Charlie Shaw's post says that Gov. Pawlenty's veto of major sections of the the bonding bill, aka the DFL's annual stimulus bill, aka the debt bill, is an act of retaliation:
Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Monday used his line-item veto authority to decimate the bonding bill, in some cases hewing entire sections from the bill.
Pawlenty focused his vetoes on projects in districts represented by Democrats or Republicans that voted for the bill. Transit and state parks and trails were were cut in their entirety from the $1 billion bill that passed the state Legislature.
How does trimming an irresponsible bill down to size equate into decimating the DFL's annual stimulus bill? More importantly, I'm curious on how many of the projects that Gov. Pawlenty vetoed would've built things that wouldn't have helped their cities' long-term economic health.
This post is a collection of thoughts related to the US military. Many of you know that we have a son in the US Army. Currently, he is deployed to in Iraq. He's been in the states on R & R for the past two weeks - Sunday he started his return to Iraq.
We had a wonderful visit, family, friends, and good times.
But, in today's environment, many people don't know anyone in the military. Soldiers have become an anomaly, one that we cannot afford. For all the negative press, the Hollywood anti-military mindset, our military is still our source of freedom, Freedom does not exist in nations/countries/tribes where thugs/oligarchs/despots rule via a secret police/military/special forces [Iran, China, Russia, Rawanda, Venezuela, etc.]. We Americans are fortunate to have had and continue to have a nation with a military that is controlled by a civilian [the president] and a Congress that must decide when to use our forces to intervene somewhere. Our soldiers are the best trained and most responsible ever seen on the planet. As a result we have freedoms that many can only dream of.
Congressman Jim Oberstar of Minnesota has said that he will not vote for the health care bill if it lacks the Stupak amendment: "I will not vote for a health care bill that doesn't have the House abortion language in it," Oberstar told Congressional Quarterly on February 24.
Think of it as a good news/bad news update from Rasmussen today. The good news? ObamaCare still has double-digit opposition among likely voters in their latest survey. However, those numbers have shrunk a bit over the last month:
Democrats in Congress are vowing to pass their national health care plan with a vote in the House possible by the end of this week. But most voters still oppose the plan the same way they have for months.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 43% favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats, while 53% oppose it. Those findings include 23% who Strongly Favor the plan and 46% who Strongly Oppose it.
If you can’t buy a bucket, you have no business in the NCAA Basketball Tournament. I blogged here about how the NFL is corrupting itself with perverse “equalizers” like the Rooney Rule. I wrote here and here about Congressional plans to force college football to switch from the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system to a playoff system.
Although Big East Commissioner John Marinatto is getting chatty court-side with former president Bill Clinton and ESPN did an extensive story and video stepping us through President Obama’s bracket, the NCAA doesn’t need politicians to break its players’ ankles and short-sell its fans – it’s doing it on its own.
Early on in the Bush administration, the enemy combatants detained by the United States at Guantanamo Bay became a cause of the left. In particular, they became a cause of the American bar, which is itself a subset of the institutional left. From the American Bar Association, to the elite law firms, to the American Civil Liberties Union, to the Center for Constitutional Rights and the National Lawyers Guild and others, the advancement of the rights of Islamist terrorists became a celebrated cause.
I saw the phenomenon with my own eyes when I spoke on a panel with Lynne Stewart at the 2003 national convention of the National Lawyers Guild in Minneapolis. I wrote about the experience at the time in "Face to face with Lynne Stewart."
Marty Seifert must be feeling the heat for supporting the Next Generation Energy Act. That's the only explanation for his introducing a bill that would roll back requirements mandated by SF4, which created a Renewable Energy Standard:
A Republican candidate for Minnesota governor is attempting to roll back a requirement that a quarter of the state's power come from renewable sources by 2025.
Rep. Marty Seifert of Marshall brings his bill to a House committee on Monday. It would erase the requirement approved two years ago, which he and a large legislative majority voted to put in place.
Seifert's bill would replace the gradually increasing energy standard with a "good faith" goal. When they approved the requirement, lawmakers and Gov. Tim Pawlenty said it would reduce reliance on dirtier power sources and drive up demand for homegrown electricity.
