February 14-15, 2015
Feb 14 09:28 Scott Walker vs. gotcha journalists Feb 14 12:20 Democrat doing what Democrats do Feb 14 18:26 When will the real vote happen? Feb 15 01:56 Al Franken vs. Tom Emmer Feb 15 03:05 Environmental activists' agenda Feb 15 13:07 Justifying censorship
Prior Months: Jan
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Scott Walker vs. gotcha journalists
During his recent trip to England to promote international investment in Wisconsin, a moderator asked Scott Walker what his view of evolution was. Gov. Walker quickly responded that he would "punt" rather than answer the question. Immediately, journalists and other Democrats pounced on Gov. Walker's question. Ron Fournier wrote this article criticizing Gov. Walker's response. Here's the opening of Mr. Fournier's article:
Gov. Scott Walker wants to be president and is a serious contender for the job. But nobody who wants to be taken seriously for the presidency can duck a question like, "Do you believe in evolution."
"I'm going to punt on that as well," the Wisconsin Republican said in response to a question in London about whether he was comfortable with the idea of evolution. "That's a question that a politician shouldn't be involved in one way or another."
Asking a potential presidential candidate about his views on evolution aren't relevant. That's like asking a city council candidate what their view is of Roe v. Wade. It's like asking a gubernatorial candidate what they think about changing zoning laws.
What I want to know from potential presidential candidates is what they'd do to stop the terrorists in southwest Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Will we need boots on the ground? Should we arm the Jordanians and the Peshmerga? Should we increase the bombing runs into Iraq and Syria?
Why can't journalists stop practicing gotcha journalism? Asking a potential presidential candidate about evolution, especially at a time when US embassies are being overrun and President Putin is sending troops into Ukraine, isn't serious journalism. Here's Fournier's response to why it's important:
I can think of at least two reasons why the question relates to Walker's unofficial bid for the GOP nomination. First, there are virtually no questions that are out of bounds for a presidential candidate. Think of a campaign as a lengthy interview for a job with 300 million bosses, each with a singular set of standards for making a decision. What might be a stupid question to 99 percent of votes ("Boxers or briefs?") might matter to somebody.
That's one of the flimsiest excuses I've ever heard. Essentially, Fournier said 'because it might be important to someone.' It's telling that Gov. Walker has the courage to tell voters that he's perfectly comfortable not playing the media's gotcha games. I don't want another president that'll tell me whether he wears boxers or briefs. If that question never gets asked again, I'll be a happy camper.
Walker tried the weasel route, telling Twitter followers, "It's unfortunate the media chose to politicize this issue during our trade mission to foster investment in Wi."
Here's Fournier's snotty reply:
No, sir. It's unfortunate that a man who had the political courage to defy public employee unions is afraid to answer a simple question. Or maybe you're not so courageous. Your attempt to clean up the flap on Twitter didn't work because your tweet doesn't answer the question.
Essentially telling an unserious journalist to take a hike on asking an unserious question is definitely a sign of confidence.
Wow. What a concession:
Republicans have convinced themselves that Obama got preferential treatment from the mainstream media in 2008. I will concede the point for the sake of argument.
It isn't that Republicans "have convinced themselves that [President] Obama got preferential treatment" from the MSM in 2008. It's that they've repeatedly proven that the MSM treated President Obama with kid gloves throughout his 2008 campaign.
Posted Saturday, February 14, 2015 9:28 AM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 14-Feb-15 09:08 PM
Gary:
I might have taken a different spin. If I was Walker I would've said, "I guess there is some evidence that evolution exists. There are Muslims who have interpreted the Koran that it is okay to commit murder or torture women which has led thousands of them to do it in the name of the Muslim religion. There are people crossing the southern border of the United States because they believe the border is not secure and that they will be give legal status not to mention thousands of dollars to live on. Here are two cases where you can argue that evolution clearly works."
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Democrat doing what Democrats do
God bless John McCormack for highlighting the lie in Gail Collins' column . Check this out from Collins' column:
Mainly, though, The Speech was about waging war on public employee unions, particularly the ones for teachers. 'In 2010, there was a young woman named Megan Sampson who was honored as the outstanding teacher of the year in my state. And not long after she got that distinction, she was laid off by her school district,' said Walker, lacing into teacher contracts that require layoffs be done by seniority.
All of that came as a distinct surprise to Claudia Felske, a member of the faculty at East Troy High School who actually was named a Wisconsin Teacher of the Year in 2010. In a phone interview, Felske said she still remembers when she got the news at a 'surprise pep assembly at my school.' As well as the fact that those layoffs happened because Walker cut state aid to education .
The title of Collins' article is "Scott Walker Needs an Eraser". I'd argue that it's Ms. Collins that needs either an eraser or an editor. Ms. Sampson didn't lose her job in 2010 because Gov. Walker "cut state aid to education."
