True North

Gallup conducted a weekend poll separately from its daily tracking survey, in partnership with USA Today, and discovered a huge convention bounce for John McCain.  As the cheers subsided from McCain’s exhortation to “Stand up!” and “Fight!”, Gallup discovered he had taken a four-point lead among registered voters, and a double-digit lead among likely voters:

The Republican National Convention has given John McCain and his party a significant boost, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken over the weekend shows, as running mate Sarah Palin helps close an “enthusiasm gap” that has dogged the GOP all year.

The NY Times is reporting that MSDNC has picked David Gregory to "anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night." Big deal:

After months of accusations of political bias and simmering animosity between MSNBC and its parent network NBC, the channel decided over the weekend that the NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host David Gregory would anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night. Mr. Olbermann and Mr. Matthews will remain as analysts during the coverage.

Instead of there being two hotheaded egotistical liberals on stage, they'll now have three. I don't think that's the definition of reform to most people. I guess that's MSDNC's definition. Perhaps that's why they're in the situation they're in.

MSNBC drops Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from anchor chair... David Gregory will anchor news coverage of the coming debates and election night.... Developing...

My friend Onie just sent me this video made by Joe Cook supporting John McCain. The message on the YouTube is simple: An Iraq Veteran Has A Personal Message For Barack Obama. Joe's message in the video is also simple, touching, and powerful—walk on for freedom and never quit.

Before providing a detailed response to Conrad deFiebre and Minnesota 2020’s critique of a column I wrote for the Pioneer Press differentiating the economic concept of “public good” versus “private benefit,” a general observation.

When you read Mr. deFiebre’s commentary, which I fisk below, notice the deep anti-intellectual tone of his argument. He laments my “philosophical fantasy,” sarcastically dismisses “Deep Thoughts” and derides “cogitation.” Doing so, deFiebre makes my point from the column. He isn’t saying I misinterpreted the difference between public good and private benefit – a centuries old economic concept familiar to anyone who’s ever taken freshman economics. No, without any economic justification, he’s dismissing the concept as non-existent or irrelevant and certainly not worthy of consideration by policymakers when spending billions of tax dollars.

Apparently, I am suffering from a delusion that “think tanks” like Minnesota 2020 and The Minnesota Free Market Institute are suppose to think, to apply accepted economic thought to current policy and provide insight in to how policymakers might approach issues. I erroneously assume that a think tank should think, not simply opine. Mr. deFiebre’s piece would open whole new vistas of discourse by freeing debate from the constraints reality.

Let the fisking begin.

One more perspective on Sarah Palin: that of former Israeli Air Force fighter pilot and current Los Angeles-based director Elan Frank (with Governor Palin in the photo). Frank shadowed Palin for three days earlier this year for a documentary he is making about extraordinary women around the world. I believe he is referring to the flag he found on Palin's wall in the governor's office when he says: "I saw something amazing there." YNet News reports:

This Week on ABC is featuring an interview with Barack Obama.

When asked by George Stephanopoulos about tax cuts and the economy, Senator Obama spoke to the differences in the economic theories of his strategy versus Senator McCain’s.

Obama’s plan, tax cuts to the middle class is a bad idea, and an ill-advised one based on the notion that the economy somehow grows from the bottom up, which is in fact how Obama himself described his plan.

[Saturday] on our NARN show, Mitch Berg and I interviewed Doug, a volunteer driver who worked for the Republican National Convention Committee in St. Paul.  His customers included the Washington Post, MS-NBC, and some of the McCain campaign.  According to Doug, this allowed him to peer behind the scenes in both media and politics, and he saw some very interesting things: > Listen

• According to Doug, MS-NBC apparently took no chances on questions from the crowd.  Rather than get caught with a question that might make Republicans look good, their producer pre-screened questioners, and Chris Matthews pretended it was random.

A couple of our loyal commenters accused law enforcement of “overreaching” during the pre-RNC house raids that uncovered various and sundry household items; asserting that the items uncovered could be used for anything.

