August 23-25, 2019
Aug 23 00:49 Jason Lewis v. Tina Smith on taxes, Iron Range jobs Aug 24 01:54 Ripping off the DFL's mask Aug 25 01:42 Tina Smith's misguided priorities Aug 25 03:04 Democrats' presidential crisis Aug 25 17:46 The utimate in voter disenfranchisement?
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Jason Lewis v. Tina Smith on taxes, Iron Range jobs
Tina Smith couldn't be clearer about her position on taxes . If Tina Smith was queen for a day on taxes, Minnesota and the entire nation's economy would screech to a standstill in a New York minute.
In an interview, Smith said "Jason Lewis supported the Republican tax bill that gave giant tax cuts to big corporations and the richest among us, and I wouldn't have supported that." Those "giant tax cuts to big corporations" have led to companies moving back from overseas. Had Democrats been in charge, they would've kept the corporate tax rates at 35%, which was making the United States uncompetitive with other countries.
This isn't a fairness issue. It's a competitiveness issue. President Obama's policy focused on fairness. As a direct result of that, the Obama economy grew at a sluggish pace. If Tina Smith wants to defend anemic economic growth while the US economy is booming, that's her option. It isn't a particularly attractive option but it's the Democrat's option. Further, Minnesota Republicans defeated Gov. Walz on the tax issue because money was pouring at a stronger-than-expected clip.
Lewis didn't waste time before going after Smith's record on the environment, highlighting Smith's opposition to the Line 3 Pipeline project. Lewis pointed out that over 80% of the jet fuel for Minneapolis International Airport airplanes. While Smith insists that she's fighting against special interests, she's in bed with Twin Cities-based special interests opposed to mining on the Range.
"Senator Smith has a record of working hard for the people of Minnesota, taking on powerful special interests and working across the aisle to get things done, whether it's fighting to protect health coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, standing up to the big drug companies to lower prescription drug prices or making sure young people have the skills they need to fill high-demand jobs," Furlong said.
Right now, there are more job openings than there are people to fill those jobs. That means 3 things. The Tax Cuts & Jobs Act that Jason Lewis voted for is working. The deregulation that happened through the use of the Congressional Review Act has revived entire communities, especially in the Rust Belt states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Lewis voted for most, if not all, of the deregulation. Third, it means that Democrats were wrong to unanimously vote against the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act.
No Democrats in the House or Senate voted for the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act. That means that Democrats were terribly wrong on economic policy. The Tax Cuts & Jobs Act took a barely-growing economy and kicked it into a higher gear virtually immediately. When Smith says that she wouldn't have voted for the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act, she's telling Minnesotans that she would've voted against the policies that jump-started the economy.
Do we really want to vote for a senator that wouldn't vote for prosperity-inducing policies? Do we really want to vote for a senator who is totally controlled by special interests that've stopped Iron Range prosperity, that have killed blue collar jobs and that would've stopped the US from becoming energy independent?
If killing jobs, undermining national security and preventing Iron Range prosperity are your highest priorities, then Tina Smith is your candidate. If you want prosperity, then voting for Jason Lewis is imperative.
Posted Friday, August 23, 2019 12:49 AM
Comment 1 by eric z at 23-Aug-19 08:04 AM
And tariffs. Your headlining left out tariffs.
In any event from the image it already looks as if Lewis is working on growing a full head of Trump hair. All he needs is the orange color, a weight gain, . . .
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 23-Aug-19 11:19 AM
I wish tariffs weren't needed to break China but they are. If that's what's required to get China to stop stealing our companies' intellectual property that's worth billions of dollars, then that's what we should use. If China goes bust, that's THEIR problem.
Comment 2 by Chad Q at 24-Aug-19 08:35 AM
Yeah because standing up for America in today's twisted society is a bad thing. Got to knock America down a few more pegs so we are no better than the rest of the world. Nest time just say "orange man bad".
Comment 3 by eric z at 24-Aug-19 11:30 AM
Will Jason Lewis run against:
1. Tina Smith
2. AOC
3. Nancy Pelosi
4. All of the above
My guess, No. 4
Response 3.1 by Gary Gross at 24-Aug-19 05:03 PM
I agree with that.
Comment 4 by eric z at 24-Aug-19 11:49 AM
Apology, Gary. Your Aug 22 post answers why Lewis is running and who he is running against. Had I read it more than scanning, I'd not have posted the 1-4 item above. The Aug 22 post is thorough. Do you know who besides Lewis himself is going to be managing the Lewis campaign? Has he named a staff?
