February 23-25, 2007
Feb 23 03:41 Senate Slow Bleed Trial Balloon? Feb 23 04:28 Defending the Indefensible Feb 23 14:59 Biggest Foreign Policy Disaster In US History? Feb 23 19:29 Doing the Nerdy Thing Feb 24 00:10 Dems Ignoring Constitution Feb 25 02:58 Mark Shields: Nutty As Ever Feb 25 10:38 McConnell to Reid: Make My Day Feb 25 17:08 I'm Thankful Dumb Bills Won't Pass
Prior Months: Jan
Prior Years: 2006
Senate Slow Bleed Trial Balloon?
Based on this AP article, it looks like Senate Democrats are floating their own 'slow bleed' trial balloon. Here's the details of their trial balloon:
While these officials said the precise wording of the measure remains unsettled, one draft would restrict American troops in Iraq to combating al-Qaida, training Iraqi army and police forces, maintaining Iraq's territorial integrity and otherwise proceeding with the withdrawal of combat forces.I suspect that this is the Senate following through on Carl Levin's statement that they were going to modify the AUMF that was passed in October, 2002. The good news for Democrats is that this option is constitutionally solid. The bad news is that they've got to get it past a Republican filibuster. If they do that, then they've got to get the House to approve it in a vote. If they pass those hurdles, then they've got to hope that the President doesn't veto it.
In other words, this modified AUMF doesn't stand a snowball's prayer in hell of going into effect. I suspect that Senate Democrats don't want anything to do with Murtha's original slow bleed legislation. I further suspect that they want to be seen doing something by their anti-war allies as doing something substantive without really doing anything.
Another danger for Democrats is that a piece of defeatist legislation like this is that it's likely to push Joe Lieberman into the Republican Party. As I pointed out here, Lieberman has made it clear that his loyalty to the Democrats isn't unlimited. Here's what he told the Politico's Carrie Budoff:
"I have no desire to change parties," Lieberman said in a telephone interview. "If that ever happens, it is because I feel the majority of Democrats have gone in a direction that I don't feel comfortable with."Lieberman knows that this legislation is simply another way of making defeat inevitable, something that I'm certain he won't stand for.
Asked whether that hasn't already happened with Iraq, Lieberman said: "We will see how that plays out in the coming months," specifically how the party approaches the issue of continued funding for the war. He suggested, however, that the forthcoming showdown over new funding could be a deciding factor that would lure him to the Republican Party.
These observations are based on the Democrats writing a modified AUMF. If they attach these conditions to an appropriations bill, then the conditions could be construed as micromanaging the war, something that the President could ignore after signing the supplemental appropriation.
Another curious thing in the article are these sections:
Any attempt to limit Bush's powers as commander in chief would likely face strong opposition from Republican allies of the administration in the Senate and could also face a veto threat.David Espo doesn't mention that these 'options' might be unconstitutional. Either Mr. Espo doesn't know that they're unconstitutional or he doesn't care that they're unconstitutional. Neither option paints a flattering picture of Mr. Espo or for his editors. Every blogger who's commented on the Murtha slow bleed appropriations plan has said that his plan aims at micromanaging the war, something that the Constitution explicitly prohibits.
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Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she expects the next challenge to Bush's war policies to come in the form of legislation requiring the Pentagon to adhere to strict training and readiness standards in the case of troops ticketed for the war zone. Rep. John Murtha, (D-PA), the leading advocate of that approach, has said it would effectively deny Bush the ability to proceed with the troop buildup that has been partially implemented since he announced it in January.
Something is very apparent. Rush said today that " Democrats own defeat." Here's the key portion of his monologue on the subject:
[RUSH:] Remember Senator Schumer gleefully talking about how the Democrats are going to recreate Vietnam? They're going to flood the administration with resolution after resolution after resolution. What was Vietnam? It was a loss for America. Schumer gleeful, Democrats happy, they want to recreate Vietnam where we lost and millions of innocent people died. You want to know what will happen in Iraq if we pull out of there as we did in Vietnam? Check Cambodia, check South Vietnam. The Democrats, in addition, were shellacked in elections for years, despite Watergate. Jimmy Carter was it for them after Vietnam until Bill Clinton came along in 1993, when he was inaugurated. Yet they look at this as a moment of greatness in their past. How convoluted can this be? The only thing I can think is that their desire to recreate a Vietnam out of Iraq is that they think that Vietnam and the way they prosecuted that forced Nixon eventually out of office, which they would love to do to George W. Bush.Rush is right. Democrats will rue the day that they embarked on this risky strategy. The greatness of America lies in its ability to rise to whatever challenge it faces. Our generations are steeped in a tradition of overcoming whatever obstacle is put in our way. That's why Reagan saw America as that spectacular "shining city on a hill." We've been blessed with an attitude that says "We've overcome greater obstacles before. We'll do it again." Democrats don't understand that. Therefore, they're placing themselves on the wrong side of the American people.