Once again, Jim Geraghty proves that his posts are must-reading for conservative activists with this post. Yesterday, Obama administration uber-flacks David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs insisted that they'd love running on the health care issue. Geraghty's post highlights the fact that Virginia's Democrats aren't quite as enthusiastic as Mssrs. Axelrod and Gibbs:
That's funny, neither of my senators, Democrats Jim Webb and Mark Warner, have anything about the health care bill on their Senate homepages.They talk about jobs, the military, crime, Haiti earthquake rescue teams - just about everything but the health care bill. And neither of these guys is up for reelection this year.
Let's take a look at the congressmen here in Virginia who are likely to face tough races this fall: Gerry Connolly of Fairfax County? Nope, nothing on the home page of his House site. Rick Boucher, of the state's western corner? Nope, nothing on his House site's main page. Glenn Nye of Virginia Beach? Nope, nothing on his front page, either.
Somehow, I think people will miss this man more than the one featured in the “Miss Me Yet?” billboard that appeared outside the Twin Cities in Minnesota last month. Another anonymous advertisement has appeared on the roadside of a major interstate freeway in the outer-ring suburbs of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolis area, on I-94 just outside of Albertville on the way from St. Cloud to Minneapolis. This ad recalls a President that never got his due in Minnesota:
One of the most interesting things of the SD 26 special election in January was seeing the process from the inside, from the delegates to the candidates to the endorsement, the debates and finally the actual election. One of the most disappointing things was the level of vitriol expended by the other side, from a smear campaign by local bloggers to an attack mailer that arrived the day before the election. While I couldn't do much about the smear attempt, I decided that I couldn't let a clear violation of the law about false campaign material go without a response.
Next month, the Office of Administrative Hearings will hear the case of David Thul vs the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Laborer Party. After reviewing my complaint, the OAH 'determined that it set forth a prima facie violation of Minn Stat 211B.06". I had to grab a dictionary to make sure I understood the Latin correctly. The 5 page explanation of the decision of the law judge on my complaint set my head spinning, and the number of words and phrases I had to look up on Law.com was very intimidating. I have to assume that the DFL will send a lawyer or two, so it will be interesting to see if a non-lawyer can compete.
This WSJ article does a stellar job of debunking the Obama administration's myths about what the Democrats' health care legislation will do. Here's a great example:
Insurance premiums will fall. Dan Pfeiffer, Mr. Obama's communications director, took to the White House blog to claim that the plan "will make insurance more affordable by providing the largest middle class tax cut for health care." So subsidies are really tax cuts?
Insurance subsidies are transfer payments in which government takes money out of the private economy and gives it to someone else. Subsidies thus put an even larger share of health-care spending in government hands. When you subsidize something, you get more of it, which means higher demand for insurance and health-care services. Combine this with new mandates that have raised costs in every state where they have been tried, and you will get higher premiums.
The Obama administration is asking the American people to suspend their understanding of Supply and Demand 101. They're asking the American people that greater demand and flat or declining supplies will lower costs.
According to Dick Durbin (D-IL) and sloppy research from Harvard Medical School, 70 people die every day for lack of health insurance. Accordiing to Wolfram Alpha, 6862 people die, from all causes, every day in the Unites States. Megan McArdle, writing in the Atlantic magazine, asks the logical question: why does HAVING health insurance cause 99% of the deaths in this country? Shouldn't any efforts for universal coverage be put on hold until an investigation is launched into this number one killer? Perhaps that's a misinterpretation of reality, but no more so than Durbin's and Democrats' outrageous claim that having health insurance (or at least government-run insurance) makes you immortal. Of course, logic has never held a seat in Congress. We know what sits in Congressional seats.
After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.
Saturday was a great day to be a conservative! Some 4000 of us showed up on a cold and dreary day to send a message to our elected officials in Washington DC. The message was simple: Kill the bill!
Congressman John Kline and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann were terrific. All 8 MN members of Congress were invited. Representative Erik Paulsen had a prior commitment and sent a letter that can be summed up with three words: kill the bill. Governor Tim Pawlenty sent a similar letter with a similar message: Kill the bill!
Considering the rally was held in Congressional District 4 it is strange indeed that Betty McCollum did not show up. Scared Betty?