Does Freedom of Assembly Include the Right to Carry a Bucket of Urine?

And Now She’s A Weapons Expert

The convention is over, but we who live in the Twin Cities are not through the ordeal just yet.

Prepare yourselves, my friends, for the onslaught of mind numbingly idiotic statements, excuses, threats of lawsuits and actual law suits as the children of unfit parents gather now to stamp their little feet in infantile outrage at having been spanked for their attempts to show mom and dad who is boss.

Oh, it’s started already. Yesterday, the group that decided to unilaterally change the terms of the march permit they were issued released a statement that exposes the delusions they have been operating under.

Why answer questions when you can whine, whine, whine. I've been at the Republican Convention so I missed a lot of the whining going on by the Obama crew. Listen, people, it's time to grow up.

You are no longer the perfect, baby boomer kids who had most everything handed to you. Your careers and kids are not perfect. You are now experiencing something called "life" and life has its ups and downs. You're experiencing downs, now, Your messianic candidate can't talk without a teleprompter, can't think on his feet, and your lapdog media pundits are reeling. Why? Far too many of you, though innately gifted with gray matter, were coddled for so many years, and rarely experienced losing anything. Now, you don't know how to think in a tough situation. The world is not your oyster. And, hello, you are not perfect nor is your candidate.

I just wanted to say that I like your site and especially your coverage on the RNC here locally. I'm sure that you have heard of more than a few of the Sarah Palin rumors. There is a site that is keeping a record of the lies...here is the link.

http://explorations.chasrmartin.com/2008/09/06/palin-rumors/

Mark Olson's supporters stuck their hand inside the proverbial bee's nest when they wrote LTES saying that Olson hadn't been convicted of a crime. Not only did they make those assertions but, as I chronicled here, they threatened Alison Krueger, then attempted to intimidate her.

One of the unintended consequences of those actions was that it caused Alison Krueger to establish a website. This post displays the documentation that Mark Douglas Olson was convicted of a crime. (Click on the link at the top of the page to read the pdf file for maximum clarity of the document.)

This website corroborates the information that I've received on Olson's ethical dilemmas. In fact, it contains information that I hadn't seen before. I can't say that I'm surprised, though. At this point, I'm certain that Mark Olson is a thoroughly unethical man who shouldn't be entrusted with any elected office.

Democrats brought out tens of thousands of American flags to Invesco Field, saluting Barack Obama as he spoke from the Styrofoam columns of the Barackopolis at the conclusion of the Democratic convention.  Perhaps some of them took the flags home as souvenirs, but where did the rest go?  According to David Harsanyi, they went into the trash — and would have gone to a landfill, except for a worker at Invesco who rescued them from the dumpsters:

This morning, Republicans tell me that a worker at Invesco Field in Denver saved thousands of unused flags from the Democratic National Convention that were headed for the garbage. Guerrilla campaigning. They will use these flags at their own event today in Colorado Springs with John McCain and Sarah Palin.

It's been awhile since last we checked on Mr. Tinklenberg's campaign. Friday, Tinklenberg's blogger Tanner Curl posted about Mr. Tinklenberg's posting on "the dishonest tactics of Rep. Michele Bachmann." According to Mr. Curl's post, here's what Mr. Tinklenberg wrote:

When he announced Monday's pared-down convention schedule in St. Paul, John McCain urged RNC attendees to suspend party politics and "act as Americans, not Republicans" in light of Hurricane Gustav. It seems his plea was heard by most everyone there except Minnesota's own Rep. Michele Bachmann.

I've been scanning the interwebs on police actions this past week from the radical protesters, anarkids, and sympathetic politicians who support them. Mostly the media has displayed them in full riot gear, batons ready, deploying pepper spray, and arresting. I took some photos of police before the anarkids came dancing down 7th by the Xcel on Labor Day. See how vicious they look when they're with law-abiding citizens...

