July 18-20, 2014
Jul 18 04:39 Krauthammer to Obama: Make a damn decision Jul 18 04:59 Gov. Dayton, DFL, hiding health insurance premium spike Jul 18 05:45 Putin's lies vs. Ukraine's proof Jul 19 11:21 Harris v. Quinn revisited Jul 20 05:24 Exposing Putin Jul 20 06:09 Steyer's stunning fundraising failure Jul 20 07:19 Campuses embrace censorship Jul 20 10:24 Ken Martin vs. Polymet
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Krauthammer to Obama: Make a damn decision
While discussing the Russian seperatists shooting down the Malaysian airliner, Charles Krauthammer unloaded both barrels on President Obama:
Here's a partial transcript of what Charles said:
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: What is the president's reaction? You said what matters is not where he is. He's had no reaction. He's had no reaction to anything that I can tell in the last six months. Look, it isn't as if we're going to go to war with Russia, but we've denied Ukraine lethal weaponry on the grounds that we don't want to escalate the conflict. The rebels and the Russians are killing Ukrainians in large numbers, by shooting them out of the sky. The least the president could do is make a damned decision for once in his life and announce that we are now going to supply lethal weapons to assist the Ukrainians to defend themselves and to complete the offensive that is now going on in Eastern Ukraine to actually destroy the rebel insurgents.
President Obama is a pacifist. Thanks to his disdain for conflict, Vladimir Putin is revving up the old expansionist Russian bear. It isn't that Putin wants to destabilize the countries surrounding Russia. It's that he wants Russia to return to its glory days of dominating its surrounding nations and telling them what to do.
Simply put, it looks like he wants to resurrect the Soviet Union.
Charles is right. President Obama has voted present on hundreds of major foreign policy/national security decisions since he was elected. It's his nature to avoid conflict. It's his history to make the worst possible decisions on the international stage. Killing bin Laden is his only accomplishment.
Meanwhile, Putin is enjoying the free ride he's getting from President Obama:
Security Services of Ukraine chief Valentyn Nalivaichenko, at a late night news conference, said the government is making all evidence in the investigation public, including intercepted phone calls between two members of the Russian military special services unit, known as the GRU, in which they discussed shooting down the airplane.
However, Russian President Vladimir Putin denied any involvement, saying Ukraine is responsible.
Putin knows he's lying. That's what KGB agents do. Further, Putin knows that he might get called out. That isn't what's important to him. His biggest concern, other than dominating Ukraine, is to prop himself up inside Russia. The more powerful he looks, the more political capital he accumulates.
Russian-backed separatist commander Igor Girkin, also known as Strelkov, initially claimed credit for the downing of a military transport airplane. He revised his statement later. 'We did warn you - do not fly in our sky,' he wrote on VK.com, Russia's version of Facebook.
It's times like this that make me wish someone like Benjamin Netanyahu was our president. It's depressing knowing we have a do-nothing president that won't standd with our allies and who lets our enemies run free while terrorizing their neighbors.
We'd better elect a real president next time. If we get Hillary, we won't call it "the former Soviet Union."
Posted Friday, July 18, 2014 4:39 AM
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Gov. Dayton, DFL, hiding health insurance premium spike
This video shows that Gov. Dayton and the DFL don't want Minnesotans to know that they're getting hit with a big spike in their health insurance premium until after the election:
Here's Alycia Reidl's testimony to the MNsure Board of Directors. Ms. Reidl is the president of the Minnesota Association of Health Underwriters in Minnesota:
I have a very simple message and a very simple request, which is that agents within Minnesota think it is imperative, very important, that the rates be released as early as possible to allow consumers to make decisions about what's best for themselves and their families coming into 2015. We also believe that it affects small employers in a very significant way. We're seeing average increases in the 30% range for small employers. I've seen some as much as 100% and they're trying to make a decision about what's the best coverages for their employees should they continue to offer group coverage going into 2015.
Now we don't want that to happen. Let me assure you that it's not any agent's goal to have a small employer drop its coverage but with the rates and the disparity between small group and individual, it's a real conversation that's happening. And without knowing what the rates are going to be for 2015, and a significant number of small employers renewing on December 1st, they are in a position of not being able to make educated decisions for themselves and their employees.
