span style="color: red;">here</span></a>.<br /><br />What is lost in this feel good nonsense is that liberals of the day turned on Humphrey. This inconvenient fact will be ignored by the oleaginous politicians who gather two days hence and pretend to be the successors of HHH. MC is certain they fail to understand how this damns them. But look for reflexively positive media coverage of the event; to write anything else would take courage.<br /><br />Having hollowed himself out on matters of core principle, Humphrey's slide into disgrace was complete after his loss to Richard Nixon. As the Heath Post notes, he left no great speeches, no great written works. Liberals will have no body of thought that will sustain the legacy of Humphrey except for their own self-serving need to promote dependency on government and redistributionist policies that have failed everywhere. But that's all they've got so they will go with it, confident in their belief that the media will advance the chosen liberal narrative. <br /><br />What won't be covered is that Humphrey's contemporary was Ronald Reagan (damn it) who like chuckles was born in 1911. If Reagan had died in 1978, as Humphrey did, the Heath Post notes tartly, conservatives would be quoting and referencing him for several generations, so great was his written body of work by that time.<br /><br />Hubert? Nothing of the kind. <i>There </i>is liberalism and its inheritance. Actually, one can legitimately see Humphrey as the compromised hand maiden to big government, social engineering and failed public policies which still plague America and which those gathering before this cheesy statue seek to bolster. <br /><br />The local repository of Kim Jong Il-ism of the Humphrey variety is, of course, the Humphrey Institute ensconced in the increasingly mediocre University of Minnesota. One would be hard pressed to think of a leader that that institute has produced. Instead, those wishing for perches on the upper branches of state bureaucracy flock to its programs. Haven't you always wanted to be senior management at MN DOT? <br /><br />The Humphrey Institute offers a veritable progressive dim sum of choices, however, from which to choose. One can get a degree in Civic Engagement (whatever that is), Community Building & Neighborhood Revitalization (the jokes write themselves), Energy Policy (environmental wackos form the borg here), Politics & Governance (think Nanny Bloomberg; we know better than you rubes), Race & Social Justice (the laziest minds will be found here), and State & Local Government (in which the Institute becomes the feeder of choice to the parasitic state bureaucracy where the only diversity that is lacking is that of thought).<br /><br />The Humphrey Institute is to political leadership what the Iowa Writers' Workshop is to good writing: superfluous if not outright damaging. Don't look for it to fade, though. The statue dedication is liberalism's way of telling itself it still matters, has not failed spectacularly by any objective metric and is not destined for a comprehensive rebuke November 6th. <br /><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-12799898729959002702012-07-22T17:19:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.564-07:00Pauline Kael & The Minnesota Constitution<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTGuzoQ0uG_S0TG9rk6ILu182aXRvbQx_kXAuwLlXg3DKj5rXIQGJ7CXDPCkk9RJohJnx72pyCVj6qsiKWoNXR3kj3bgCSWg-FHM1Y9P_Yx_bYbpf_yUGrlqcf3UDKHlKao9nEGA9HRTk/s1600/kael.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTGuzoQ0uG_S0TG9rk6ILu182aXRvbQx_kXAuwLlXg3DKj5rXIQGJ7CXDPCkk9RJohJnx72pyCVj6qsiKWoNXR3kj3bgCSWg-FHM1Y9P_Yx_bYbpf_yUGrlqcf3UDKHlKao9nEGA9HRTk/s1600/kael.jpg" /></a></div><br />Pauline Kael, film critic for decades at The New Yorker, and, arguably, the single most influential film critic during her lifetime, famously is said to have remarked of the 1972 Nixon landslide reelection:<br /><br />"I don't know how he won. No one I know voted for him."<br /><br />MC was put in mind of this smug obliviousness when recent polling results were announced for the traditional marriage amendment that Minnesotans will be voting on this November. Since the last poll was released support for the amendment has grown from 47% to 52%. This increase in support comes despite an extremely well financed "No" vote campaign by opponents. The poll results must have come as a shock to them given that everyone they know is against it. Herein the problem.<br /><br />The no campaign has set out to convince those pre-disposed to vote no to say so publicly. This time, apparently, corporations having a political opinion are just fine because it is left of center. Got it. But still, amplification of a message is not the same as broadening support for the message. Very little, from what MC can see, has been done in that regard by the no proponents. Trotting out a wayward Catholic priest or nun on Twitter to deviate from Church teaching is hardly new or convincing; Flannery O'Connor & Walker Percy had many hilarious things to say about those one-offs in their letters and writings. <br /><br />No, the problem, as with so many liberal sentiments, is a failure to believe others can disagree with them in good faith. They must be haters, bigots, knuckle draggers & mouth breathers. Well great, then what? Anyone capable of being swayed (and there are more who are so capable than the liberal left or progressives think) is instead put off. Why? Because they've been insulted, not drawn into a discussion that values their concerns and reservations but instead puts those admirable qualities to shame. Liberals are axiomatic. Life is not. Voters with reservations about any particular liberal policy, let alone fundamentals like marriage, should be approached with respect, listened to and not shouted at and certainly not, from some unwarranted a priori vantage point, be called bigots. How can the obvious be so difficult to them?<br /><br />Every state that has given its citizens a voice in the matter has supported the definition of traditional marriage. My, that's quite a lot of mouth breathers! Even California could not be persuaded. There, however, the left could not bring itself to face reality (would they be liberals if they could?). The outrage of progressives was directed against the Mormon Church, whose position on this issue is no different than the Roman Catholic Church, Muslims both Sunni and Shi'ite as well as Orthodox Jews and the world-wide Orthodox Christian Church.<br /><br />Who made the real difference in the California marriage vote? Blacks and Hispanics. Don't look to the left to take them on. That would take courage and integrity and this is a crowd who excuses without much reflection he who took Mary Jo's life. Please adjust your expectations accordingly. <br /><br />Worse than the marriage amendment people though (MC sees young men & women wanting to marry their lovers; that motivation is impossible not to respect even if their tactics could be better) are the opponents of voter photo id, also on the ballot this fall. MC will address later the legal resolution of challenges to both amendments when the Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled on them. Hint: both will remain on the ballot in some form. <br /><br />Those against voter photo id employ essentially the same tactics against their opponents with essentially the same results. No one who thinks presenting a valid, photo id in order to vote also thinks: "Great, the poor and minorities will be shut out now." That's a construct of the liberal left, unable to posit good faith in opinions with which they disagree.<br /><br />The extremely liberal former Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority decision for the US Supreme Court which upheld as constitutional the use of voter photo id. The other side really can't have it both ways, despite their desperate attempts. Amusingly, it takes umbrage when asked why it turns a blind eye to voter fraud. Usually it insists there is none, causing people to not take them seriously.<br /><br />Polling shows even higher support for voter photo id than the marriage amendment; somewhere along the lines of 62 or 65%. There can be little doubt that this ballot measure will pass. Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has attempted to skew the language of this and the traditional marriage amendment against passage by re-writing the titles to each that will appear on the ballot.<br /><br />If a conservative Secretary of State had been so naked in his partisanship, the left would have been joined by conservatives in condemning that action. Here, though, because the left is afraid of the people it tiresomely insists it best represents, they are silent. They allow Mark Ritchie to disgrace his office, and by extension the people of Minnesota, because they want the outcome he seeks. Between Ritchie & Gov. Mark "let's give out half a billion tax dollars to millionaires" Dayton, the left in Minnesota is without integrity but don't tell them; they think they've cornered the market on it. Instead, Obama-like, they attempt distractions: Look! Mary Franson! Look! Michael & Amy. Sorry, voters are still not as dumb as the left always but always takes them for. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>MC predicts both measures will pass and the same political spectrum that lacks the courage to either engage their opponents or condemn the thuggish Secretary of State will lecture the rest of us<i> argumentum ad nauseam</i>. Having tuned them out now, however, due to their arrogance and logical fallacies, the voters of Minnesota will pay them no mind November 7th. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-18345537478861661642012-07-08T15:19:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.571-07:00They're Over It: Ron Paulers Abandon Kurt Bills<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ZP_EwC4orfmo5o0X2xD1E-4ZZbqbBSiMwDukZ_mL7xHUpGLgwNTEzG5dMdjIW9ePn0chwqQbUOSLz9H9Q-_FQ98Sy_ZkzF3qSTVtOeSZqqxzsjL8jnW1sQ_caSFfUZpmNnS33xtO36c/s1600/0519-n-mcb-gopnotebook-paul-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ZP_EwC4orfmo5o0X2xD1E-4ZZbqbBSiMwDukZ_mL7xHUpGLgwNTEzG5dMdjIW9ePn0chwqQbUOSLz9H9Q-_FQ98Sy_ZkzF3qSTVtOeSZqqxzsjL8jnW1sQ_caSFfUZpmNnS33xtO36c/s320/0519-n-mcb-gopnotebook-paul-1.jpeg" width="214" /></a></div>Don't look now but that invasion of fake republicans, also known as Ron Paul supporters, have largely abandoned the hapless school teacher they corralled into the MN GOP endorsement for US Senate, Kurt Bills. MC happens to love people who say they told us so, especially because in this instance MC fairly led the charge against these politically unserious people who temporarily seized control of the endorsement mechanisms to hijack the party. But many others also saw the danger and sounded the alarm.<br /><br />We told you so. Oh, and the endorsing convention wasn't even two months ago but who's counting.<br /><br />How can one tell if the Paulers really have abandoned their hand picked candidate? Possibly by noting that the person who did the hand picking--Marianne Stebbins--has effectively withdrawn from politics due to what might more or less be called a civil war within the Paul zombie community. Yes, that's right, Stebbins isn't "doing" politics because her consignment shop business has suffered while she toiled in the vineyard of liberty. She has deleted her Facebook account and created a private one. She's going all Greta Garbo.<br /><br />Thanks for the damage & abdication of responsibility, Marianne. You're leaving another campaign in the hands of David Fitzsimmons? What happened to that army of boots on the ground? What happened to Minnesota being electrified by headlines of "GOP nominates school teacher for senate race?" Where *is* that Ron Paul money bomb for Bills that we were told would raise a million dollars in one day?<br /><br />Well? All of this is nowhere because Ron Paul supporters were interlopers, unconcerned with Minnesota politics generally and republican interests specifically.<br /><br />One can see pictures of the Bills campaign as they are tweeted: the forlorn locations, dearth of supporters and those ridiculous buses that first premiered as props at the state convention in May. His campaign is without focus or purpose. Parades and attendance at insular fund raisers indicate a campaign that has failed to transition to a general election. Kurt, you've won the endorsement. Stop running for it.