Response 4.1 by Gary Gross at 24-Aug-19 05:02 PM
Don't sweat it, Eric. I've forgotten it. You can too. I've seen a couple of his staff but I don't know their names. I'll say this about them, though: they're impressive on first impression.
BTW, here's an interesting tidbit of information that I don't know if you knew: Jason Lewis often had Paul Wellstone on his radio program to discuss various issues. They both thought of each other as true friends. Interesting, isn't it?
Ripping off the DFL's mask
One of the links in TakeAction Minnesota's weekly newsletter was to this article on Bernie Sanders' Green New Deal proposal. According to Kenza Hadj-Moussa, TakeAction Minnesota's Communications Director, "Bernie Sanders rolled out a climate plan today that seems designed to terrify fossil fuel executives. And we love it." Bernie's plan is beyond utterly unrealistic. It's frightening that a top Democrat presidential candidate could be this stupid. Unfortunately, Bernie's that stupid and then some:
There are novel, meaty policy proposals that make Sanders's proposal stand out from an already ambitious field: a cash-for-clunkers and financial assistance program to scale up electric vehicle usage, and plans to boost public transit ridership 65 percent by 2030; a requirement that the Congressional Budget Office work with the Environmental Protection Agency to give new legislation a 'climate score,' like the budget scores it currently doles out; and abiding by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to ensure the free, prior, and informed consent by Indigenous peoples.
TakeAction Minnesota is part of the DFL's labyrinth of activist outlets. TAM thinks that boosting transit ridership 65% within 10 years is achievable. No sane person thinks that. TAM, aka TakeAction Minnesota, thinks that giving Native American tribes veto power over fossil fuel projects is a fantastic thing. TAM thinks that ending "fossil fuels imports and exports" is a great idea. What type of idiot thinks that's smart economically? These guys:
Sanders outlines an expansive system, building on the resolution introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey in April, that would generate publicly owned clean energy and 20 million new jobs.
First, it's insulting that they think there's that many net new jobs to be created through the Democrats' Green New Deal. If TAM thinks that, then they're using illegal drugs. Either that or they're that stupid. Next, anyone that thinks that there isn't tons of corruption within the environmental activist community is kidding themselves. (Think Solyndra, etc.)
It's clear that the DFL is attached to the Democrat fringe. Today's Democrat Party has virtually nothing to do with Bill Clinton's Democrat Party. In Detroit, presidential candidate after Democrat presidential candidate criticized President Obama's signature accomplishment, Obamacare. Now Tina Smith wants to pretend that she's a moderate or a centrist? I don't think so.
As I've said before, a moderate Democrat is one campaigning for office. Once they're elected, Democrats suddenly start talking about their mandate, etc.
Posted Saturday, August 24, 2019 1:54 AM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 24-Aug-19 08:32 AM
The democrats/progressives/socialists or whatever you want to call them have lost their minds. While they bitch about fossil fuels and global warming, they fly around the country in private jets to tell everyone how bad fossil fuels are. Hypocrites, every one of them but it's no surprise as that's how socialism works, the poor stay poor and the political class lives like kings.
Comment 2 by eric z at 24-Aug-19 09:04 AM
Bill Clinton's "Democratic" Party approach was awful, and now is discredited. It is the 21st century, and fossil carbon based reserves are useful for other things, petrochemicals, plastics, etc., besides combustion. All energy is solar, fossil fuels being stored past solar energy, so why not use current direct solar and wind [a result of solar energy] instead of burning down the climate? Also, name calling does not carry the day, and "stupid" is a strange word coming from Trump and Jason Lewis supporters. As to new jobs, so what? Seeing loggers transitioning to wind turbine maintenance shows reallocation but neither job can be done by robots. Factory work can and will, and that is where unskilled labor will suffer. But robots are better workers. Automobiles last longer, hundreds of thousand miles instead of under 100,000 death from sludged engines and rust. No Monday and Friday shift lemons, or fewer, with automation. Times are changing, so smile and change with them. Whining helps nothing.
Response 2.1 by Gary Gross at 24-Aug-19 10:22 AM
Right you are about Bill Clinton's Democrat Party. All we had was lots of prosperity (who wants that?), 4 years of budget surpluses & the assault weapons ban. How awful.