The difference in cost for an employee, if they stay on their group plan, could be 50%, maybe 60% higher and so we ask MNsure to support that rates be released as soon as possible and certainly not waiting until November 15.
If rates are going to be that much higher, it's understandable why Gov. Dayton and the DFL don't want the rates released until after the election. Gov. Dayton and the DFL know that they'll be swept out of office in November if people realize that the plan that the DFL legislature passed and that Gov. Dayton signed is ripping them off.
Two or three weeks back, Sarah Walker was part of the Almanac roundtable discussion. During that appearance, Ms. Walker lied through her teeth, saying that people were "getting better insurance at a cheaper price" than prior to MNsure. Ms. Reidl's testimony verifies as fact that rates are already skyrocketing.
I broke this story on June 30. I've followed up on the story since then, including with this article .
Posted Friday, July 18, 2014 4:59 AM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 18-Jul-14 02:37 PM
It really doesn't matter whether rates go up or not because, as the Deloitte study clearly states, the MNSURE website does NOT have the functionality for anybody to renew or change their insurance! Come November (Dayton is hoping after the election), this whole MNSURE scheme comes apart like a ten-cent watch. It's inevitable, and the only question is how long the MSM can conceal the fact.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 18-Jul-14 03:32 PM
Jerry, the premiums are what's important because that's the pain they'll feel. The website is a pain in their backside, whereas the premiums and the high deductibles might mean families can't afford insurance.
Putin's lies vs. Ukraine's proof
This article perfectly summarizes the Russian-backed terrorists shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. First, here's Putin's propaganda:
In a tweet soon after the plane went down, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, "Condolences to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in connection with the crash of a passenger aircraft in Ukraine."
A Kremlin statement said Putin opened a meeting with his economic advisers by calling for a moment of silence over the crash.
"This tragedy would not have happened if there were peace on this land, if the military actions had not been renewed in southeast Ukraine," he said. "And, certainly, the state over whose territory this occurred bears responsibility for this awful tragedy."
Next, here's Ukraine's dismissal of Putin's fabrications:
A statement from the Foreign Ministry in Kiev claimed the plane had been "shot down."
"According to the General Staff of Ukrainian Armed Forces, the airplane was shot down by the Russian Buk missile system as the liner was flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters [33,000 feet]," the statement added. "Ukraine has no long-range air defense missile systems in this area. The plane was shot down, because the Russian air defense systems was affording protection to Russian mercenaries and terrorists in this area. Ukraine will present the evidence of Russian military involvement into the Boeing crash."
There's the crux of this situation. We're forced into a binary choice. We either believe a former KGB agent who's a trained liar or we believe the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.
The trained KGB liar offered his condolences to the families his terrorists shot down. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry promised that they'll offer proof that Putin's terrorists shot this plane down.
It shouldn't take long to decide who's telling the truth. Hint: it isn't the lying former KGB agent.
Meanwhile, President Obama spoke on this crisis for 40 seconds before returning to his planned speech.
Posted Friday, July 18, 2014 5:45 AM
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Harris v. Quinn revisited
This op-ed , written by Paul Kersey of the Illinois Policy Institute, revisits the Supreme Court's ruling in the Harris v. Quinn lawsuit. Here's one of the key parts of Mr. Kersey's op-ed:
Suburban Chicago mom Pamela Harris, whose youngest child has a rare genetic disorder, was one of the parents targeted for union membership. Because she would rather stay home full-time to care for her son than put him in a state facility or child care center, she qualified for a Medicaid benefit from the state worth about $25,000 per year. But the unions wanted a cut of this money.
Harris didn't want to join the union, so she joined other families who already paid forced dues in a lawsuit challenging the scheme. In siding with Harris against the state of Illinois and SEIU last month, the high court addressed a point raised by the Illinois Policy Institute in an amicus brief: Paying dues to a union should not be a condition of receiving help from the state to care for a loved one.
I'd love hearing the SEIU or AFSCME explain how the person who a) cares for a person getting a government assistance check, b) is self-employed or c) is the parent of the person getting a government assistance check is a government worker.
Let's follow this logically. According to SEIU's thinking, a middle class person who takes care of their child isn't a government employee but a person who cares for their child who gets an assistance check is a government employee.
Further, again according to SEIU's thinking, small business owners who provide child care services aren't government employees but child care providers who care for families that get government assistance are government employees.