But here's the thing. As much as the left and the Democrat Party will try to pin this on Bush or the Republicans, it won't work. Schumer and these Democrat candidates have staked out positions that they will rue. Mark my word and take comfort in what I'm telling you. Their words today, just as their words back in Vietnam, will be their undoing tomorrow. The American people do not like genocide. The American people don't like the nut job who runs Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The American people don't like Hezbollah. The American people don't like Palestinian terrorists. They resent Americans who do end up supporting these terrorist groups. These groups, groups like Hezbollah and the Palestinian terrorists will be empowered if we leave Iraq. And, of course, the enemy will have gained territory, the enemy will have gained resources and momentum, the likes of which they could never have dreamed, and it will all have been handed to them by the Democrats, if the Democrats succeed in getting us to defeat ourselves in Iraq.
We see them taking the wrong side on issue after issue. When reporters talk about how we've mistreated terrorists and pundits tell the American people that our policies have fanned the flames of jihad, they might as well be telling their audience that we're inherently evil. The American people know better.
Posted Friday, February 23, 2007 3:43 AM
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Defending the Indefensible
According to this Reuters article, Bank of America is defending its decision to issue credit cards to illegal aliens. I must say that their responses haven't been very persuasive. Here's an example to illustrate my point:
For its part, Bank of America has not seen "any unusual business activity" resulting from responses to the pilot program, spokeswoman Alexandra Trower said. "Some (customers) are very supportive, while others are not supportive," she said. "That is why we undertake pilots."Here's what makes her statement unpersuasive:
William Gheen, director of the National Illegal Immigration Boycott Coalition, said his group has collected hundreds of e-mails from people vowing to cancel accounts and move mortgages. The group said it has more than 11,000 signatures on its petition calling for a boycott of Bank of America.Bank of America is kidding themselves if they think this won't dramatically impact their profits. You can't fight impassioned customers, which their CEO admits he's feeling:
In his Thursday opinion piece, Lewis admitted it is not pleasant to be caught a century later in the "heated" national immigration debate, and that he was "feeling the passion."That's spin for "I'm taking a hit for this." It's safe to say that he's wishing that they hadn't tried this program. What's baffling to me is why he thought that this wouldn't be controversial. Why didn't Mr. Lewis think that anti-illegal immigration activists would take this personally?
Even if it isn't illegal, the move is foolish from a bottom line perspective. They've stirred up alot of anger amongst its customers, which is the opposite of what a business should do if it hopes to maximize its profits.
Meanwhile, CNN host Lou Dobbs, another illegal immigration opponent, has called the card program "outrageous," and the idea that Bank of America isn't marketing to illegal immigrants "fundamentally, absolutely and unequivocally a lie."I don't often agree with Lou Dobbs but I wholeheartedly agree this time. Don't expect this program to last long.
Posted Friday, February 23, 2007 4:29 AM
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Biggest Foreign Policy Disaster In US History?
That's Madeleine Albright's contention of the Iraq War, thereby exposing her blind loyalty to the Clintons. I suspect that she's also saying that to embellish her 'legacy'.
"I think that Iraq is going to go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy," Albright said, with former President Jimmy Carter at her side in one of a series of "Conversations at the Carter Center." "We have lost the element of goodness in American power, and we have lost our moral authority," she said. "The job of the next president will be to restore the goodness of American power."I didn't know that Albright was part of Carter's national security team but I'll admit that it makes sense. Here's an astonishing statement:
Albright, who was part of Carter's national security team in the 1970s, long before she was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, said many Americans believe that they should be loved around the world. "We don't have to be loved," she said. "But we shouldn't be feared. We should be respected."