Response 2.2 by Gary Gross at 24-Aug-19 10:49 AM
BTW, this climate crisis that you talk about is being solved by the technology that you've criticized. Of all the nations that signed the Paris Climate Accords, the US is the only nation that's actually reducing GHG!!!
Thanks to Bernie's Push For Fifteen, automation is speeding up.
Comment 3 by Gretchen L Leisen at 24-Aug-19 09:23 AM
It seems as though every solution promoted by Democrats involves lots of tax money allocated to fly-by-night projects that grease the pockets of their leftist supporters. Much of it requires larger centralized government and a reduction in our freedoms. Government makes all the decisions. Private innovations are thus discouraged, and a two-tiered class system is developing: The leftists who have all the cash, and the poor, impoverished peons who have to follow crack pot ideas of bureaucrats while bein inhibited from trying better solutions.
Comment 4 by eric z at 24-Aug-19 11:43 AM
Thanks to all. An interesting discussion.
Comment 5 by Chad Q at 24-Aug-19 03:39 PM
Psst, Eric, solar, wind, and battery power is far worse for the environment than fossil fuels are. Where do you think they get the materials to build those worthless contraptions? Sure isn't out of thin air. There's no climate crisis as the climate has been changing since the earth was formed.
Tina Smith's misguided priorities
Democrats love saying that budgets are moral documents. Democrats then say that budgets reflect our priorities. If that's true, which I think it kinda is, then Tina Smith's budget priorities are disgusting. As Minnesota's junior senator, she's opposed all projects that would've helped the people of northern Minnesota. That isn't opinion. It's fact. She's fought the Line 3 Pipeline. She's opposed the PolyMet and Twin Metals mining projects.
Just those projects alone would've had the opportunity to transform the Iron Range from a region with sky-high poverty rates and a virtually nonexistent middle class into a prospering region of the state. The median household income in Virginia, MN is $36,327, compared with the statewide average of $65,699. The percentage of people living below the Federal Poverty Level in Minnesota is 10.5%, compared with 24% living below the FPL in Virginia, MN.
While visiting southern Minnesota, Sen. Smith said "I think at the end of the day, I'm just thinking about what Minnesotans are thinking about , which is prescription drug costs being too high, how can they get the kind of amazing workforce training that they need to get great jobs like they can get here at Red Wing Shoes, and that's where I'm going to stay focused as long as I can."
If Smith was honest, which she isn't, she'd admit that she's thinking about what Minnesotans are thinking about as long as they aren't living in rural Minnesota. That isn't just true now that she's a US senator. It was true in her time as Minnesota's Lieutenant Governor. It was true when she was Gov. Dayton's chief of staff.
Writing off a huge geographical part of the state, including the part that feeds the rest of the state, is disgusting. Still, that's what Tina Smith is doing. That's been a staple of her political life for years.
If Smith won't pay attention to rural Minnesota, she should get fired next November. Tina Smith isn't about doing the right thing for the entire state. Tina Smith and the DFL is only interested in doing what's best for the metro DFL. That's why the DFL has lost the farm vote and the laborer vote. When the Metro DFL unanimously opposes the Line 3 Pipeline, which provides the vast majority of jet fuel for Minneapolis International Airport, they're saying that serving their special interest masters is more important than doing right by the biggest airport in Minnesota.
How foolish is that? Does that like the decision that a person who is "just thinking about what Minnesotans are thinking?" I'm betting that a significant majority of Minnesotans would disagree with Tina Smith and the Democrats on that issue.
It's time to fire the DFL, Tina Smith included. The DFL's priorities, like Tina Smith's priorities, increasingly aren't Minnesota's priorities.
Posted Sunday, August 25, 2019 1:42 AM
No comments.
Democrats' presidential crisis
Saying that the Democrats have a candidate crisis this presidential election cycle is understatement. It isn't just about the Democrats' candidates, though that's part of their problem. Part of their problem is that they've alienated their traditional base. Specifically, Democrats alienated blue collar workers and industrial unions. It's more than interesting that Democrats have pushed aside unions like the UAW, Teamsters and United Mine Workers.
In this LTE , Rob Braun wrote "Middle America feels as if no one on the coast is taking their views and opinions seriously. The coastal liberal elites don't want to hear that they aren't happy with the moral and social re-engineering they promote. Or, calling Middle America bigots because they adhere to traditional sexual standards. And more importantly, the elites haven't done a very good job at convincing middle America that their experiment in social and moral re-engineering is the best way of structuring a healthy and functional society."