<br /><br />Anyone in the party, the House or the Senate, want to take responsibility for the current state of affairs? No, of course not. They'll all pretend they didn't enable this train wreck to get the endorsement. They "had" to go along, you know. They worked behind the scenes to make things as good as possible. The rest of us were just "missiles" that needed to be "guided."<br /><br />More than a few elected officials have deliberately sidled up to the remaining Paul supporters thinking they will be important in the next cycle for governor, senator, state-wide races and such. Perhaps they will but the obvious lack of principle shown this cycle hardly endears them to those of us who will be there in the coming two years. The real base will return but filled with disgust at those who occupy office with an "R" after their name. If they are counting on what they failed to do this year being forgotten, they are in for an unpleasant surprise. For some reason, the word quislings comes to mind.<br /><br />RNC committeeman Jeff Johnson infamously scolded the state convention by demanding that people "get over it." He's going to have to make some sort of Checkers speech to rehabilitate himself among the non-Paul party base. Yet who knew that so soon after the debacle that was the endorsing convention, the very faction of the party he and others thought ascendant would forfeit the field, leave the game, make fools of them?<br /><br />Well MC & many others did, to no avail obviously. The coming months will be excruciating to watch given the lack of money and volunteers that plague the Bills campaign. The Ron Paul supporters, leaving even sooner than could have been expected, will move on to Tampa, or raw milk, or hemp, or redecorating Mom's basement. They won't be an effective political force to help Bills win.<br /><br />As for the regular, currently displaced, republican activist base?<br /><br />Silence, cunning & exile.<br /><br /><br /><br />Update: Stebbins apparently has her Facebook page back up after making the statements indicated in the above post. A reader also indicated she recently marched in a parade with the hapless Bills. Well good for her; one would think it's the least she could do for the risible revolution she spearheaded.<br /><br />The point remains that neither in numbers of volunteers or in the surge of dollars have the Paulers come through for Bills. The window-dressing of a volunteer here or Facebook page there to one side, the Paulers have, effectively, abandoned Kurt Bills.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-68483014778729612522012-06-24T10:37:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.593-07:00In Praise of Alida Messinger's Millions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJm3RG-3IxP7vA8HGf4UuuMEThGjCFkH89hdKFvzVRcyvVR68u8UgTuza9jNLy3pVTiOlTgt613NF7Y8i_fiYbxR5PGAoOTdQ62s6FkNq82zcxPuJ7dp5eYIjFfeKas2YweP9s6nCH1_k/s1600/alida.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJm3RG-3IxP7vA8HGf4UuuMEThGjCFkH89hdKFvzVRcyvVR68u8UgTuza9jNLy3pVTiOlTgt613NF7Y8i_fiYbxR5PGAoOTdQ62s6FkNq82zcxPuJ7dp5eYIjFfeKas2YweP9s6nCH1_k/s320/alida.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The bored dilettante ex-wife of bored dilettante Gov. Mark Dayton recently wrote a $500,000 personal check to a political pac supporting democratic women in elected office, the usual litmus tests applying, of course. Much was made of this by those on the right, given the endless hypocrisy of the progressive left when it comes to money in politics. Mostly the local left was silent on Twitter and MC saw no blogging about what would otherwise appear to the sanctimonious set as an egregious example of why suffocating government regulation of speech is essential to what they conceive of as a fair and open political system. It remains an astonishing truth that the left never learns from experience or mistake; how else to explain their continued support for the failed Obama presidency?<br /><br />At any rate, Alida Rockefeller Dayton Messinger's contribution is to be praised, not clucked about or worried over. The professional left, to quote Robert Gibbs, will faint when MC claims that money in politics is not a problem. Post-Watergate the group think was that money indeed was very much a corrosive element in politics and the First Amendment could be compromised because of good intentions. It's ever thus on the left. And yet there is no empirical evidence that the cloying web of regulations (Minnesota, typically, is ridiculous in its micro-managing of political speech) has had any positive effect on our political discourse or system. Of course, Obama declined to accept public funding in 2008 and the usual do-gooders were of a piece in their silence. The right consistently critiques itself far more than the left, another indication of the strength of its ideas.<br /><br />Liberalism is profoundly simple: a few axioms and off you go. Trim and adjust as needed but never actually modify your thinking. This brings to mind what Talleyrand is said to have remarked of the Bourbon restoration: "they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing."<br /><br />Money in politics is, after abortion, the best example of this. Without intentionally trying to do much violence to their positions, liberals mindlessly believe that more money in politics is very bad (please ignore the lack of evidence on this point) and hence they are on the side of the good, the true and the beautiful in trying to limit it. Except they are not.<br /><br />Money does not buy political office. Ask Governor Whitman or Senator Fiorina. Or does it? Someone check with Gov. Dayton. MC jests.<br /><br />Those on the right, generally speaking, do not share the low opinion of the voter that, generally speaking, those on the left hold. They are not robots or idiots, swayed like so many consumers of products advertized on television. Again, speaking generally, people value their vote and make the best decision possible. Sometimes this works for republicans, other times for democrats. But kindly spare us the insufferable meddlers who insist they know best how to fashion the type of system in which the rest of us should exercise our political freedoms. Alarmingly, and all too often unrealized by them, their approaches resemble an incumbent protection racket. Ranked choice voting, which allowed the loathsome Dave Thune to remain on the St. Paul City Council, is but one example of their misguided foolishness.<br /><br />Naturally, a distinction has to be made: contributions to candidates are still limited in ways that donations to causes are not. Messinger could not have given half a million dollars to Mark Dayton's campaign outright. That's fine; unlimited campaign donations raise questions in ways that funding issue based causes simply do not.<br /><br />MC, however, wants to hear nothing more from its friends on the left about ALEC, the Koch brothers or <i>Citizens United</i>. <br /><br />The disclosure canard is another failed response to the mistaken idea that money in politics is a problem. People have a right to donate to the causes of their choice without forced disclosure designed to do nothing more than inhibit that right in the first instance. Who funds the deeply unrespected Common Cause Minnesota? No one knows because it does not have to disclose. Nor should it. Nor should any other group if it does not wish to if allowed by law. Those laws should not be changed by those who wish to silence others under the rubric of transparency. <br /><br />The left has long since lost its moral bearing from years past. Not so long ago it would be repulsed at judging people by race. Now it insists on such as a matter of getting past race. It would support the defenseless; now it insists the humanity of such is but a personal choice. Not so long ago it would see government dependence as bondage, a form of prison. Now it sees such as the very role of government and is annoyed with the backlash from such indentured servitude. They know better, you see. <br /><br />In 1958 the state of Alabama attempted to force the NAACP to disclose its members and donors. Is there any question where the left would have been then? Now, however, it would appear that they would take a different approach. Not out of principle but out of expediency. Expeditious but unprincipled is a handy summary of the current day left. <br /><br />Senator Mitch McConnell recently wrote in the Washington Post about such matters. Click <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitch-mcconnell-how-political-disclosure-could-threaten-free-speech/2012/06/22/gJQApiE2vV_story.html"><span style="color: red;">here</span></a> to read it.<br /><br />Alida Messinger's right to write a check of any amount to any cause she pleases should be supported by those in both parties who understand both the constitutional rights in play and the stakes involved. The reaction of silence and embarrassment on the left shows just how much work remains to be done.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Hat tip to Tony Sutton for having created, circa 2010, the eternal phrase "bored dilettante."<br /><br /><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-82562964599161974422012-06-14T20:15:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.628-07:00Agenda 21: Because There's More Room For Crazy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeW-gQYkq3VH9R2Llh2LZ-xZGWtzChxJ_LPL9MjW8rQMvGYF8yyur4tBkRylx5wqh6E5vNduZLTrk7spaeqXn-aIVso-quzd9kUx3OUwrazbHm4svhBlQDr69cBlg3dYLl6yCxG9Rk-JQ/s1600/agenda-21-trojan-horse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeW-gQYkq3VH9R2Llh2LZ-xZGWtzChxJ_LPL9MjW8rQMvGYF8yyur4tBkRylx5wqh6E5vNduZLTrk7spaeqXn-aIVso-quzd9kUx3OUwrazbHm4svhBlQDr69cBlg3dYLl6yCxG9Rk-JQ/s320/agenda-21-trojan-horse.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Thought hemp, raw milk and ending the Fed was the sum of craziness currently infiltrating the Republican Party of Minnesota? Think again. Agenda 21 is the next big thing in making a political party entirely irrelevant in Minnesota. Why can't it ever be the DFL, though?<br /><br />Wikipedia defines Agenda 21 as follows: "Agenda 21 is an action plan of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations" title="United Nations">United Nations</a> related to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_development" title="Sustainable development">sustainable development</a> and was an outcome of the <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Conference_on_Environment_and_Development" title="United Nations Conference on Environment and Development">United Nations Conference on Environment and Development</a> (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. It is a comprehensive blueprint of action to be taken globally, nationally, and locally by organizations of the UN, governments, and major groups in every area in which humans directly affect the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_environment" title="Natural environment">environment</a>."<br /><br />In other words, another meaningless gesture by the most useless organization known to man in its long history. Think of the Club of Rome & how we were all supposed to be dead now because of starvation due to overpopulation. Think of the tiresome climate alarmists who, in the 1970's, said we'd be dead because of another ice age. Yet some are now taking laughable liberal panic premises seriously? <br /><br />At the MN GOP state convention in May there were several individuals handing out flyers (chaos is in the eye of the beholder, apparently) warning about Agenda 21. This is the type of detritus that accompanies the fringe Ron Paul movement. MC awaits the rush of scared party officers, spineless elected officials and unprincipled future candidates to pander to the Agenda 21 lunatics. After Ron Paul, the bottom's the limit!