"We don't have to be loved," she said. "But we shouldn't be feared. We should be respected."That runs contrary to what I call the Reagan Principle, which he used to bring down the Soviet Union. Stated simply, the Reagan Principle says that you don't negotiate with your enemies until you've scared them into making major, longlasting concessions. The Carter/Albright 'doctrine' is the opposite belief, believing that appeasement and 'modesty' are the best methods to ensure a false stability.
The Carter method allowed the current international jihadist movement the time to get its feet underneath itself and led to the 444-day Iran Hostage Crisis, which is easily the biggest foreign policy blunder in American history. For that matter, cutting off funding to the South Vietnamese, thereby ensuring the fall of Saigon and the rise of Pol Pot's murderous regime, ranks as the next biggest American foreign policy disaster.
Another American foreign policy disaster that accelerated the international jihadist movement was Bill Clinton's decision to pull the American troops out of Somalia. John Murtha told Clinton to cut and run then, which bin Laden took as proof of America's lack of will to fight a long war.
Carter, who also has been critical of U.S. military action in Iraq, said that since Albright was secretary of state, "there has been a reduction almost all over the world in trust and esteem by foreigners toward Americans." He said much of it is "because of an unprecedented policy toward the utilization of military power."What a dipstick. That said, Carter is a typical pacifist. Just like a typical pacifist, Carter doesn't see the jihadists as a security risk. It's amazing what passes as critical thinking amongst Democrats. This is a prime example of why we can't give the levers of executive power to Democrats. They simply don't believe that evil exists.
Carter said all previous presidents have said the United States would go to war only if its security was endangered , but that President Bush made it clear that there is a new policy of preemptive war.
Another troubling aspect of Carter's and Albright's policies is that they put a higher priority on getting along with other nations than they worry about protecting us from further terrorist attacks. That ought to disgust American voters.
I'll give Albright and the Democrats credit for one thing, though. They know how to stick to a mindless talking point. Last Sunday, Harry Reid called the Iraq War decision the worst foreign policy blunder. I count this as more proof that Reid, Carter and Albright are clueless about the GWOT.
Posted Friday, February 23, 2007 3:00 PM
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Doing the Nerdy Thing
Yesterday, I was channel-surfing when I came across the local access channel playing a hearing from the Minnesota legislature. I decided to tape some of the hearing because they announce that St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis would testify about a transportation bill. I got distracted from the hearing & I taped Kleis's testimony and a House K-12 Finance Division committee hearing. One of the subjects that the K-12 Finance Division committee discussed was House File 233 bill, which would fund a program called the "International baccalaureate pilot program." I decided to check into what this program was. Here's what I discovered:
The International Baccalaureate (IB) program was started in the mid 1960s by European diplomats who wanted their children to have an undergraduate program that would enable them to attend college anywhere in the world. IB is run by a non-governmental organization called the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO). In 1996 UNESCO formed a "partnership" with IBO to form what it called a universal "curriculum framework for peace education." [Reported in The Washington Times, January 18, 2004]Here's what the Earth Charter's Preamble states:
The IB website states that the IB curriculum is based on six themes. These six themes are as follows [http://www.ibo.org]:These six themes focus more on attitudes, values, beliefs and behavior than on academic knowledge, just as UNESCO said. That is, IB is transformational education as opposed to knowledge-based education. The IB themes taken together constitute a worldview, an overall philosophy of life. According to UNESCO, the worldview taught by IB includes the promotion of the Earth Charter (a religious/pantheistic document),* the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which views human rights the same way Communist countries view human rights) ** and multiculturalism (which is based on the ideology of Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci).***
- Who we are
- Where we are in place and time
- How we express ourselves
- How the world works
- How we organize ourselves
- Sharing the planet
We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny. We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal humanTo say that the Earth Charter is a socialist document isn't understatement. I strongly recommend that you read the entire 6 page document and make your own decision. Suffice it to say that I think this is more of an indoctrination program than it's an educational program. It's also right to say that I don't trust the UN after the Oil-for-Food Scandal. They've 'earned' a reputation of not being trustworthy by not looking out for the helpless. They've 'earned' that reputation by being involved in scandal after scandal.
rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. Towards this end, it is imperative that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations.
Therefore, I'm telling Republican legislators to do everything they possibly can to defeat this bill. At minimum, fighting the good fight will at least put responsibility at the Democrats' doorstep and give them something to justify. If this bill passes, this will be further proof of Democrats' willingness to waste money on programs that indoctrinate rather than educate.