The reason McCormack highlighted that part of the paragraph is because Scott Walker didn't take the oath of office as Wisconsin's 45th governor until January, 2011, which means that Ms. Sampson lost her job because of Democrat Gov. Jim Doyle's budget cuts to education.
McCormack's article actually highlights this :
Emily Koczela had been anxiously waiting for months for Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's controversial budget repair bill to take effect. Koczela, the finance director for the Brown Deer school district, had been negotiating with the local union, trying to get it to accept concessions in order to make up for a $1 million budget shortfall. But the union wouldn't budge.
'We laid off 27 [teachers] as a precautionary measure,' Koczela told me. 'They were crying. Some of these people are my friends.'
On June 29 at 12:01 a.m., Koczela could finally breathe a sigh of relief. The budget repair bill? - ?delayed for months by protests, runaway state senators, and a legal challenge that made its way to the state's supreme court? - ?was law. The 27 teachers on the chopping block were spared.
With 'collective bargaining rights' limited to wages, Koczela was able to change the teachers' benefits package to fill the budget gap. Requiring teachers to contribute 5.8 percent of their salary toward pensions saved $600,000. Changes to their health care plan? - ?such as a $10 office visit co-pay (up from nothing)? - ?saved $200,000. Upping the workload from five classes, a study hall, and two prep periods to six classes and two prep periods saved another $200,000. The budget was balanced.
Here's the difference between Jim Doyle, who supposedly supports teachers, and Scott Walker, who supposedly hates union workers: Scott Walker's reforms saved jobs, Jim Doyle's status quo policies would've led to teacher layoffs or major property tax increases.
Gail Collins' editors either don't give a shit about the truth or Gail Collins doesn't give a shit about the truth. Either that or liberal 'journalists' are only interested in pushing the progressives' agenda. Either that or it's all of the above.
Posted Saturday, February 14, 2015 12:20 PM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 14-Feb-15 04:44 PM
Yeah, but Walker's plan made those poor, poor teachers pay into their benefits so they had skin in the game and it also didn't raise taxes on those horrible rich people to make it all work.
While it would be nice to spread Gov. Walker's common sense to all of America via a presidency, I'm afraid of what will happen to Wisconsin if he leaves.
Comment 2 by Gary Gross at 14-Feb-15 06:36 PM
I'm not afraid. I'd rather Gov. Walker's policies spread and work than having them confined to Wisconsin.
Comment 3 by walter hanson at 14-Feb-15 09:12 PM
Gary:
I wish some reporter would've asked the teachers in that district so you wanted some of your fellow teachers to be laid off so you didn't have a co-pay on your medical? So you wanted some of your fellow teachers laid off so you didn't have to do a study period?
Aren't real reporters suppose to do that?
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Response 3.1 by Gary Gross at 14-Feb-15 11:53 PM
You're right, Walter. That's what they're supposed to do.
When will the real vote happen?
Michael Brodkorb's article is insightful in that it highlights this week's vote to delay Gov. Dayton's decision to raise Gov. Dayton's commissioners' pay was a sham:
Let's set the stage for Bakk's tour de force performance. In 2013, the Minnesota Senate passed legislation - supported by Bakk - which would allow the Governor of Minnesota to set the salaries of commissioners. Dayton supported the legislation and said in a statement , "I have lost outstanding employees because someone else could offer them salaries 50 percent or even 100 percent higher than state government."
After the legislation was passed, the commissioners received salary increases in 2013 and 2014 . I could not find any public comments of concern about the salary increases from anyone, including Bakk. In January, Dayton again exercised the authority granted to him by Bakk and the Minnesota Legislature and he set salary increases to commissioners in 2015. But this time, Bakk cried foul.
As Michael said, this is political posturing. Last night on Almanac, the DFL's panelists (Ellen Anderson and Ember Reichgott-Junge) attempted to downplay the Bakk-Dayton fight. The Senate vote is phony but the Bakk-Dayton fight is serious.
Here's hoping that the House passes the Senate bill without amending it. That way, the bill goes immediately to Gov. Dayton's desk, where he's promised to veto the bill. After the legislature gets Gov. Dayton's veto letter, they should immediately bring it up for a vote to override Gov. Dayton's veto. Article IV, sec. 23 of Minnesota's Constitution lays out the procedure for overriding a governor's veto:
Sec. 23. Approval of bills by governor; action on veto. Every bill passed in conformity to the rules of each house and the joint rules of the two houses shall be presented to the governor. If he approves a bill, he shall sign it, deposit it in the office of the secretary of state and notify the house in which it originated of that fact. If he vetoes a bill, he shall return it with his objections to the house in which it originated .