<br /><br />Readers can Google Agenda 21 themselves and digest the information available before coming to their own views. What concerns MC is that the topic increasingly crops up in various Tea Party gatherings to which republican officials are asked to attend. Not clapping in the face of a crowd of trained seals is hard to do, even for those few Minnesota republicans with principles. MC isn't optimistic that they will call out this group for the bat guano crazy types they manifestly are. Not only has MC seen this movie before, it's like some malevolent deity has put it on loop tape. <br /><br />But don't take MC's word for it. For the first time ever, MC links to The Blaze. Yes. An entry just this day was posted there that can explain so much. Click <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/is-the-soros-sponsored-agenda-21-a-hidden-plan-for-world-government-yes-only-it-is-not-hidden/"><span style="color: red;">here</span></a> to see, not stop, the insanity. <br /><br />A lack of courage, awareness & what the Republican Party does and does not stand for has brought us to this sorry state. What the "get over it" accommodationists fail to realize is that by standing idly by, mutely observing what the new feral political cats have dragged in, we cease to be a party capable of winning elected office and, instead, become hostage to the denizens of the Star Wars bar. <u><span style="color: black;"></span></u><br /><br /><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-30478019013769059502012-06-05T06:50:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.578-07:00Five Months Out Race Called For Klobuchar<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img class="centered" height="240" id="liquid-photo" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3270/2999217035_376e3548bf_b.jpg" width="320" /></div><br />Oh dear, this won't do, will it? Blois Olson's Morning Take newsletter yesterday reported a story by Minnesota Public Radio which quoted two nationally known & respected political pundits as saying the race by Rep. Kurt Bills (15 years a high school teacher of economics ya know!) against Senator Amy "Mom" Klobuchar was all but over before it even started. Edamame republicans were gracious in their utter vindication although the Ron Paul cult members who hijacked the party in order to give this sock puppet the endorsement insisted they were somehow to blame for this unavoidable blast of honesty. Yes, that is, apparently, the color of the sky within their borg. Of course, had they any association with honesty none of them could support crack pot and friend of David Duke Ron Paul. But liberty! Or something. <br /><br />Saner minds knew full well that pundits Larry Sabato & Jennifer Duffy were only stating the most obvious of facts: the weakest candidate the MN GOP could run against Klobuchar got the endorsement. Not the cheesy ripped-off-from-the-late-Sen. Wellstone bus (cults have zero imagination) nor the moronic Econ 101 slogan will do anything to avoid the electoral abattoir. <br /><br />Besting the always to be regretted scolding to "get over it," real republican activists have done something better: they have moved on. None of them will work on the senate race and for good reasons. Senator Mom™ has already locked up all the corporate money in Minnesota. And as MPR reported: "Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report says while Bills' association with Paul is helping him now, it will cost him support in the long run. 'I mean it almost guarantees that Bills will not get a single independent vote and will not get any moderate Republican support,' Duffy says." Moderate? Try rank and file Jennifer. <br /><br />But the soon to be announced "Team Minnesota" will give all real republican activists around the state an easy and helpful way to assist in retaining the MN GOP majorities in the Minnesota Senate & House. The state party is not only useless and broke, its become the leading edge of Vichy republicans. Elephants are said to have long memories and karma is said to be a bitch. More, no reasonable person expects the party to have anything to do with keeping the majorities. Certainly the Senate & House caucuses do not.<br /><br />Team Minnesota will attempt to augment efforts around the state where needed in particular races. Team Minnesota isn't particularly interested in the internecine warfare currently in progress in both chambers. It only cares about returning a majority of republicans to each of them; to one of them in a worst case scenario to stop the brain dead liberal take over of the state. The lesson of the last legislative session is black and white: republicans don't deserve to win but democrats don't deserve to govern. Minnesota could only hope to be as politically vibrant as next door Wisconsin but instead is merely constipated. Yet much mocked Minnesota continues to think itself superior to its neighbor. Quite the reverse. <br /><br />More will be said about Team Minnesota in the coming weeks. In the meantime, one can hear Kurt Bills on the Late Debate by clicking <a href="http://www.twincitiesnewstalk.com/player/?station=KTCN-AM&program_name=podcast&program_id=latedebate.xml&mid=22143922" style="color: red;">here</a>. He appeared Sunday last, June 3rd and his performance gives no comfort even to those inclined to magic thinking. Remarkably, he admitted that the much promised Ron Paul money spigot had not yet opened. Funny, that. The Paul zombies, he explained, are busy trying to get Mr. Hemp & Raw Milk a speaking slot at the national republican convention in Tampa this August. And then what? They'll donate all their drug money to Bills? Hardly. Ron Paul will not endorse Mitt Romney either. Or if he does, it will only be the most grudging possible in order to speak his dogma one last time: a swan song of lunacy, anti-semitism and paranoia. The money still will not flow to Kurt Bills; his puppet masters already know the race is lost (someone should really tell teach). That money best belongs in a PAC controlled by pere et fil Paul. Like the Kims of North Korea, the Pauls are in for the long haul. Long Haul Pauls.™<br /><br />The insufferable wave of new comers to the MN GOP, who pretend they alone know something about liberty and the constitution, will fall flat on their cultish faces. The senate campaign will limp along but only as something to be put out of its misery. Others, of course, will be blamed for the political incompetence but that dog won't hunt.<br /><br />Like a mother unable to part with her stillborn child, the Minnesota cult of Ron Paul will continue to hover around the Bills campaign for the next five long months, an advertisement for what happens when closed minds hold sway. Like those who know when to bury their dead, however, regular republican activists will flee to the races around the state that will keep the legislature safe from that party which has not had a new political idea in more than five decades. The contrast between the two could hardly be greater or of more importance. <br /><br /><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-90763301054031130712012-05-30T06:01:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.637-07:00Rep. Kurt Bills Is A Ron Paul Republican<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh319H9hPWXeaiHwgAsrVT1RZ5E6Qe2YmCm7KAY2LlKe2LAVBMArt9LGB2HaBB43rve9aV5scxqI37x5HybCcaEeR0KdkRNl2tu0VeVraAGhX_bZeUOT4jOs8P56_36KzNgIv21vgLQxi0/s1600/ronpaullocust.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh319H9hPWXeaiHwgAsrVT1RZ5E6Qe2YmCm7KAY2LlKe2LAVBMArt9LGB2HaBB43rve9aV5scxqI37x5HybCcaEeR0KdkRNl2tu0VeVraAGhX_bZeUOT4jOs8P56_36KzNgIv21vgLQxi0/s1600/ronpaullocust.jpg" /></a></div>Hand picked by Ron Paul's lead representative in Minnesota to run for senate against incumbent Amy Klobuchar, Rep. Kurt Bills was always dishonest in denying his ideological association with this fringe, unserious crackpot. Pushed at one point in the endorsement battle to describe his kind of republicanism, Bills bleated that he was a Kurt Bills republican, a heretofore unknown sort of republican, notable, apparently, for its shape shifting capabilities and breathtaking insincerity. Ciphers now had their own kind of republican. <br /><br />Bills handily won the endorsement of a Paul dominated MN GOP state convention on the second ballot. Both challengers--Dan Severson & Pete Hegseth--declined to appear with him on stage as he accepted the endorsement. Even for the slow of thought in the Minnesota republican party (and various sundry elected officials who endorsed him) this refusal to be tainted by a Ron Paul sock puppet should have served as a profound and disturbing warning.<br /><br />But no.<br /><br />In the ten days or so since Hennepin County Commissioner & RNC man Jeff Johnson grossly misjudged the current state of affairs and lectured those at the convention who reject Paulism to "get over it," (the phrase has taken on a mocking life of its own on Twitter) a few things have become increasingly clear. Far from this simply being another endorsement battle with differing wings of the party needing to come together, the 35% of the delegates who were not members of the cult (or their enablers: well known republicans who fawned to get their picture taken with Paul and lost the respect others had for them) saw clearly this development was different in kind, not degree. That people as bright as Johnson could otherwise be so comprehensively obtuse in their assessment only added to the general discouragement.<br /><br />Perhaps this could get their attention:<br /><br /><span style="color: blue;">"If there’s one thing that the 2012 campaign has taught us about Ron Paul, it’s that he is a bald-faced liar. Not just a run-of-the-mill liar like most politicians, but a liar so shameless that only the most slavish of devotees could maintain respect for him."</span><br /><br />Well yes and some of us were unfortunate enough to see the slavishness up close and personal for two days which, Inception-like, felt like a month.<br /><br />The quote is from James Kirchik who has written extensively on the liar Ron Paul. Could any of our so called leaders in and out of the party be bothered to read his work? MC has already provided many links to his work at The New Republic (which Paul zombie Terry McCall emailed was a washed out and discredited magazine). The quote above comes from a review by Kirchik of a recently published fatuous and myopic book on the so called Ron Paul revolution (the very definition of preposterous). MC understands why dullards like McCall can't be bothered with the truth but what's the excuse for so many others? Political malpractice? Kirchik is deadly in his assessment:<br /><br /><div class="text parbase section">"The lies [the author] can’t bring himself to acknowledge, let alone criticize, concern the notorious newsletters that the libertarian guru Paul published from the late 1970s through 1996, the bulk of which I uncovered and exposed <a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/angry-white-man" target="_blank">in a 2008 article for <i>The New Republic</i></a>. The full contents of these “bigot-grams,” as the <i>Dallas Morning News</i> referred to them, need not be fully rehearsed here, but needless to say they are replete with ugly statements about gays, blacks, and Jews, not to mention endorsements of a variety of quack scientific claims, support for the right-wing militia movement, and defenses of such loathsome individuals as David Duke, Marge Schott, and Bobby Fischer.</div><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=423868999082505525" name="body_text2" style="visibility: hidden;"></a><br /><div class="text parbase section">Paul’s acknowledgment of his involvement, or lack thereof, in the newsletters, evolved from a defense of their contents in 1996 to telling CNN in December of last year, “I’ve never read that stuff.” A former secretary of Paul’s told <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ron-paul-signed-off-on-racist-newsletters-sources-say/2012/01/20/gIQAvblFVQ_story.html" target="_blank"><i>The Washington Post</i></a>, however, that Paul “would proof” the newsletters, a claim seconded by another erstwhile aide. It is frankly inconceivable that Paul was unaware of what was being produced in his own name and to his massive personal enrichment."<br /><br />The entire review can be read by clicking <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/15/james-kirchick-new-book-on-ron-paul-by-brian-doherty-is-a-white-wash.html"><span style="color: blue;">here.</span></a> But why re-raise what MC has raised previously?