I don't think Minnesota's taxpayers would appreciate them wasting money like that.
Posted Friday, February 23, 2007 7:31 PM
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Dems Ignoring Constitution
Yesterday, I talked about Democrats floating a trial balloon about how to ensure defeat in Iraq. I said then that I was speculating about how they would propose this redefinition of the military's role in Iraq. This AP article clarifies how the Democrats plan on limiting the mission. Here's what the AP tells us about Reid's proposal:
The wording of the Democrats' measure, for instance whether it would try to revoke Bush's authority for the war or merely tailor it more narrowly, remains unsettled. One version would restrict American troops to fighting the al-Qaida terrorist network, training Iraqi army and police forces, maintaining Iraq's territorial integrity and hastening the withdrawal of combat forces.This is clearly unconstitutional because the Legislative Branch is micromanaging the war, telling the Commander-in-Chief how troops should be deployed, what limits the troops must obey. In other words, Senate Democrats are trying to assume the role of Commander-in-Chief.
Reid, (D-NV), intends to present the proposal to fellow Democrats next week. He is expected to try to add the measure to anti-terrorism legislation scheduled to be debated later.
Yesterday, I speculated that Levin and Reid might do this by writing a new AUMF, which might be constitutional. I said then that I didn't think it had a chance of getting past Mitch McConnell's filibuster but Reid could argue that it's a constitutional way of setting these restrictions. By putting this into anti-terrorism legislation, this takes it out of the realm of constitutionality.
What's worse about this whole thing is that Jim Manley, Reid's spokesman, is accusing the White House of spinning while telling some significant whoppers. Here's what I'm referring to:
"They can spin all they want, but the fact is that President Bush is ignoring a bipartisan majority of Congress, his own military commanders , and the American public in escalating the war ," said Jim Manley. "The American people have demanded a change of course in Iraq and Democrats are committed to holding President Bush accountable."President Bush isn't ignoring his military commanders. Gen. Petraeus asked for the additional troops. Manley also said that "the American public" is opposed to "escalating the war." As I wrote here, the American people want President Bush to stay in Iraq until they can defend themselves:
9. I support finishing the job in Iraq , that is, keeping the troops there until the Iraqi government can maintain control and provide security for its people.The only thing that Manley gets right in this quote is that the American people did demand "a change of course in Iraq." The change of course that they're demanding is that we show progress towards defeating the terrorists.
[Somewhat or Strongly Agree] 57%
[Somewhat or Strongly Disagree]41%
They weren't demanding unilateral defeat. They were demanding undeniable victory.
Don't be surprised if this comes back to bite them in the backside in 2008. As I said here, Democrats are overplaying their hand. In fact, I'd revise that and say that they're overplaying their hand badly.
Posted Saturday, February 24, 2007 12:12 AM
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Mark Shields: Nutty As Ever
I just started reading the transcript of Mark Shields and David Brooks. Shields is already sounding incoherent. Here's what I zeroed in on:
JIM LEHRER: And to the analysis of Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks.What a dipstick. According to Shields, Basra was lost a year ago because everything was calm. There wasn't any tension between Sunnis and Shia because there weren't any Sunnis in any appreciable numbers. The British troops are turning over security to the Iraqis because the Iraqi troops can maintain security in that region.
Mark, on Iraq, how important is the Tony Blair decision to withdraw troops?
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Well, it's symbolically, I think, important, Jim. I mean, the reality behind the move is that, as Tony Cordesman from Strategic and International Studies said, Basra was lost a year ago, and Brits have had to withdraw to the airport.
It's now just a Shia stronghold. There is no tension. There's no civil war there, because there's no Sunnis. And it's a little bit like saying that there wasn't any racial tension in Fargo or Moorhead, North Dakota, during the civil rights struggle. There weren't any racial minorities.
Furthermore, the British troops didn't have to "withdraw to the airport." As Captain Ed said today, NATO's nations aren't stepping up to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan so the British are sending troops there. The troops being pulled will likely rotate back to Great Britain while other troops rotate to Afghanistan.
Shields is a clueless elitist. I can't watch him anymore because he's a smartass jerk who hasn't seen anything positive out of the Bush administration since before the first midterm elections. He thinks he's witty. The reality is that he's simply an elitist with a snotty attitude. In fact, he's got a snottier attitude than Nancy Pelosi.