According to this webpage , the bill originated in the Senate:
Senator Bakk moved to amend the Cohen amendment to S.F. No. 174 as
1.2follows:
1.3Page 1, after line 6, insert:
1.4"Page 2, after line 30, insert:
When Gov. Dayton vetoes the bill, Sen. Bakk will have a real decision to make. He can either drop the subject and be exposed as proposing the amendment to provide political cover on an unpopular subject or he can schedule a vote to override Gov. Dayton's veto. Most importantly, the DFL majority in the Senate will be in jeopardy because the DFL will be exposed as not being particularly bothered by Gov. Dayton's pay increases to his commissioners.
This was a show-and-tell vote. It was a freebie. It helped DFL senators look like they were doing something without actually doing something. Sen. Bakk's amendment didn't repeal Gov. Dayton's authority to raise his commissioners' pay. It just delayed part of the pay increase Sen. Bakk and the DFL legislature gave to Gov. Dayton. After all, Gov. Dayton's commissioners had already received part of their raises long before last fall's election.
Posted Saturday, February 14, 2015 6:26 PM
No comments.
Al Franken vs. Tom Emmer
According to this article , freshman Rep. Tom Emmer will attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to Congress:
"With the Iranian nuclear deal approaching, U.S. allied Yemen falling to terrorists, the horrific violence by ISIL threatening regional security and Israeli and US interests, it's absolutely necessary for Prime Minister Netanyahu to address Congress on the dire situation in the Middle East. It is imperative for Members of Congress to have open ears and an open mind for us to properly address these threats and their global impact. We must be able to listen to a world leader address the grave circumstances facing an ally in such trying times, regardless of political differences.'
A quick visit to newly re -elected US Sen. Al Franken's website tells a totally detached view of the world. For instance, here's Sen. Franken's view of Iraq:
Iraq
Senator Franken supports President Obama's plan to bring our role in the Iraq war to a responsible end. He supports the President's timetable, which led to the withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq in August of last year.
Senator Franken believes that when President George W. Bush started the war in Iraq, he lost focus on Afghanistan, the real base that Al Qaeda terrorists used to attack us. Because of this, the United States was drawn into a long and costly war, based on misinformation, that didn't serve our nation's interests.
Our courageous military finally started turning things around in 2007 with a new aggressive counterinsurgency strategy. In 2008, President Bush joined then-Senator Obama's proposal for setting a timetable for withdrawing our forces, which improved our political leverage with the Iraqi government.
With the end of the U.S. combat mission on August 31, 2010 Senator Franken believes that America's main job now to make sure that those who return get what they need, and that it's now the job of the Iraqi people to build a functioning society for themselves.
As for whether Sen. Franken will attend Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech, that's anyone's guess:
Several other members of Minnesota's delegation were noncommittal. A spokeswoman for DFL U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson said Netanyahu's speech is on the schedule but it hasn't been confirmed whether he'll attend the event. A spokesman for Sen. Al Franken said he didn't have an answer on whether Franken is going.
It's virtually irrelevant whether Sen. Franken attends the speech. It isn't like he'll have original thoughts on the subject. If the Democrats' leadership wants Sen. Franken offering his opinion, they'll tell him what it is.
It isn't like he's paid attention to national security issues thus far. It's been such a low priority for Sen. Franken that he hasn't updated his Iraq webpage since 2010. ISIL has taken over Fallujah, Mosul, Ramadi and about one-third of Iraq. AQAP (al-Qa'ida of the Arabian Peninsula) has taken over the US embassy in Sana'a, Yemen. ISIL controls half of Syria. In addition to that, ISIL has expanded into Egypt and Libya.
These are major existential threats to Israel, our most trusted ally in the region. Sen. Franken's response to these proliferating crises has been nonexistent.
Posted Sunday, February 15, 2015 1:56 AM
No comments.
Environmental activists' agenda
Joe Soucheray's column highlights just how controlling the DFL's environmental activists are:
The couple who bought an old house on Princeton Avenue in St. Paul's Macalester-Groveland neighborhood have been driven out by the pitchfork-and-torch crowd who stood on the front lawn of the house and chanted. It was on Facebook.
Sherelyn Ogden and her husband, Allan Thenen, got out. They surrendered. They sold the house to Macalester College's High Winds Fund, which apparently had right of first refusal on it in the first place even though the elderly couple Ogden and Thenen bought the house from didn't take that into account. The college now has to re-sell it to somebody who is going to have to settle for its inadequacies. When Ogden and Thenen got in there, they decided it needed so much work that they would tear it down instead and build a new house and offer the adjoining lot to another prospective builder.
That didn't fly. Some guy worried about his tree. Other people worried that the character of the neighborhood was going to be destroyed even though nobody knew what kind of house Ogden and Thenen would build. By the time the buyers raised the white flag, you would have thought that Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address while seated in the parlor of 1721 Princeton Ave.