<br /><br />Because in recent days the mask has slipped and what those with a functioning cerebral cortex knew all along was revealed for all to see: Kurt Bills is a Ron Paul republican. In fact, MC isn't sure Ron Paul himself is a republican; he's more of a cult-based cottage industry preying upon the paranoid and the conspiracy minded. He suggested his followers could well vote for Cynthia McKinney for president in 2008 although ultimately he himself endorsed the Constitution Party candidate. Only by the most dishonest--that word again--use of republican could one claim Paul to be. <br /><br />Bills has endorsed son of the great leader Rand Paul's budget blue print. Really? Not the respected and deeply serious Paul Ryan's? Of course not: you're dealing with a wholly owned subsidiary of the Ron Paul movement. Bills won't have an original idea of his own this election because the borg will not let him. This is so banal, so underwhelming and tawdry that calling it a Faustian bargain would be an upgrade. Kabuki doesn't deserve to be denigrated by employing it as a metaphor either. Don't bother to raise the obvious creepy nepotism: all is well within the cult. The secret knowledge possessed of the laughable "liberty" types is by nature not available to the masses and so passage of it from father to son is in the order of things if Americans are eventually to take the red pill and see the matrix for what it is. MC does not exaggerate. <br /><br />Bills also announced, in a tip-credit sort of dis-associative moment, that foreign aid should be capped and four federal agencies should be eliminated altogether. Who can doubt this is what Minnesotans have been clamoring for? Who can doubt that these positions have radically changed the senate race in Minnesota and has Amy Klobuchar on the run? Pretty much everyone outside the Bills Borg.™ But no matter.<br /><br />Rather than ascertain what an underfunded candidate can do to maximize his appeal to the voters of Minnesota, and raise desperately needed money, Kurt Bills has mocked even his supporters of last resort by clearly signaling he's a willing tool in the programmatic Paul movement. Winning is not of the slightest concern to them. When both parties are the same, how could winning matter in any fundamental sense? Bills will be told to run, and consequently will run, a campaign to highlight the many ludicrous positions espoused by Ron Paul. Think of it as the largest state based infomercial in the history of modern politics.<br /><br />Don't think of it as anything that can help Minnesota republicans keep either of their majorities in the House or Senate. Something new to help in that effort is being born currently and will be announced in greater detail soon. But it's in spite of Bills, not because of him. <br /><br />The usual suspects on Twitter are trying to fall in behind Bills, to castigate in a friendly manner those who see what's truly going on and to pretend they've seen this movie and how, with a bit of extra effort, the ending can be the same as before. But they haven't seen it and the ending won't be as hoped.<br /><br />The only real question is whether Bills will lose to Klobuchar by less or more than twenty points and how much damage to what's left of the party is done by those who hold it in contempt. <br /><br /><br /></div><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-62406547602804330232012-05-20T11:04:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.591-07:00What I Saw At The Hemp & Raw Milk Revolution<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxfB2TaFG3nnnIQENiLp7h1pCVSmUtBRqELEYdR5rVZoPN03dWAZ1zSNwSwgzueYU_p27KLEG766kC6Dlrr3IBtuUKC-Vuab750-T1KWaEr-fOUrPIa0RiHc5Cu1Cv_JO30Jzr_FVsfXU/s1600/ron_paul_01a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxfB2TaFG3nnnIQENiLp7h1pCVSmUtBRqELEYdR5rVZoPN03dWAZ1zSNwSwgzueYU_p27KLEG766kC6Dlrr3IBtuUKC-Vuab750-T1KWaEr-fOUrPIa0RiHc5Cu1Cv_JO30Jzr_FVsfXU/s320/ron_paul_01a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />The MN GOP Convention ended yesterday as MC predicted a week or so ago: Kurt Bills as the endorsed senate candidate and a sweep of all 13 at large delegates and 13 alternates for the Ron Paul forces. The MN GOP State Central Committee met following the conclusion of the endorsing convention and its results were the same as previously predicted by MC: Janet Beihoffer won a crushing victory over Ron Paul favored incumbent Pat Anderson. As a friend of MC's texted: "I hate it when you're right." So does MC.<br /><br />What to make of what has just happened to the Republican Party of Minnesota? It depends on whether one is in the old (elected) guard trying to ride what they think is a wave that will fade or whether one is an activist who knows what's really going on, what the Paul forces truly represent. <br /><br />To begin, a high school teacher that Ron Paul organizer Marianne Stebbins hand picked won the endorsement because of the overwhelming, amazing organizing efforts of her Ron Paul forces. MC has had many media interviews recently but in each has noted this strength, her strength. There is simply no room not to give her her due. It would be churlish otherwise. And here's a tip of the hat to Juliette & Corey; they have a sense of humor and that's not nothing these days. <br /><br />Many GOP activists have asked why so many in the House and Senate fell in behind Kurt Bills. Having spoken to many of them, and raising that concern, it was clear that those in each chamber had little understanding of the damage the Paul activists were doing to the Minnesota Republican Party generally. This makes sense; it's of a piece with their poor decision making when electing party leadership. Having failed so badly at the latter, how to expect more of them with regard to the former?<br /><br />David Duke admirer Ron Paul addressed the convention in the afternoon on Friday. MC walked out. It wasn't very brave, just honest. It wasn't like hiding Anne Frank although if Duke and Paul had their way, MC's carriage house would be full up. Paul called for legalizing hemp and raw milk to much applause. How so called party leadership could remain on the dais while he spoke is a mystery. When they look in the mirror they must not see anything. <br /><br />The Severson & Hegseth campaigns were road kill on the way to the Paulbot candidate's endorsement. Neither seemed to understand what they were up against. Severson had already lost a statewide campaign and was a poor fundraiser. Hegseth seemed like a Stepford Husband, ready to take orders but incapable of knowing his own mind or, weirdly, being his own man. The juxtaposition of him as a candidate with his courage and leadership in Afghanistan was jarring. Next time out, and MC hopes he runs in the future, he needs to have fewer handlers, fewer endorsements by people who don't count and more authenticity. <br /><br />Speaking of authenticity and handlers, the Romney team in Minnesota deserves special scorn. Out of touch, fossilized and full of themselves, they embody the worst of what the Paul people think of the establishment. Ben Ginsberg, still apparently angry at his age that he's not taller, glowered at the floor from his cocoon of men in black, never deigning to make eye contact with the locals, let alone speak to them. No. He'll get paid but what mastermind thought it worth his fees to have him and his consiglieres<b> </b>in Minnesota? Maybe he's one of those "I like to watch" types while the, uh, whatever is going down. Jack & Annette! Meeks were a ghostly presence at the convention, as was yesterday's man Ron Carey. The "conservative unity" slate put together at the last minute was a joke before the flyers were even printed. The always tone deaf Michele Bachmann let herself be put on it for reasons unknown to MC. She lost on the first round of balloting but the always brilliant tactician Stebbins had the 13th place Ron Paul winner move aside for her. [MC thinks she had orders from the Mother Ship] Had Bachmann any dignity, she would have declined after placing approximately 150 votes back. She doesn't and she didn't. Tampa, if possible, just got more garish.<br /><br />One flyer got a lot of attention and its author given a standing ovation of boos: the one signed off on by MC but put together by those Romney geniuses. The "chaos" flyer apparently got the delegates into a lather. Bully. But it was really small beer in that it simply suggested the Ron Paul slate would cause chaos (a true downgrade from revolution) in Tampa. The Paul zombies think Romney can be denied endorsement on the first ballot and then the convention would unite behind Ron Paul. No, seriously. Welcome to the fetid swamps from which his supporters hail.<br /><br />MN GOP Chair Pat Shortridge couldn't help himself and condemned the flyer as "offensive." We're all sensitive liberals now, apparently. He received roaring approval for saying so. Such is his reward. MC understands the need for a foil. How to monetize that, though?<br /><br />Curiously there was no condemnation when the delegates booed the mention of Israel by Mark Miller, head of the local Republican Jewish Coalition. So too a lack of condemnation when a speaker called for unifying behind Mitt Romney and was booed. Yet those who are opposed to Ron Paul because they actually know who and what he is about are said to be an obstacle to party unity. Curious. <br /><br />Shortridge did ask, to his credit, MC about the boos for Israel. Rachel Stassen-Berger of the Star Tribune tweeted it as fact and she's a good reporter. Mark Miller told MC he was booed as he spoke. Shortridge said he would reel them in. Great: keep your anti-semitism private. Such is progress measured in today's MN GOP. <br /><br />Unfortunately, MC wasn't able to give final approval to those on the chaos flyer before it went out and would have stricken the name of Jennifer DeJournett. MC tried to convey this to her at State Central but literally got the finger from her instead. That's fine: when you only get 300 votes for national delegate you have much larger PR problems in the party than MC's chaos flyer. But by all means blame MC; happy to be a foil once again. <br /><br />Amongst many low points of the circus masquerading as a political party convention was RNC man Jeff Johnson's address to the convention. Channeling his inner Pawlenty, Johnson pretended to leadership by castigating both "sides" of the ongoing dispute which, heads up Jeff, is nothing less than the take over of the MN GOP and its hollowing out from the inside by people who believe there is no difference between Obama and Romney. As Peter Glessing @pgless tweeted: "Thanks for the scolding." One can see Jeff helping Amy Klobuchar make us all hot tuna noodle casserole and then tucking us into bed for the night.<br /><br />Johnson's problem, like so many of the old guard, is that he just doesn't get it. His insipid speech won much applause: the first sign of danger and believing in your own press clippings. But an equal smack to both sides and a Rodney King-like appeal to "just get along" isn't strong, brave or admirable.<br /><br />Did Johnson call out those who booed uniting behind Mitt Romney? Did Johnson condemn those who booed Israel? To ask the question is to have your answer. Of course the press ran with his tag line of "get over it" as he knew they would. Thanks, Jeff. Oh by the way? Iceberg, dead ahead. Keep lining up those deck chairs.<br /><br />Any number of resolutions got passed as well but MC is aware of only one: the MN GOP is now officially on record as demanding the end of the fed. Thank goodness for getting over it: we can become as crazy as the zombies who took us over. <br /><br />As a state central delegate, the only bright spot for MC was the election of Janet Beihoffer to the RNC for a full, four year term. Incumbent lobbyist Pat Anderson lost in a landslide. The state central committee is the last redoubt of what the RPM used to be. The Paul zombies are looking to take it over next year but plans are already in place to prevent that from happening.<br /><br />Beihoffer now needs to shed her task oriented focus and become more of a big picture woman. This means being less abrasive and letting people finish their sentences. And stop tying herself to IBM: for the younger generations this is Jurassic Park. MC supported Janet and is confident that with a bit of polish she'll represent Minnesota extremely well on the national stage. She waged a flawless campaign. Thank you, Janet.<br /><br />Although the end note was good, on balance the 2012 MN GOP convention was a disaster. Kurt Bills won't be able to raise the money needed to defeat senator for life Amy Klobuchar. Large donors have already closed their checkbook. But get over it. With him at the head of the ticket the GOP House and Senate majorities are further imperiled. But get over it. The sweep of delegates and alternates by Ron Paul could be seen since the February 7th caucuses. But get over it. The Republican Party of Minnesota is currently unrecognizable. But get over it.