What's more disgusting is that he acts like he's an authority on the subject even though he hasn't bothered visiting Iraq. How would he know what's happening there? Why should we believe that he even knows anything about Iraq or Muslims? He's an elitist gasbag. He isn't the least bit persuasive because he's nothing if not for his snotty comments.
He's been consistently wrong with his opinions since the Reagan administration. That hasn't changed. What's changed is that he used to at least get his facts straight. He doesn't anymore because they get in the way of his pushing the Democratic agenda. There's a reason why Capitol Gang isn't on TV anymore. The trio of Shields, Al Hunt and Margaret Carlson were such elitist snobs that they couldn't even pull high enough ratings to make it worth CNN's while to play them on Saturday nights. That trio didn't have the charm of a seasick crocodile.
Here's another Shields false statement:
MARK SHIELDS: I don't agree. We do have elections in this country, other than polls. We had an election last fall in which the Republicans, largely on the issue of Iraq , and largely on the issue of the stewardship of the president and vice president of that war, and the conditions and circumstances under which we got into that war, and the way it had been maintained, lost control of the Congress.
As I've said numerous times, Republicans didn't lose the midterms because of Iraq. They lost it because they acted too much like liberals on the issues of fiscal sanity and immigration. When they did that, conservatives stayed home in droves.
That was the reason. The Republicans say that; Democrats say that. So that's not a poll. That's not a focus group. That's the American people having expressed it, their feelings for it.
I'd think that Mr. Shield would've read this poll showing Americans want to defeat the terrorists:9. I support finishing the job in Iraq , that is, keeping the troops there until the Iraqi government can maintain control and provide security for its people.Mr. Shields is typical of the Agenda Media in that he'll ignore real data that doesn't fit his agenda. In his world, the accuracy of the information isn't as important as advancing his agenda. Let's suppose that Mr. Shields doesn't accept this poll as proof that the American people want to win in Iraq and defeat the terrorists. Fine. Let him argue against this poll instead.
[Somewhat or Strongly Agree] 57%
[Somewhat or Strongly Disagree]41%
It seems to me that Mr. Shields doesn't believe a poll conducted by one of the business world's best magazines or he believes them and isn't willing to say that in public. Either way, he's trashed his own credibility.
Then again, that's typical of the elitist snobs littering the Agenda Media.
Posted Sunday, February 25, 2007 3:00 AM
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McConnell to Reid: Make My Day
I wrote about the Democrats' ignoring the Constitution Friday night because they're attempting to rewrite the AUMF for Iraq and putting that legislation in "anti-terrorism legislation scheduled to be debated later. According to this Washington Post article, Mitch McConnell has let Reid know that that won't happen. In fact, Sen. McConnell, who's fast becoming my favorite GOP legislator, has some demands of his own:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned yesterday that a new Democratic effort to repeal the 2002 Iraq war resolution would meet the same fate as two previous efforts to limit President Bush's authority: blocked by procedural obstacles, unless Democrats relent to GOP terms.The bottom line is that McConnell's got Reid painted into such a tight corner that he can't move. Reid can't afford to let the GOP resolution see the light of day because he'd be chastised by the anti-American Nutroots coalition. That coalition would also stop sending their campaign contributions, something that Democrats can't afford at this point. As long as Reid listens to his Nutroots masters' demands to end the war, McConnell's Republicans will thwart them.
Speaking to reporters by conference call from his Louisville home, McConnell compared the latest Democratic move to "trying to unring a bell." He warned that Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, would "have to surround himself with lawyers" to comply with the new resolution that senior Democrats are drafting.
McConnell predicted he could muster Republican support to block the measure, unless Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-NV) allows a vote on a nonbinding GOP measure to guarantee troop funding.
Biden responded in a CNN interview that while the Constitution allows Bush to conduct war, it does so "only if the Congress gave him the authority in the first place. We are repealing the initial authority," Biden said. "And by the way, the United States Constitution cannot be trumped by the United Nations. It cannot be trumped by it. The implementation act of the United Nations treaty, when we passed it, said, it depends upon the Congress's authority."That is one of the most laughable quotes I've ever heard. Hearing a Democrats say that the U.S. Constitution can't be trumped by the U.N. has probably given fainting spells to John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich and other peaceniks. That isn't the only part of that quote that's laughable. Biden's quote sounds like stripping the President's authorization is a done deal, which he knows isn't the case. In fact, I'm arguing that their repealing the authorization doesn't have a chance of not getting filibustered into submission.