Though Soucheray's column doesn't identify the tar-and-feathers-crowd, it's certain that they're environmental activists. Environmental activists are the only people who think private property rights belong to the collective, not the individual.
That isn't the only home environmental activists want to 'save':
Fred Pritzker wants to tear down 27 Crocus Place and build a new home more suitable to the growing medical needs of his family, including an adult son who needs help navigating stairs. Like 1721 Princeton, 27 Crocus Place has no historical designation and is not on the register of anything, though the State Historic Preservation Office lists it as a "contributing" structure to the city's Historic Hill District, which is listed on the National Register. But really, it's just an old house.
The torch-and-pitchfork crowd raised such objections to Pritzker's plans that the city stepped in to stop Pritzker from a tear-down after the city had initially authorized the tear-down. Pritzker is a lawyer. He is throwing the book at the city for disregarding his constitutional rights and violating federal law.
What's happening in these situations actually has a title. These situations are known as "partial regulatory takings." It isn't that these environmental activists want the land. Their interest in the land is to prevent people from buying the land, then building their dream home on the property.
Houston County is famous for "partial regulatory takings." Someone will buy property with the intent of building a home on one of the bluffs in the area. What happens next is that the county re-zones the land to prevent the property owners from building a home on the lot. Sometimes, they'll limit the size of the home. Other times, they'll say that the only structure allowed on the land is a tent. Other times, they'll impose other restrictions that can't be met.
Think of these environmental activists as enthusiastic supporters of weaponized government. They're experts at utilizing the courts to stymie the will of private property owners.
Posted Sunday, February 15, 2015 3:05 AM
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Justifying censorship
Eric Posner's article is frightening from the standpoint that he thinks implementing speech codes at universities is justifiable because students are still children:
Lately, a moral panic about speech and sexual activity in universities has reached a crescendo. Universities have strengthened rules prohibiting offensive speech typically targeted at racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities; taken it upon themselves to issue 'trigger warnings' to students when courses offer content that might upset them; banned sexual acts that fall short of rape under criminal law but are on the borderline of coercion; and limited due process protections of students accused of violating these rules.
Most liberals celebrate these developments, yet with a certain uneasiness. Few of them want to apply these protections to society at large. Conservatives and libertarians are up in arms. They see these rules as an assault on free speech and individual liberty. They think universities are treating students like children. And they are right. But they have also not considered that the justification for these policies may lie hidden in plain sight: that students are children. Not in terms of age, but in terms of maturity. Even in college, they must be protected like children while being prepared to be adults.
The frightening part of those paragraphs is that they aren't the most frightening part of the article. Another thing that's worth highlighting is that Posner thinks students are still immature children. If that's true, then it's proof that society has gotten soft. During WWII, teenagers helped defeat Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. Now their contemporaries aren't capable of handling conflict? Seriously?
Check this paragraph out:
There is a popular, romantic notion that students receive their university education through free and open debate about the issues of the day. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Students who enter college know hardly anything at all - that's why they need an education . Classroom teachers know students won't learn anything if they blab on about their opinions. Teachers are dictators who carefully control what students say to one another. It's not just that sincere expressions of opinion about same-sex marriage or campaign finance reform are out of place in chemistry and math class. They are out of place even in philosophy and politics classes, where the goal is to educate students (usually about academic texts and theories), not to listen to them spout off. And while professors sometimes believe there is pedagogical value in allowing students to express their political opinions in the context of some text, professors (or at least, good professors) carefully manipulate their students so that the discussion serves pedagogical ends.
It's one thing to insist on order in the classroom. It's another to attempt to "carefully control what students say to one another." Order in the classroom is a must because it gives every student the ability to hear what's being taught. Telling students what they can't say is censorship with a different name.
Saying that "free and open debate" are "out of place even in philosophy and politics classes" isn't just silly. It's frightening because it's fascism in the classroom. It leads to monolithic thinking. It produces cookie cutter classmates that think alike. That's unacceptable.
Most important, it isn't possible for Mr. Posner to produce proof that he's right It isn't possible because it doesn't exist. It's a theory in search of proof.
Notice the conflating of principles in this question:
If students want to learn biology and art history in an environment where they needn't worry about being offended or raped, why shouldn't they?
Everyone has the right to live in a society "where they needn't worry about being" raped. One of the cornerstones of civil societies is public safety. Nobody has the right to live in a society "where they needn't worry about being offended." Living in an offense-free society isn't possible. It's also offensive to me from the perspective of who determines what's offensive. Nobody is qualified to determine what's offensive.
Posted Sunday, February 15, 2015 1:07 PM
Comment 1 by Nick at 15-Feb-15 03:41 PM
Seriously?:
http://reason.com/blog/2015/02/09/university-of-michigan-spends-16000-tell