<br /><br />Enough with Vichy Republicans. Lots of us aren't over it and won't be. It would be a mistake.<br /><br />We'll take the party back eventually. Then those who cooperated in its surrender will be held to account. <br /><br /><br />PHOTO CREDIT: By Glen Stubbe of the Star Tribune. All rights reserved. Follow him on Twitter at @gspphoto <br /><br />UPDATE: MC requested permission to use the original photo used in this post but was denied by the Star Tribune. MC respects copyright and has since substituted the graphic you now see. MC is awaiting a link from the Star Tribune so readers can see Stubbe's brilliant photo on a site where the paper controls its own copyright. This isn't tyranny; it's the rule of law.<br /><br />Click <a href="http://tinyurl.com/6qdkffn">HERE </a>to see the brilliant photograph. Hat tip Rachel Stassen-Berger<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-43307994397463578302012-05-15T08:45:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.581-07:00Time For The Independent Republican Party?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLHTSBjQ2c455-qQQw_kG3xO3kKMKHghnswjaOIFSyI6gr58zPJdIZfHxTRZ3fW8aldC2oJLkDB87G7QnIvrtpTd_dCY6uJkBWKrAhHQB1e58kKXTADCqOZqzvzNSuiYWBaQ_E92oqlgA/s1600/hindenburg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLHTSBjQ2c455-qQQw_kG3xO3kKMKHghnswjaOIFSyI6gr58zPJdIZfHxTRZ3fW8aldC2oJLkDB87G7QnIvrtpTd_dCY6uJkBWKrAhHQB1e58kKXTADCqOZqzvzNSuiYWBaQ_E92oqlgA/s320/hindenburg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />The hideous Ron Paul invasion of the Minnesota Republican Party is not quite over--the denouement known as its state convention in St. Cloud this weekend awaits--but enough evidence is in hand to draw some grim conclusions for those who are not enamored of a Jew hating fringe cult political figure who speaks to alienated, fairly ignorant and frequently unwashed lost souls. There are just enough exceptions to this characterization on an individual basis to prove its general truth.<br /><br />The Paul zombies™ tried their best last cycle and were rebuffed by the party establishment. To these strange persons this was akin to living in North Korea. Their bleating about tyranny is perhaps the easiest example by which to show how they are simply not serious people in a political sense. They have no idea what tyranny is except the infantilized one fed them by friend of David Duke Ron Paul.<br /><br />What's new and extremely disturbing is their winning of party positions on a variety of levels throughout the state. The old guard, to use a term it seems impossible to get away from, tells itself that these interlopers will soon fade away as they did in previous cycles. MC disagrees and believes that hope to be profoundly misguided if not outright dangerous. More, the idea that they can be worked with is positively delusional, a willful refusal to look at and admit what has recently happened. It's like those poor Russians who said, during the Great Purge, if only Stalin knew. Guess what? <br /><br />One measure of their malice is found in a recent email from the newly elected chair of the 4th CD, John Kysylyczyn. A laughable fool and former disastrous mayor of Roseville more than a decade ago, he was put forth by Marianne Stebbins--chief zombie in Minnesota for the Jew hater--over then current chair Jim Carson if the party didn't bow to her demands. Much to and fro was had, involving Pat Shortridge, Matt Dean, Pat Anderson (the stealth zombie choice for RNC) and others. Because Shortridge would not capitulate to Stebbins' demand to remove certain people from various convention organizing committees, the idiot was elected by his fellow morons. Carson was shocked but those of us who had been paying attention were not. MC usually doesn't employ such language as idiots and morons but unless the reader has actually met these Paul zombies™ they have no idea how true such characterizations are; not ad hominem but veritas.<br /><br />Here is the new chair deliberately eviscerating the organizational structure of the 4th CD in an email dated May 14, 2012:<br /><br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal">Steve,</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Mike B. has forwarded me some concerns that you have concerning CD4 activities.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">First, no full committee meeting has been scheduled.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Second, the exec committee is planning on meeting at the state convention. I anticipate that we will set some of the schedule for the coming year at that meeting.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Third, CD’s have nothing to do with legislative races. It is clearly stated in the constitution. We also have little to do with the congressional district race. We are not the candidate’s committee. In fact, we are not the committee of any candidate running for office this fall.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">To be frank, it does not matter if we are up to any particular speed for this fall’s elections. I understand that many may not agree with this or maybe things have been done differently in the past. As someone new to the position, I sat down the first week on the job and read the state and CD constitutions and the bylaws. My analysis is strictly based off of those documents.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">There seems to be this mistaken belief that the CD is some sort of super campaign committee. It is not. There also seems to be this mistaken belief that CD’s win elections. This is not true. Candidate committees win elections. There also seems to be a mistaken belief that CD’s sort of bind together BPOU’s that choose to operate as house districts. This is not true.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">We are required to hold four full committee meetings per year. It is my intention to have 4 full committee meetings a year. It is my intention to have actual agendas for meetings and a real purpose for having a meeting. Every time we have one of these meetings, there is potentially 100 of our best volunteers who are not spending an evening on the campaign trail. That is a lot of manpower. Meetings need to exceed this expense of manpower. I don’t believe in holding meetings for the sake of holding meetings. Meetings are for the purpose of getting specific business done.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">In the past, there appears to have been a cattle call mentality concerning the calling of meetings. Just have one every month. It doesn’t matter if we have any agenda. Don’t bother sending out agendas. Whoever shows up does. Fill the time allotted. To be clear, I do not operate in this fashion.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">When we call a meeting, there will be a specific agenda. We will have everyone’s email address and they will get the meeting agenda. Meetings will be for members participation only. We therefore need to know who the members are. This takes time. Normally we have elections in the odd numbered years. We have 18 months until the next election. In redistricting years, we have 6 months. Moving forward in an organized fashion takes time.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">But let me be clear, the bottom line is that no candidate’s campaign is affected by the efforts of the CD. Any excuses claiming such, is just an excuse on their part to place blame if their campaigns are not successful.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>John M. Kysylyczyn<br /><br />Frighteningly, Kysylyczyn now runs a day care center. Is stupidity contagious? It's no wonder he's never held elected office since his stint at mayor; no wonder he's a perfect rube for Stebbins. She has an army of them. She prevented Joe Westrup from being elected to the State Executive Committee from the 4th CD and instead rammed through a Paul zombie™ who is barely sentient.<br /><br />All of which presents the question: is it time to bring back the Independent-Republican Party of Minnesota? The Paul zombies™ can have the RPM; what, really, is left of it? Why the party jettisoned the IR structure in 1995 can be discussed another time. What real republicans in Minnesota need to discuss amongst themselves is whether resurrecting the IR is a good idea and, if so, how to go about it?<br /><br />Republicans in CD 4 are organizing and meeting on their own outside the Kysylyczyn circus. This perhaps forms the germ of a future IR party. Or not.<br /><br />What happens at State Central is crucial: if Janet Beihoffer is elected to the RNC for a full four year term, the party as currently known may be salvagable. If she isn't, it most likely is lost and another vehicle for real republican ideas and candidates must be found. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-13064168506368948902012-05-10T20:32:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.565-07:00When Republicans See John Marty As Their Own<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfsg-JWaIEGldflmYn1HubrCE5sEH_aQsu1XszWB07WfbBhy30pS5AGFhxAJi1o53mi4kQp7m2sH188R7h9lr7Kcs7nd-yJilwsMQ-Q_rO-EbNur2BUM88rukZzyRWK1iaP8exapC9x-c/s1600/dayton-wilf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfsg-JWaIEGldflmYn1HubrCE5sEH_aQsu1XszWB07WfbBhy30pS5AGFhxAJi1o53mi4kQp7m2sH188R7h9lr7Kcs7nd-yJilwsMQ-Q_rO-EbNur2BUM88rukZzyRWK1iaP8exapC9x-c/s1600/dayton-wilf.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br />What do you call it when Minnesota republicans and democrats together sell out their respective parties' core principles?<br /><br />The Vikings stadium.<br /><br />In an astonishing public display of craven opportunism, toadying and corruption the Minnesota House of Representatives and then Senate bucked every opportunity to stand for that which they claim. Democrats, naturally, believe there is too much corporate welfare and "giving" away to the rich. There is much not to be believed in this. Republicans, equally naturally, believe in market forces and reduced government spending. Here too there is much not to be believed in.<br /><br />Yet at their fundamentals, this is indeed what both parties are and then some. The natural tension between the two defines our local, state and national politics. How was it then that we saw those members in each party who, apparently, are foolish enough to want to act on such principles, easily pushed aside and a toxic stadium bill passed in each chamber with room to spare?<br /><br />A Twitter account gave one a ringside seat to the brawl. MC could be mistaken but has there ever been this high a profile legislative issue in Minnesota history that was given such intimate scrutiny by the public, the media and the members in real time? Amendments to the bills were an adventure in policy discourse alone. Humor abounded, as did barbs and snipes. Local media, in MC's view, did an exceptional job in tweeting the facts, the corrections, the ups and downs in the process.<br /><br />Perhaps what was most fascinating about this sordid process was how the low rent politicians prevailed over the principled ones in both parties. It puts one in mind of that (relatively) famous Nora Ephron quote: "No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up."<br /><br />Time and again the implausible case was made that a many-times-over millionaire needed the taxpayer money of Minnesota. Concerns about the funding source of the state's share of the project were more or less dismissed out of hand. Gambling, that hideous thing, made numerous appearances in numerous Faustian guises. The DFL's Eddie Haskell, Rep. Ryan Weiner, er, Winkler flipped when his masters told him. MC gives him credit, though, for advancing the truly bogus notion that the give away of taxpayer's money to the already wealthy was for Minnesota's "quality of life" and not because of the economics of the deal. This must be akin to what liberals think of the Constitution's commerce clause: either a nuisance to be ignored or a concept stretched past the point of recognition. Either way no credibility is left. The creepy rent a mob known as the Welfare Rights Committee protests against Rep. Mary Franson but not this? Mark must have told Alida (or Carrie? has anyone seen those two together?) to keep them in check.