When the NARN began the first-ever blogger radio show six years ago, Mitch Berg organized regular social events for bloggers in the Twin Cities, which we call the MOB — the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers. The events are open to bloggers of any stripe, or blog readers, without any restrictions on politics. It’s a social event where political talk is more or less discouraged in favor of fellowship, and it gives us a camaraderie in the local blogosphere that I believe is rather unique.
[Saturday] night, we held our first night out in 2010, and this time I brought the camera to Ol’ Mexico in Roseville, which turned out to be a great venue for the event. I’ve uploaded the images to a new Flickr account and have a few in this slideshow. Hope you enjoy!
Top White House adviser David Axelrod says that if Congress passes the Democrats' national health care bill, it will be politically impossible for Republicans to undo the changes brought by the massive legislation. "I say, Let's have that fight. Make my day," Axelrod said on "Meet the Press." "I'm ready to have that, and every member of Congress ought to be willing to have that debate was well."
Axelrod made the point as he put forward the now-common argument that House Democrats who have already voted for the health care bill once should do so again because they will be attacked by Republican opponents this fall whatever they do.
A couple days ago, I talked with a couple friends of my friends about the Democrats' health care legislation in the context of whether Democratic candidates would distance themselves from the subject. This article in The Hill Magazine not only tells me the answer is yes. It tells me that the answer is an emphatic yes:
Hardly any Democrat running for Congress seems to want to talk about healthcare.
Of the 26 leading Democratic House candidates contacted by The Hill, only one would commit to voting for the Senate healthcare bill if and when it comes to the House floor. Out of the more than two dozen Democratic challengers and open-seat House candidates, only 10 commented for this story. Eight outright declined to comment.
Eight more didn't respond to several days' worth of requests via phone and e-mail.
TRANSLATION: Democratic candidates are treating the subject like it's radioactive waste. They want nothing to do with it.
Yesterday I spoke at the Kill the Bill Rally staged by Minnesota Majority at the state capital. The event drew thousands of people, which makes them about 100 times more newsworthy than the “coffee party” gatherings that drew tens of people … three tens of people in St. Louis, for instance, which garnered CNN’s attention. I didn’t see CNN at our little get-together, but perhaps the cold weather and bitter wind deterred them from covering our grassroots event. It didn’t deter thousands of Minnesotans from joining our call to kill the ObamaCare bill and start over from scratch on reforming the cost structure of American health care.
Sue Jeffers gives me a kind introduction; although we appear on competing stations in the Twin Cities, her station and AM 1280 The Patriot were happy to collaborate on this important issue. The intro lasts about two minutes, and the rest of the video is my speech. My friend David Strom used my Flip HD camera to shoot the video. Later, I’ll have videos of John Kline and Michele Bachman:
Rep. John Kline, the Republican Congressman who represents my district, gave the opening speech at the Kill the Bill Rally yesterday on the state capital mall. Kline, a former colonel in the Marine Corps, doesn’t mince words or waste a lot of time in this address. Each speaker got seven minutes (with the exception of Rep. Michele Bachmann’s keynote speech), but no one would have begrudged Kline the opportunity to speak at length. Instead, Kline gave a disciplined and relatively brief speech, outlining the outrages contained in the ObamaCare bill.
The United States has condemned Israel for announcing the approval of housing construction for Jews in Jerusalem while Vice President Biden was visiting. That's strong language and a striking development.
The Obama administration has also publicly announced the lengthy scolding of Prime Minister Netanyahu by Secretary Clinton in the past day. President Obama is reportedly "livid" with Israel. Secretary Clinton wanted it known that she had dressed down Netanyahu, saying Israel had harmed "the bilateral relationship," according to her State Department spokesman. The Wall Street Journal characterized the conversation as "a blistering rebuke."
Has the Obama administration gotten around to condemning the destructive or threatening actions of an American enemy? Jack Kelly notes the Obama administration's distinction as an unreliable ally and an unfaithful friend.
Approximately 4000 people attended the Kill The Bill Rally at the Minnesota State Capitol today, braving temps in the 40s to demonstrate their opposition to ObamaCare. Check-out Ed Morrisey's post on the rally on Hot Air. Here is a slide show of photos from the rally.