Norm Coleman has a humorous attack ad rolling out today, apparently only on video, in his battle against Al Franken. Called “Once in a Generation”, Coleman underscores the less-than-exemplary manners of his opponent through video clips and concludes that a foul-mouthed tax incompetent doesn’t fit for Minnesota:

The new issue of the Weekly Standard carries an editorial and related articles on Governor Palin. In the editorial, Bill Kristol thanks the media for their frenzied assault on Governor Palin. Steve Hayes reports on how McCain found the right wingman.

Noemie Emery explains the importance of honor in McCain's world view and suggests that McCain, Joe Lieberman and Sarah Palin "see public life as a great western movie." Emery identifies the movie as "High Noon" (thus the cover above). I say the movie is "True Grit." Finally, In the most speculative of the articles on Palin, Jeffrey Bell meditates on why the left hates her.

Cross-posted at Power Line.

While some "Bible-believers" may disagree on Theology, but they don't deride them. This is what these AP Reporters don't get. When you don't have a evangelical or even a Judeo-Christian worldview, it's extremely hard to understand the theological differences and the different style of worship that happens in a Pentecostal church. They express their worship outwardly. Maybe I can help them understand. That furrow that Chris Matthews feels for Barack Obama, that's close to how Pentecostals feel about their triune God, the Father, Son (that's Jesus) and Holy Spirit. When they feel the Holy Spirit move, it is expressed through verbal worship.

Yesterday, I criticized Mark Olson for his hypocrisy and for his criminal behavior. I criticized him for breaking his promise. As much as I loathe him for those things, I can't put all the blame on him for his getting endorsed. Far from it, actually. What I'm about to do is lay out an indictment against the delegates that voted to endorse him at the SD-16 endorsing convention for this November's special election.

Those delegates, 90-something of them, that voted for him should be ashamed of themselves. They ignored Olson's broken promises and his criminal history. I suspect that they did this under the guise of 'he votes right on the issues'. While that's important in endorsing a candidate, it's far from the only consideration.

Another explanation is that they're simply Olson cronies. It isn't a stretch to think that, especially considering the fact that they've leveled threats against his opponent, Alison Krueger. They've spread rumors about her while arguing in print that Mark Olson wasn't a criminal.

The nomination of Sarah Palin as Sen. John McCain's Vice Presidential nominee has set the cause of feminism back 100 years.

You read right. The feminists are so flummoxed and perplexed that a conservative woman is stealing their thunder, that they've resorted to denying their feminist doctrine! Take Whoopi Goldberg, for instance:

I was reading a magazine listing homes for sale two weeks ago, and it seemed like every page had the same words: Price Reduced. It seemed a good time to buy, at least until I realized I would have to sell the house I am in, too.

One major reason is there are many more homes on the market. The mortgage market faces about 2 million foreclosures, or about 4 percent of mortgages. Locally, more than 500 homes were sold by sheriff’s auction last year in Stearns and Sherburne counties.

More houses in the market push down prices for everyone. In every transaction, there are winners and losers, and though markets have been tampered with and prices are going down, Steve Mooney, professor of real estate and finance at St. Cloud State University, said the winners include rental-property owners and first-time home buyers.

Mark Olson's ethical dilemma won't go away anytime soon. Earlier this week, the delegates to the SD-16 endorsing convention met at the Capitol in St. Paul to decry the perceived elitism shown by the Senate GOP Caucus, led by GOP Leader David Senjem.

Immediately after the special SD-16 endorsing convention, Leader Senjem announced that they wouldn't financially support Mr. Olson. At the time, I was one of the bloggers that applauded Leader Senjem's decision. I still applaud his decision.

I wasn't able to attend the news conference but I was able to get a copy of Alison Krueger's speech outlining the injustices brought against her. Here's the text of Mrs. Krueger's speech:

Doubling the child tax exemption from $3500 to $7000 will improve the lives of millions of American families.