<br /><br />The House debate was a debacle. Chaotic, venal and at times pathetic, those watching could only marvel. Interestingly, the pro-stadium types let only a few of their supporters talk, for which MC could be forgiven for thinking they'll be amply rewarded. The others were grinding the sausage.<br /><br />What was left of real conservative republicans in the House did their level best. So too did liberal democrats. At one point Sen. John Marty gave an impassioned, reasoned argument against the bill so sounding in GOP principles that those listening had to check to make sure the identity of the speaker. This is the political equivalent of an out of body experience.<br /><br />Particularly painful were the tweets of House caucus staff. MC understands they have to bleat out the leadership line but must they pretend to superiority while doing so? It only makes them look worse than they are, which takes some doing. MC also understands that "activists" are looked on by them with indifference at best and with scorn usually. That's ok; it would be cruel to wake them up. Oh, and can someone tell Chas Anderson that that Kurt Zellers rocket she was going to ride to the governorship? It ain't happening.<br /><br />Having been passed by the House, a similar but different bill was then take up by the Senate. It's no exaggeration to say that the Senate debate over the bill stunned even the most jaded, thereby exonerating by excess the heretofore thought of low point in Minnesota politics (or was that when Jesse Ventura was elected governor?). <br /><br />At any rate the discourse was so egregious MC suggested in a tweet that Sen. Geoff Michel be waterboarded. No apology will be forthcoming. Actually, others should be added to the list. <br /><br />In due course the mandate of Heaven was passed by a wholly owned senate that represented no one except those who had bought them off. When RINO's, liberal democrats, Ron Paul supporters and other flavors of both parties are in agreement, something genuine is occurring. That occurrence is the selling out of principles; real, genuine principles. Not every vote, not every issue, invokes those principles in the way the vote on the Vikings stadium did. But that vote did. We have been tested and we have been found wanting.<br /><br />Perversely for republicans, a majority of the vote in both the House & Senate were democrats. As Sen. Dave Thompson (who has taken a few whacks from MC) tweeted: Who is the majority party? Indeed, Senator. Credit where due though he had the support of others who are well known if you have been following the battle. He was hardly alone. Pro-tip Dave? Don't give media interviews as if you were.<br /><br />Enter Nick Coleman, who weighed in with an exceptional J'accuse. It can be read by clicking <a href="http://www.nickcolemanmn.com/?p=3218"><span style="color: red;">here. </span></a>If you're reading this post, you must read it as well. MC doesn't agree with all of it but that's not the point. The point is that MC and many, many other republicans do in point of fact agree with it. To his credit, Coleman on Twitter heaped praise upon those republicans who stood true to their principles. As MC does to the John Marty's of Nick's party. Coleman & MC are now following each other on Twitter. <br /><br />Passing strange.<br /><br />Sen. Gretchen Hoffman, who gives hope to those of us who believe in leadership, tweeted that the Senate debate was so much "bread and circuses." That was enough for Sen. Julie Rosen, our Medea when it comes to republican principles. Photos show her in victory as buffoonish as the buffoons with whom she poses. <br /><br />DFL Eddie Haskell's manufactured quote that this is about Minnesota's quality of life ("Robin Hood in reverse" as Ralph Nader called it), is endlessly telling. Don't look to him to understand it though. Robots only know their programs.<br /><br />Instead, those who thought this would improve the state in which we live are deluded. What the supporters of this stadium bill have delivered unto us is not Minnesota but Illinois. <br /><br />The worst of it is that they don't even know it.<br /><br />But we do and for now that must suffice.<br /><br /><br /><br />This post is dedicated to Susan Closmore. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-82319561952724299382012-04-23T10:12:00.000-07:002016-12-04T00:42:19.347-08:00Ron Paul Cancer On The MN GOP Body Politic<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Congressman Ron Paul is a career politician with no legislative accomplishments to his tarnished, crackpot name. Representing Texas's 14th congressional district, Paul has a long track record of loony ideas few responsible people hold. He's an anti-semite and hostile to blacks and other racial minorities. He has repeatedly praised white supremacist David Duke over the years. His newsletters are full of vile and paranoia. He advocates a feckless foreign policy, whining in his trademark nasal pitch that we should leave the world alone because it will then leave us alone. Ignorance is rarely this invincible. He blames America for the 9-11 Islamo-fascist attacks. He and large numbers of his followers believe it was an inside job. Or, if it wasn't, then it makes no difference if it was caused by Islamic terrorists or Mossad. Lovely but such is the stench of his mind set. [click the image above to enlarge it; you'll be glad you did]<br />
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The New Republic (filled with Jews you know) published a series of articles that vetted Paul and his Julius Streicher newsletters. The idea that they were published without his knowledge, consent or approval has been conclusively refuted. The initial article can be read <a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/98883/ron-paul-incendiary-newsletters-exclusive" style="color: red;">here</a>; the second follow up one can read <a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/99666/ron-paul-newsletters-part-two?page=0,1" style="color: red;">here</a> & the third and final one <a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/99666/ron-paul-newsletters-part-two"><span style="color: red;">here</span></a>. Google Ron Paul newsletters, Ron Paul Jews, Ron Paul David Duke. You'll think your toilet backed up into your mind. <br />
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Paul's juvenile brand of libertarianism appeals to both a wide and narrow group of devotees. Most can be justly categorized as neo-hippies. Not too bright, reflexive, not previously engaged in politics for the most part. Their body odor at the MN GOP CD 3 convention was staggering. One national alternate from that fiasco had never voted before. You read that right. Another who was elected to its executive committee has already quit; too busy doing something else. MC can only guess what that might be but will be charitable, a rare instance when it comes to what MC calls the Paul zombies.<br />
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The Paul notion of liberty is classic arrested development: unfettered individualism, a genuine sense of grievance that not everything goes. No legal heroin? Dictatorship! Raw milk regulations? Oppression. The word tyranny is dropped at a moment's notice. To live in America and pretend to feel this put upon is disgusting. But the victimization mentality is key to understanding the zombies, especially how the ones in Minnesota have executed a blitzkrieg during the caucuses and CD conventions, to say nothing of taking over various party structures themselves. <br />
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In a word, the zombies routed real republicans. Much umbrage is taken when MC calls them not republicans but they themselves do not consider themselves such. Take them at their word, not their smoke and mirrors. Any party official who thinks they can be worked with is grossly mistaken. To cooperate is to be co-opted. Indeed, it could be said that trying to work with these fringe nutters is what has led to this month's wipe out in delegates going to the republican national convention in Tampa this August. <br />
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The dealings at last week's CD 4 convention are instructive. The zombie delegates were prepared to take out the CD chair and the leading candidate for the state executive committee. Pat Shortridge, Matt Dean, Pat Anderson and others attempted to broker a deal. They apparently stressed that those two positions were a bridge too far for the friends of the friend of David Duke. Leadership infrastructure was being cannibalized. Discussions with the highest levels of the Paul national campaign ceased when the zombies demanded the removal of one or more key persons involved in planning and organizing the RPM state endorsing convention next month in St. Cloud. Consequently those two positions were won by zombies. Neither are what one might call impressive.<br />
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At one point MC (sixth alternate from SD 65, thank you) walked back into the convention when people running for elector to the Electoral College were giving their nominating speeches. Some yutz was explaining that he wanted to be an elector because only the Electoral College has standing to challenge Obama's birth certificate. A birther. It was the low point of a very low day. The zombies thought nothing of it. Then again, why would they? <br />
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MC had a discussion with RNC committeewoman Pat Anderson after the convention gathering was euthanized. She believes the zombies can be worked with; MC believes they need to be purged. Most non-Ron Paul supporters side with MC. Paul zombies routinely claim that there is no difference between Obama and Romney. How does anyone work with a mind that closed? Ron Paul is a cult and an understanding of cults is your best guide to understanding how the zombies work. <br />
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The cancer has infected the race for senate as well. Hand picked by Anna, the head Minnesota zombie, Rep. Kurt Bills is in over his head and it shows. Did he not vet Ron Paul? Apparently not. He approached MC when standing next to Andy Aplikowski at last week's senate debate. He got an earful about Ron Paul's Jew hating and generally kooky ideology. He didn't know Paul endorsed Cynthia McKinney for president in 2008. The teacher failed his test and retreated into the safety of the zombies in attendance. True to crackpot form, Bills would not endorse strong support of Israel. This is an ideology foreign to republicans and conservatives. If you don't want to support Israel, Obama's your guy.<br />
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Speaking of not supporting Israel, Allen Quist, vying for the endorsement in Minnesota's CD 1 against Mike Parry, allegedly stated last weekend that he would cut off funding for Israel. That's ok, you see, because he'd cut it off for all other countries. Right. The Kurt Bills supporters threw in behind Quist, no surprise given their hostility to all things Jewish. But Michele Bachmann has endorsed Quist. Speak up, Michele. MC can't quite hear you. <br />
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Rumor has it that the freak himself may address the state convention. In that case, a dignified walk out by everyone who has a shred of self-respect and dignity should take place. Shouting Paul down or protesting with signs and noise is a tactic of the left, with which the zombies have far, far more in common than with the right. If Kurt Bills gets the endorsement then Dan Severson and Pete Hegseth should both run in the primary. MC despairs of such courage from either man, however. They seem to think the endorsement matters and that to primary is to end their political careers. The exact opposite is the case, however. They claim to be leaders. Lead already. <br />
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Paul zombies have remarkably short attention spans (insert favorite drug addled brain joke here) and that is one cause for hope. But it will not be enough to reclaim the party structure for mainstream republicans. They have to be taken back one battle at a time. This means activists can't completely despair. Take a break from the action while the zombies re-arrange the deck chairs? Certainly. But don't go down with the ship. There are lots of lifeboats bobbing around that will gather again to put the party right. Edamame republicans.™ Candidly, however, given the collapse of republican leadership, coupled with with zombie cancer, the destruction of the Minnesota GOP is almost complete.<br />