Give the Star Tribune credit; they actually report that “thousands” attended a rally in freezing weather today to demand an end to the ObamaCare effort. Minnesota Majority staged the rally on the state capital mall to hear Reps. John Kline and Michele Bachmann speak to the gathered opponents of the overhaul of the health-care system, as well as several other speakers — including me. The Strib did better than the Associated Press, which went with “at least hundreds” instead:
The message that echoed across the State Capitol grounds Saturday couldn’t have been simpler: “Kill the bill!”
A day after congressional Democratic leaders announced their final legislative push to enact a bill to overhaul the nation’s health care system, opponents rallied to send a noisy contrary message. Rally organizers said 4,000 people attended, but Capitol police estimated the crowd at 2,000 or less.
Representatives Michele Bachmann and John Kline were the keynote speakers at a rally held today at the Minnesota State Capitol protesting Democrats’ plan to force the health ‘reform’ bill through Congress in a matter of days using the so-called ‘nuclear option.’ The trick, technically called budget reconciliation, would enable the Senate to pass a House-amended version of its own already-approved health care bill, bypassing debate and thus staving off any filibuster.
Senator Byrd has said, “Using reconciliation to ram through complicated, far-reaching legislation is an abuse of the budget process. The writers of the Budget Act, and I am one, never intended for its reconciliation’s expedited procedures to be used this way. These procedures were narrowly tailored for deficit reduction. They were never intended to be used to pass tax cuts, or to create new Federal regimes.”
President Obama and Speaker Pelosi got some sober advice from two old pro Democratic pollsters in Friday morning's Washington Post. Here's the advice the White House and House Democrats should pay most of their attention to:
First, the battle for public opinion has been lost. Comprehensive health care has been lost. If it fails, as appears possible, Democrats will face the brunt of the electorate's reaction. If it passes, however, Democrats will face a far greater calamitous reaction at the polls. Wishing, praying or pretending will not change these outcomes.
Nothing has been more disconcerting than to watch Democratic politicians and their media supporters deceive themselves into believing that the public favors the Democrats' current health-care plan. Yes, most Americans believe, as we do, that real health-care reform is needed. And yes, certain proposals in the plan are supported by the public.
Last week, the county board voted 4-3 to lay over (and possibly kill) a request by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office for federal funding of a “Kingfish” cell phone tracking device. It was the second time the board has postponed a vote on this request, likely making it difficult for the Sheriff’s Office to meet the deadlines for our local congressional representatives.
The Kingfish, as I understand it, is not capable of listening to cell phone conversations, but can track the location of a cell phone that is on but not being used. This device has been used by other law enforcement agencies around the country to track missing or abducted children who are carrying a cell phone or who are with someone who is carrying a cell phone. I am told that a court order is required before the Kingfish can be used to track a cell phone in any particular case.
I have long argued that the people of Minnesota are the most easily duped voters in the nation. Any minor celebrity can get elected to the highest office. Saturday Night Live's minor contributor Al Franken is currently Senator. NFL Hall of Famer Alan Page sits on the state's Supreme Court. Pro wrestler Jesse Ventura was Governor.
If there is one state that rivals Minnesota in bad selection it is New York. The people of New York have a habit of letting carpetbaggers with Presidential aspirations walz into their state and use their Senate seat as a launching pad for their national campaign. Hillary Clinton and Robert Kennedy are examples.
Now New Yorkers can now be embarrassed that they elected Eric Massa to Congress. Suddenly Democratic leadership has determined his behavior isn't fit for someone in congress. No one cared about his behavior until he dared cross his party leadership on health care reform, but once he did, we found out about his sexual advances to young male staffers:
The problem with gun control – one of the reasons that it’s finally stiffing with the American people – is that it burdens the law-abiding citizen for the crimes of society’s low-lifes. It’s one of the reasons America is rejecting gun control; Real Americans can’t abiding punishing those who’ve done no wrong.
Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.
Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill are proposing a new national biometric ID card that would be required of all U.S. workers. WSJ’s Laura Meckler explains the proposal and the objections from privacy advocates.Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.