That's certainly a significant part of why Democrats are pushing aside people of faith and rural America. When President Obama demonized people living in "small towns in Pennsylvania", he criticized these people, saying that it isn't "surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
That's an invitation for rural voters to abandon Democrats. That's what those voters did in 2016. President Trump capitalized on the situation, promising these voters that his policies would revive rural America's economy. President Trump has delivered on that promise. Remember President Obama mocking then-Candidate Trump about promising to improve the US economy? I remember it because of this:
[Video no longer available]
Longtime Democrat operative Mark Jaede responded to Braun:
It seems that the author thinks the Democratic Party should throw LGBT people and people of color under the bus in order to win votes from socially conservative rural white people.
I disagree. We won't win by pandering to anti-gay people. We won't win by dismissing the struggle against racism as "identity politics." We won't win by concerning ourselves with how many counties have GOP majorities. We will win by fielding a candidate who can offer Democrats in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia, and North Carolina a reason to turn out and vote.
As long as Joe Biden promises to eliminate the use of fossil fuels, as long as Bernie promises to spend $16,300,000,000,000 on his version of AOC's Green New Deal, as long as the entire Democrat field promises to decriminalize illegal immigration and give illegal immigrants free health care, Democrats will continue losing those states cited by Prof. Jaede, with the possible exception of Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Posted Sunday, August 25, 2019 3:04 AM
No comments.
The utimate in voter disenfranchisement?
Democrats are constantly complaining about Republicans suppressing the vote. Stacey Abrams isn't the latest in a long line of Democrat complainers on the subject. AOC is the latest in that line . AOC is calling for the abolition of the Electoral College, insisting that the system is "racist."
First, the Electoral College won't be abolished because it would require a bunch of small states to ratify a constitutional amendment that'd render their states politically irrelevant. That's just one of the reasons the Electoral College won't be abolished. The other reason it won't happen is because the odds of the constitutional amendment getting that far are tinier than slim. To send a constitutional amendment to the states for ratification, the amendment must 290 votes in the House, then get 67 votes in the Senate. That's provided that the wording in both amendments is identical. If there's any differences, those would have to be ironed out before proceeding to the ratification phase.
Talk about microscopic odds.
Ultimately, though, what Democrats are proposing is the ultimate disenfranchisement of voters. States like Kansas, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Iowa, Idaho, Rhode Island, Maine and New Hampshire, to name a few, would become politically irrelevant. With campaign finances being finite, why waste money courting voters in Montana, Iowa, the Dakotas and Maine? Further, abolishing the Electoral College would mean candidates wouldn't have to think about multiple demographic groups. Democrats could focus on East and Left Coast elitists and ignore the blue collar voters in the Rust Belt. How does that maintain the United States of America?
It's worth noting that we have a federal government , not a national government. The federal government didn't exist until the states created it. Democrats won't admit that they want all power centered in Washington, DC but that's the truth of it. The Founding Fathers, whom I consider to be the greatest collection of leaders in one place in the history of humankind, wanted the government's power decentralized. The Tenth Amendment even went so far as to say that the responsibilities not given to the federal government by the Constitution were reserved to the states and (gasp!) the people.
Frankly, why would I trust AOC's ramblings over the thoughtfulness of Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Washington and Madison? Rather than trusting her, Id rather instruct her to read this so she'd understand how to prevent tyranny. I'd also recommend she debate Dana Perino. Perino would slice and dice her into hundreds of tiny pieces if she just did this:
[Video no longer available]
I agree with Tucker when he said that he has "no doubt" that Dana Perino would defeat any debater who accepted Dana's challenge to debate the merits of the Electoral College. Further, I agree with Tucker's statement that Democrats like AOC don't want to debate the substantive issues. Democrats like AOC prefer labeling things racist, thereby eliminating the need for debate.
By eliminating the Electoral College, Democrats are proposing the biggest disenfranchisement of voters in US history. That's shameful. It needs to stop immediately.
Posted Sunday, August 25, 2019 5:46 PM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 25-Aug-19 05:52 PM
As I said in an earlier post, AOC is stupid and she is going to sound even more stupid as each day passes that her handler is no longer their to feed her the chanting points.