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More than 30 House members have endorsed Kurt Bills. His Senate supporters are said set to be announced this week. What are they thinking? With Bills at the head of the ticket in Minnesota, the majorities in both chambers are further imperiled. Then again, their endorsement is a joke: these are the same people who elected current legislative leadership. Could every incumbent republican please quit and we run different people?<br />
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A number of unfortunate events have come together to bring the MN GOP to its current sorry state. They have been amply detailed here, on other conservative and liberal blogs, in the national and international press. MC means to belabor nothing. It is worth noting, however, that the caucus system is a relic of the past and needs to be replaced by a primary. Activists have come together to support what Derek Brigham (@DerekBrigham on Twitter) has suggested: go to a primary, let the party apparat focus on what it does best, outsource the rest. In other words: follow the left model. There's never been a better moment to implement this idea.<br />
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The zombie cancer won't kill but the cure will be unpleasant. So be it.<br />
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On top of all this Andrew Breitbart is still dead.<br />
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There is no God. </div>
ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-56724369607981698992012-04-02T06:02:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.586-07:00The Collapse Of Republican Leadership<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUH46vYvc_PtoddddHBATqxzSYCy4ZGriZJdsoHiCf8ipOYIJqwinEjPboNshuuoIiXpqevKaKaCy4MpqW0Vq_OPPigYP6OHuZlOFFrvw2BHugeqXMp2ReO4mrtV_XJgy1TOZklTPwV4g/s1600/105929758.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUH46vYvc_PtoddddHBATqxzSYCy4ZGriZJdsoHiCf8ipOYIJqwinEjPboNshuuoIiXpqevKaKaCy4MpqW0Vq_OPPigYP6OHuZlOFFrvw2BHugeqXMp2ReO4mrtV_XJgy1TOZklTPwV4g/s400/105929758.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5726299736900483362" border="0" /></a>Was it Sen. Michelle Fischbach running from media in the halls of the Capitol? Was it the spinelessness of Sen. Senjem in refusing to vote out from the Rules Committee Right To Work? Was it the dithering of Gov. Zellers over a stadium bill? Was it the incompetence of the House & Senate in not having the same voter photo ID bill to pass? Was it Sen. Michel perjuring himself in the ethics committee hearing? Was it the failure of members in both chambers to condemn the death threats received by Rep. Mary Franson? Was it the criminal neglect of MN GOP Chairman Pat Shortridge to the hostile takeover of his party by Jew hating fringe Ron Paul zombies? Was it the shameful pandering to such morons by RNC committeewoman Pat Anderson--our Lucrezia Borgia--on Twitter under the fatuous "big tent" rubric?<br /><br />Was it the absence of Michael Brodkorb & Sen. Amy Koch?<br /><br />Yes to all of that and more. And the "it" to which all of these questions refer is the collapse of republican leadership. That collapse has been ongoing for some time. Now, however, what the base and the public has seen from the ersatz republican leadership has been nothing so much as an on going advert for their own electoral demise. Of course, with this group to point out the obvious is to be accused of causing what they themselves embody: failure.<br /><br />Consequently, republicans are left with a party in debt and with incompetent leadership (look for Shortridge on the side of a milk carton) pretending its death rattle endorsements have any real substance in the political real world. Worse, no suitable replacement is in the works to replace him. Word is that deputy-chair Kelly Fenton is thinking of running for chair in the next election. She should not.<br /><br />The House of Representatives is governed, if that's the word, by two men who would fail in the private sector. At least they have that in common with Obama. Neither Zellers nor Dean deserve reelection to leadership if, perchance, that body is held by the republicans this fall. MC is fairly certain, however, that the trained seals in the caucus will continue to applaud them on demand. Sometimes--who knew?--the fish doesn't rot from the head down.<br /><br />The Senate, apparently, is governed not at all. Free range senators.™ That body is a disgrace and an embarrassment. Unfocused, rudderless and venal, there is nothing to recommend it and MC is on its side!<br /><br />The antipathy between the House & the Senate is said to be difficult to overstate. Think of it as an incompetence duel. Friends of MC are quick to point out how, in hair raising detail, the Senate is worse than the House. Well yes but that's like choosing between the antebellum south and Al Sharpton. Must we?<br /><br />Minnesota republicans are left with the very legitimate argument that if voters give over both chambers in the legislature to the DFL we may as well turn out the lights in this state. MC believes that voters instinctively understand that argument.<br /><br />But everyone knows it's an argument of last resort. Having won a resounding, historic victory two years ago, the mediocre--even by Minnesota standards--leadership in the senate and house have let us down. Repeatedly and in public.<br /><br />Forgiveness is not an option.ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-17676786559449685422012-03-29T15:57:00.000-07:002012-10-11T21:57:21.570-07:00Byberg Buys Endorsements? Hennen Deceives?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3b4A4cUmlBmcB1hhoX4Y0KWjArTS8So42l1EEsLDYsN56mGzGotSG2Fhl0JasLhp8Q67xkzkLfHNzTK2FEqyXt85SFOzzhBV0-SYntiTY3hbmxVvt9_D49Ruc2VdRsA0dsCn1IVRNsMI/s1600/Hennen+One+.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 309px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3b4A4cUmlBmcB1hhoX4Y0KWjArTS8So42l1EEsLDYsN56mGzGotSG2Fhl0JasLhp8Q67xkzkLfHNzTK2FEqyXt85SFOzzhBV0-SYntiTY3hbmxVvt9_D49Ruc2VdRsA0dsCn1IVRNsMI/s400/Hennen+One+.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725457224987910354" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEONXeVKS7ZI8mkH3rkwC8-0tTS3zVfe6Qy_57y4KtBLgynm7CD87lzytt6iiKxjs11ITJ_BeGqbW0kSKRsrv2i-d2SNFmNL5KdAH-zn79E5ZP-Gt0NM9_V09ViFsPKH3cqtcwdYTT1oQ/s1600/Hennen+One++1.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 309px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEONXeVKS7ZI8mkH3rkwC8-0tTS3zVfe6Qy_57y4KtBLgynm7CD87lzytt6iiKxjs11ITJ_BeGqbW0kSKRsrv2i-d2SNFmNL5KdAH-zn79E5ZP-Gt0NM9_V09ViFsPKH3cqtcwdYTT1oQ/s400/Hennen+One++1.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725457118704165666" border="0" /></a>MC has explosive information concerning the hard fought contest for the republican endorsement in Minnesota's 7th Congressional District. Documents obtained by MC suggest that far from being neutral in this race, Scott Hennen has been paid over $35,000 by candidate Lee Byberg over the last two years. The top document shows the payments (click on the image to enlarge) while the bottom document contains the balance of an email Hennen sent claiming his heretofore neutrality in the race (click on the image to enlarge).<br /><br />MC will leave it to others to see if Byberg & Hennen are trying to pull a fast one and deceive the delegates in Minnesota's 7th. Others better placed than MC need to ask some tough questions, however.<br /><br />The payments put one in mind of that Elvis Costello lyric: "Money talks and it's persuasive."ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-76410718292508092012-03-09T10:55:00.000-08:002012-10-11T21:57:21.623-07:00Failing Mary Franson, Breitbart & Ourselves<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0m5KCwIdGnIJUp75d0iDKS4l4Dkm3tAx4P_SCTwKs-l0W0ylIB0UEn1CUFB6IwPHiWw87qhzCka1IeytusHctpcIsqSLfj6bXCKVkl6q_RUrTJ4E7a9HbHeMTevbAGysXmUdJiAZvlP0/s1600/Franson_Mary_300.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 386px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0m5KCwIdGnIJUp75d0iDKS4l4Dkm3tAx4P_SCTwKs-l0W0ylIB0UEn1CUFB6IwPHiWw87qhzCka1IeytusHctpcIsqSLfj6bXCKVkl6q_RUrTJ4E7a9HbHeMTevbAGysXmUdJiAZvlP0/s400/Franson_Mary_300.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717930095480992114" border="0" /></a>MC isn't usually as closely involved in stories it comments on as the recent faux outrage manufactured against Rep. Mary Franson (R-Alexandria) over comments on a video emphasizing how dependency on government largesse degrades the dignity of the human person. An imperfect analogy used in Franson's video allowed leftist hacks to claim she considered food stamp recipients to be animals. Only their pals in the media could take such a laughable claim seriously and run with it but run with it they did. Quelle surprise!<br /><br />MC was on Twitter (@Shabbosgoy) when this controversy broke out Friday last and did its best to refute the preposterous claim that Franson thinks of anyone as an animal. Panicky House staff pulled the video that night despite MC's admonitions that that would only feed the narrative that there was something substantively wrong with Franson's comments. Behold, the next day lefty blogger Sally Jo Sorenson had the video on her site (she's frightfully good but mostly because we give her so much easy material to knock out of the ballpark). Others had it too and the narrative turned into "here's what those mean republicans are hiding from you." Bad turned into worse and by our own actions. Care was apparently taken not to learn from this initial misstep. How else to explain what followed?<br /><br />Franson apologized that night on Twitter if anyone took offense but, of course, the sanctimoniousness of the radical left admits of giving <span style="font-style: italic;">no </span>ground and they refused to accept it. Why give up a good issue with cheap points to make when the other side didn't even put up a fight? Was anyone on our side starting to figure this out? Apparently not because, bereft of any policy that actually lessens dependency and poverty, the leftist assault continued on Franson. The slanted, smear of a story made its way to The Huffington Post, replete with "that video" we took down. Because we know what we're doing. Other stories in the week were going to eclipse it and the fallout would be "limited" to the blogosphere. Seriously? People in political communications think the blogosphere is limited? Subsequent events showed differently and rather conclusively. And to the detriment of a profoundly conservative and eminently defensible position.<br /><br />MC authored the written statement Franson released in connection with media attempts to interview her on the non-story and <span style="font-style: italic;">not </span>horrific emails threatening her and her female family members with rape and then death through explosive devices shoved into their vaginas and detonated simultaneously. Her statement was picked up by MC friend, ally & all round good guy Mitch Berg. <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.looktruenorth.com/60-culture/far-left-madness/18967-the-real-war-against-women.html">Click here to read. </a><br /><br />Franson gave an interview over the weekend to a newspaper blog and, amidst many solid and irrefutable points made, used the old adage about not getting a horse to drink the water to which it has been led. Cue a second wind of fake outrage on Twitter and elsewhere: animal analogies again. Yet the left was mostly steadfast in its refusal to condemn the shocking emails Franson received and local media was, initially, curiously uncurious about them. But the word slut from a talk radio show host? Right. To his credit, liberal tweeter John Shannon condemned them without qualification. (He's on Twitter @TheShannonFiles). He, alas, was mostly the exception. Carrie Lucking condemned them late in the week when it was largely impossible not to.