If you’re interested in comparing the voting records of the two front runners for the GOP endorsement for Governor, Tom Emmer, and Marty Seifert, you owe it to yourself to do much more than just look at the Tax Payer League scorecards. While the Tax Payer League is a notable lobbying group, it’s positions on issues may or may not represent your positions, no matter how fiscally conservative you might be. It’s perfectly reasonable to differ from the Tax Payer League on a vote here or there and still claim the mantle of fiscal conservative. Neither Marty Seifert nor Tom Emmer have scored 100% over their career. If you’re really interested in voting records, rather than just reading claims of higher scores, it would serve you well to look deeper at the issues and circumstances of each vote.
In case you're inclined to relax in expressing your opposition to the nationalization of health care, pay heed to the words of Bart Stupak, via Robert Costa's report:
Sitting in an airport, on his way home to Michigan, Rep. Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat, is chagrined. "They're ignoring me," he says, in a phone interview with National Review Online. "That's their strategy now. The House Democratic leaders think they have the votes to pass the Senate's health-care bill without us. At this point, there is no doubt that they've been able to peel off one or two of my twelve. And even if they don't have the votes, it's been made clear to us that they won't insert our language on the abortion issue."
Blah, blah, blah. Stop talking about health care for 15 seconds. You have until at least March 18th to analyze Speaker Nancy Pelosi and streakerciser Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel bludgeon Congress to vote for Obamacare.
Let’s talk about the stories of legal manipulation and scandal that this administration is happy you aren’t paying attention to while you’re focused on jobs and health care.
Given the centrality of abortion to the ObamaCare debate, the latest news from Gallup should have Democrats concerned about the future of their party. They spent the last few months attempting to push through Congress a mechanism that would provide federal funding of abortions, which has stalled the bill in the House and threatens to kill ObamaCare. As Democrats attempt this, the youth vote that they so assiduously courted in 2008 has grown more anti-abortion:
“It is wholly possible to create law and qualify law before the law is on the books,” [link]
They can't even give it an up or down your throats vote. They do actually consider citizens the enemy of their radical agenda.
The Chicago mobsters are starting to blush a little with the ways the Democrats have to pass this. Anyone who votes for this is voting against the very foundation of this country.
There is a Rally tomorrow at the Minnesota Capital in opposition to ObamaCare. If you can, show up and let the Democrats and media know just how wrong this entire administration and Congress is.
The local media has a history of portraying each and every Democrat in office as mainstream. Sure, some are probably fairly open minded on the issues, but most have been stridently liberal. One of the biggest travesties in Minnesota reporting would have to be the silence of Al Franken's radical views. He somehow managed to slip through the election as a moderate.
You can take the foaming at the mouth liberal screamer out of the radio booth, but you can't take the liberal out of the screamer.
I think I've seen, heard, and read enough to where I now have a preference for the GOP endorsement for Governor. It's a slight preference in that I won't be at all disappointed with either front-runner. But my preference is for Tom Emmer.
Mostly, I think it's that Emmer dreams bigger dreams than does his very worthy rival Marty Seifert. And I think Emmer will be more determined to pursue those dreams, like taking on Minnesota's bloated array of over-reaching and often duplicated services. Seifert could expertly manage to drop our national tax burden ranking a few positions, but it will likely be a complicated solution that will unwind without annual attention. Emmer seems ready to make simpler, more structural changes, the kind that last.
There are a lot of measures when looking at candidates, especially when we consider that in the gubernatorial race on the Republican side that we have 2 strong conservatives fighting for every possible delegate vote. Below are the endorsements listed to date for the candidates for the Republican governor’s race. I thought I’d apply the lifetime Taxpayers League ratings of these endorsers of each candidate and see how they stack up.
Thankfully, the Taxpayers League has been doing the hard work of their annual Legislative Scorecard for years rating all legislators each session based on the votes they consider the most important to you the taxpayer. Below is the simple math for the 2 candidates (including their scores) and their endorsers lifetime TLM 2009 ratings.
The Taxpayers League is looking for its next director of development! If you truly believe in limited government and have expertise in non-profit fundraising, this opportunity may be for you!
Necessary Qualifications:
* 3-5 years experience in major donor fundraising
* Background/knowledge of Minnesota state government
Joe Bodell at MN “Progressive” Project, in the tradition of those great Americans Frank Burns and Dwight Schrute, wants to know; “
If you can’t buy a bucket, you have no business in the NCAA Basketball Tournament. I blogged 
Blah, blah, blah. Stop talking about health care for 15 seconds. You have until at least 