Even if Biden's bill got to the President's desk, which it won't, it wouldn't take effect because President Bush would veto the legislation.
I love this parting shot from Sen. McConnell:
"If the Senate doesn't support the mission in Iraq, it has only one option, and that's to decide whether or not to fund that mission," McConnell said. "That's our constitutional role, and we shouldn't drag this into the morass of Democratic presidential primary politics."OUCH.
Posted Sunday, February 25, 2007 10:39 AM
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I'm Thankful Dumb Bills Won't Pass
Yesterday, Leo and I attended the District 15 townhall meeting on workforce issues. As Leo pointed out here, most of the meeting wasn't particularly noteworthy. The biggest bit of news from the meeting happened after Rep. Steve Gottwalt talked about the potential that public-private partnerships might have. Rep. Gottwalt specifically mentioned the Stearns-Benton Workforce Council as an example. After Sen. Clark tried speeding past Gottwalt's suggestion, Leo pushed the issue by asking if the DFL would entertain legislation utilizing that option, Clark again sidestepped answering the question directly, stating that it "isn't a partisan issue." Leo said that it's partisan in the sense that the DFL is the majority party in both chambers.
A little after that, someone asked about the status of a bill that I wasn't familiar with. Sen. Clark said that it was good legislation but that she anticipated some good legislation not getting passed. She said that the bad news was that some good legislation wouldn't get passed but that the good news was that bad legislation "definitely wouldn't get passed, either." I freely admit that I didn't maintain much of a poker face on that one. It would be accurate to say that Rep. Gottwalt's reaction was similar to my reaction.
(It's lines like these that caused me to invent the phrase Pinnochiocrats for Democrats.)
After the official close of the meeting, Leo & I had the good fortune of visiting with Les Engel, who sits on the board of the SBWC & a leader in what's best described as the public-private partnership movement. Mr. Engel said that there were a number of good programs that taught both soft & hard skills. He said that it was alarming how many young people didn't understand that it was important to show up every day on time. He also talked about Project Lead The Way or PLTW.
Just to dispel the myth that bad legislation won't see the light of day, here's a new batch of bad legislation from the House side:
MAKE NON-RESIDENT VOTING EASIER, CHALLENGES HARDER: To make Election Day registration easier in college precincts, Rep. Bill Hilty, (DFL-Finlayson) wants to require all private colleges and an expanded list of public colleges to make centralized reports to the secretary of state for the names and addresses of all students living in the county.Let's see if I've got this straight. People committing voter fraud have hardly any restrictions on them. Conversely, someone attempting to prevent voter fraud has far more restrictions on them. That's typical DFL 'logic'.
Previously, the lists only had to include students living within ten miles of the campus. The list of documents that would allow same-day registration would be expanded beyond a driver's license or state I.D. card to any photo I.D. and some other verifying document. But people who want to challenge someone on same-day registration would be required to take an oath and provide I.D. to show they are a resident of the state. House File 1223
PAUL AND RINGO ARE ALIVE, BUT JOHN AND GEORGE ARE DEAD: Rep. Joe Atkins (D-Inver Grove Heights) thinks we need a law to alert people that concerts by groups that were active 40 years ago might not have all the original members singing together. It is not clear whether this applies to casino concerts by "Chicago" with one original musician. House File 1314
I'm so thankful that Rep. Atkins has introduced this legislation. After the DFL dropped legislation like affordable health care, education reform and other items on their campaign agenda, it's good to know that we're being told what we already knew. I know that I'll sleep better tonight. Then again, I'll be nervous if this gets signed into law:
FOUR STEPS AWAY FROM 90 DAYS IN JAIL: Rep. Joe Atkins (D-Inver Grove Heights) would put you in jail for 90 days if you are not "in close attendance to the dispenser nozzle while fuel is being dispensed into a motor vehicle." Because the bill does not define "close attendance," you might face jail for cleaning a windshield or picking up old coffee cups in your car while the pump is running. Is this really a problem that needs criminal punishment in Minnesota? House File 1299
Imagine the risk an RV owner would have if this legislation was signed into law. The good news is that we now have Tarryl's guarantee that none of these bills will see the light of day.
Posted Sunday, February 25, 2007 5:09 PM
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