<br /><br />Eventually, the Republican Party of Minnesota released what it called a press release around 8:30 in the evening on Super Tuesday. As one political reporter tweeted about it "Better late than . . ." Defensive, poorly written and clueless about how to reframe the narrative in a way that would have supported Franson's essential point, it would have been better to release nothing. It squandered a golden opportunity to fight back. Who knows? Perhaps that was the point?<br /><br />One leftist activist encouraged a protest at Rep. Franson's house, tomorrow, March 10th. Notably, the first commentator on that post was Sally Jo Sorenson who wisely said that it was a very bad idea. Yesterday, a clutch of the rent a mob on tap from A Better Minnesota showed up at the House of Representatives to harass and impede the function of government in general and Rep. Franson in particular. Two simpering dolts later showed up at her office looking like extra's from <span style="font-style: italic;">Portlandia</span> to deliver signatures! on! a! petition! demanding her resignation. At what point does smug self-satisfaction impede breathing? There must be a point.<br /><br />At any rate, the "why bother" press release from the RPM did nothing to change the structure of how the press covered this story. Why on earth could not a women only press conference have been held, led by Deputy Chair Kelly Fenton, to highlight the vicious, hateful nature of the left over a policy dispute and turn the narrative? Why not call for Governor Dayton, Lt. Gov. Prettner Salon, Carrie Lucking, Alida Messinger and other women on the left to condemn those emails? If the party had any money (fixable) and political spine (MC despairs), it would have organized a fly around the state by the press conference women and put the left on justified defense.<br /><br />But no.<br /><br />House leadership, mediocre to the point of not existing, failed to rally behind Franson (she's said not to be well liked in the caucus, which is precisely not the point. But it <span style="font-style: italic;">is </span>high school so MC assumes they act only in ways they know). They wanted the issue to go away but seemed blind to the need to fight back because the Soros funded Left in Minnesota was not about to let it go. One teacher's pet conservative activist contacted Franson twice at the behest of a female legislator to hector her into silence. Bad for donors, she was told. Really? Mary Franson is the problem with donors? They must have missed December, 2011. And what to make of a representative who doesn't have the courage to call Franson herself? She's running for a congressional seat but MC is confident she has the talent to place a call from the car in between scheduled events.<br /><br />The Senate was no better, of course. Yet why should that body come to the defense of a House member when the House itself is AWOL? Except for political savvy, competence and principles, of course.<br /><br />MC was contacted by Franson in the middle of the rent a mob protest and fashioned a response on her behalf. <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.looktruenorth.com/60-culture/far-left-madness/18971-not-for-turning.html">Click here to read it.</a> Mitch Berg nicely headlines the piece "not for turning." Well done. If readers don't get it, Google "the lady's not for turning."<br /><br />Conservative stalwart bloggers Andy Aplikowski and Gary Gross also addressed the issue(s). Andy's take is <a style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://www.residualforces.com/2012/03/07/nothing-to-see-here-dfls-violent-minions/">here</a> and <a style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);" href="http://www.residualforces.com/2012/03/08/nothing-to-see-here-dfl-fransons-a-hater/">here.</a> Gary has an excellent take on the thug who wants to harass Franson and her children in their home. <a style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://www.looktruenorth.com/60-culture/far-left-madness/18969-occupy-wall-street-protests-rep-franson-and-judd-hoff.html">Click here to read.</a><br /><br />MC understands full well that the House caucus (or Senate for that matter) have interests that will not always align with the base and activists. That's a given and understood by them. It's quite another thing to see those who fancy themselves leaders do nothing to save a member from being maligned, slandered and threatened with death over a policy position that is morally correct and in tune with the general public. Is there nothing worth fighting for in their world except their undistinguished house seat?<br /><br />Andrew Breitbart, of blessed memory, taught us to fight back against a leftist framed narrative if conservative ideas and policy were to have any chance of being advanced. Yet our elected conservative response in Minnesota concerning Mary Franson? Timidity. Fear. Fecklessness. Who needs A Better Minnesota when we have representatives who don't and won't fight back? The fear of attempting to reshape the narrative was perfectly encapsulated when a House staffer and good friend of MC's opined that such an attempt couldn't get past reporters who cover the capitol. This sells us, our ideas & policies, as well as those reporters, very short indeed. To use it as a rationale for impotence condemns us eternally to it. Breitbart taught us just the opposite lesson and many in conservative Minnesota politics are applying it. They just aren't elected officials and this, perhaps, is the most revealing point of this public relations debacle. It's time for leaders to follow. We'll be happy to guide them in the newly transformed political terrain that has shifted beneath their oblivious feet.<br /><br />Update:<br /><br />Late today Mary Franson issued the following press release in anticipation of a smear column set to be published tomorrow by a Star Tribune opinion writer:<br /><br />PRESS RELEASE<br /><br />I have learned that tomorrow yet another liberal reporter will attack me personally in his opinion column in the Star Tribune under the guise of the public's right to know about me. In fact, he's just a voice for the dependency lobby that has been attacking me for the last week. He<br />and they are threatened by my efforts to help the poor instead of binding them more tightly into their abject conditions. My personal shortcomings, of which, mercifully, the reporter has none, are now to be used to discredit my message of hope and dignity. For some reason, my vicious attackers don't seem to realize I'm not intimidated, even when I have been threatened with death.<br /><br />However, I wanted to state again what has been known publicly for some time.<br /><br />Approximately ten years ago I was charged with careless driving and again one year later. These were serious mistakes as everyone knows. I have never hidden this and, in fact, talked about it during my campaign for office in 2010. The Republican House caucus knows about it as well. In politics, these things are generally known about members from both sides of the aisle. In addition, I have had several moving violations. I have reformed my driving habits completely, which is all one can do after such mistakes.<br /><br />According to Alinsky tactics, supine media will highlight the target's shortcomings in order to suppress the message it fears. But that won't work anymore; those days vanished with the end of the liberal media monopoly.<br /><br />The reporter seems to think that personal responsibility means never making mistakes. In fact, it means precisely the opposite but I'm uncertain he can grasp that concept.<br /><br />At any rate, I wanted to speak first because I am not afraid. As always, my preeminent duty and loyalty are to my constituents. They have been overwhelming in their support of my anti-poverty efforts and for that I am deeply grateful.ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7219471646936659884.post-11091389516417267502012-03-02T00:03:00.000-08:002012-10-11T21:57:21.562-07:00After Breitbart (1969-2012)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL2o_3ZyaSKKXMHm_WEom8z8CDOtKNFiXxDNqEb_OkjGya03KlL71_iZ3bjSCfPicD4C30RanImgHpGTHyMdlWqATcDM01SstZqjc7AW9pvP-ZcbHEPILD1EMPRX4MRYZQ63Tfcqje4b0/s1600/IMG00519-20110616-1937.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL2o_3ZyaSKKXMHm_WEom8z8CDOtKNFiXxDNqEb_OkjGya03KlL71_iZ3bjSCfPicD4C30RanImgHpGTHyMdlWqATcDM01SstZqjc7AW9pvP-ZcbHEPILD1EMPRX4MRYZQ63Tfcqje4b0/s400/IMG00519-20110616-1937.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715207709900504562" border="0" /></a>MC got the news, fittingly enough, on Twitter, in real time. At first, the thought was that his "Big" sites had been hacked and the news was a hoax. It went downhill rapidly from that kind of wishful thinking. Soon enough, Andrew Breitbart was really and truly dead at the age of 43. Some checked his Twitter timeline as a sort of post-mortem. MC couldn't bring itself to do so. Stupefaction best described the response among so many familiar strangers on Twitter.<br /><br />Throughout the day, Breitbart's admirers and detractors took to Twitter: it was the only place to be. Late in the day, before going on Late Debate, it occurred to MC that we were sitting shiva for Breitbart on Twitter. One hopes the thought would have brought a smile to his very secular face.<br /><br />Today dawns cold amongst conservative activists, a long yet brief & full day after the news hit, thirty six hours after he apparently collapsed on a sidewalk near his home in Los Angeles. His last hours were stitched together through various haphazard accounts. They brought no comfort. In fact, the immediacy with which they were known seemed only to mock that he was permanently gone.<br /><br />Then came the Christopher Hitchens sort of reminiscences: the "I talked to him a really long time at a confab," the "he retweeted me and I knew he knew," and the "we got really drunk together and I can't quite recall the balance of the evening." These are all harmless, in their way, and signal not much more than admirers grieving the loss of their admired. And no one on the right did not admire Andrew Breitbart; such was the depth of his accomplishments.<br /><br />Not so, of course, those on the left. An open sewer or Twitter? Yesterday it depended on who was doing the tweeting. A discouragingly high percentage of "names" on the left did themselves no favor in what they wrote in the haste of survival and anger. Some deleted their egregious tweets but everything is forever online. Media Matters for America and Eric Boehlert had welcome notes of condolence. Some excused their vitriol by pointing to Breitbart's excesses which, at times, he surely did have. It's an odd logic, though, to seek to exculpate one's odious behavior by referencing behavior of the dead they condemn. This elemental point seemed lost on too many.<br /><br />Much stock taking ensued yesterday and this was only a normal reaction after the shock wore off to some degree; to some degree the shock never will. But MC couldn't help but be struck by a certain bravado, a note of resolve that seemed to mask deep despair over the loss of a singular and inspiring leader who sought to slay the rancid media on its own terms and largely did. The fundamental hypocrisy of the left and its captive institutions was never so exposed and ridiculed before the advent of Andrew Breitbart. Rush can yammer to the choir; Coulter sell books to the convinced; Hannity drone to those who apparently don't know better. None of them could touch Breitbart because he lived the fight, took the bullets.<br /><br />Consequently the hash tag that developed late in the day #IAmBreitbart served only to underscore the depth of the loss. Yes, yes, it was a means to buck up and by all means do so. Can anyone who admired Breitbart think of giving up now in this crucial election year? Not at all.<br /><br />But let's not take false comfort from a false sense of ourselves. We've lost a crucial player and nothing will ever be the same again. Only Andrew could say: I am Breitbart. Let him have it. He earned it. He may have even paid with his life for it.<br /><br />Breitbart was adopted, which is another way of saying his mother did not kill him in her womb. The defenders of abortion can elide all they like but death is what they proffer and it was death Mother Breitbart turned away from. Dead at 43, Andrew Breitbart's natural mother may well be living. Let us pause in our mourning of him to honor her. Then return to the field of political battle in both their names.ambrosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15807756183250037993noreply@blogger.com