That logic is tortured at best.
For instance, when a person works as a PR/communications person in a government department, there's an organizational chart that shows where in the chain they rank and who they report to. How would an organizational chart look if a small business owner who is hired by a parent who gets government assistance is considered a government employee? Further, why would the small business owner be the government employee subject to paying union dues or a fair share fee but the person getting government assistance be a private citizen who isn't subject to paying union dues or fair share fees?
This is the key point in Mr. Kersey's op-ed:
Even if the SEIU wins its election, its new members won't be forced to pay dues.
That's the part that gives me the biggest smile. They're expending all this effort knowing that a huge percentage of PCAs and in-home child care providers will say 'no thanks' to paying dues or fair share fees.
One of SEIU's and AFSCME's arguments is that they'll provide training for these workers. As Hollee Saville told me, they already have access to tons of training. Most of these programs are either free or exceptionally inexpensive.
Surely, union operatives will attempt to characterize me as anti-union. Those operatives are wrong. I'm just opposed to unions telling private sector employers that they're public sector employees.
Posted Saturday, July 19, 2014 11:21 AM
Comment 1 by Hollee Saville at 20-Jul-14 11:44 AM
Gary,
Thank you, once again, for sharing facts and breaking apart the "logic" of the unions and those who support compulsory unionism. I--and more than 85% of licensed family child care providers--share your celebration that we at least won't have to be forced to pay the union for unwanted "representation" once our lawsuits make their way through the courts. However, the unions have no right to be our exclusive representatives and to have any higher seat at the table than family child care and early childhood groups who already represent us through voluntary membership. The union can act like a trade association, just like the others, and only speak for the people who choose to become members. Any argument beyond that violates our civil rights.
Comment 2 by Gary Gross at 20-Jul-14 01:46 PM
Hollee, I'm more than happy to publish the important facts surrounding your lawsuit and the Harris v. Quinn ruling.
It's important to highlight how fragile AFSCME's & SEIU's arguments are.
Keep fighting the good fight & I'll keep covering it.
Comment 3 by walter hanson at 20-Jul-14 02:01 PM
Gary:
I will love a reporter to ask AFSCME and SEIU the following question:
"It is your position that because the government gives aide to the homecare work that they are automatically government employees. Why don't you claim that every single grocery store and any other business that takes food stamp money are all public employees?"
I bet the this question doesn't compute or the answer to dodge can be used by Hollee and anyone else who doesn't want to be paying dues because they don't think they are public employees.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Exposing Putin
This article is exceptionally insightful in that it exposes Vladimir Putin for who he really is:
Why do many Western analysts contend that Vladimir Putin is outsmarting everybody like a skillful chess master? Can it be a massive illusion fed by Kremlin propaganda and blindly supported by analysts and policy makers? I agree with Paul Gregory that Putin deserves a failing scorecard and would add that he is erratically moving his country towards disaster. A bully is usually far from intelligent; he can be dangerous and evil, he can possess powerful resources, but that does not make him the forward-looking strategist many in the West pretend he is.
Putin's economic model prevents him from being the international superpower he's pretending to be. It isn't that Russia is a superpower. It's that it's acting like it's a superpower. Thinking that Putin is a chess master because he's having his way with President Obama is like thinking you're a tough buy because you can beat up a 5th-grader.
Putin is delusional because he thinks that the former Soviet empire was a great federation of nations. The truth is that it operated as a great federation because liberals like John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter treated it like a great federation.
Only President Reagan understood its fatal flaw. Only President Reagan exploited that fatal flaw. President Reagan out-strategized and outmaneuvered the giant Russian bear. He expanded the use of Radio Free Europe to talk with the citizens. He checked them militarily whenever they thought about fulfilling their expansionist ideology. Most importantly, President Reagan spoke to the dissidents' hearts by telling them about the virtues of liberty.
Let's understand something. Vladimir Putin is a thug. He isn't as despicable as Stalin but he's still a thug. Calling him a thug doesn't mean he isn't dangerous to smaller opponents. It just means that he'll suffer the same fate as Gorbachev if he's confronted by another Reagan.
The only way to deal with Moscow is to act firmly and decisively, imposing sectorial sanctions and providing serious military help to Ukraine, sharply increasing the economic and political pressure. The faster the West acts, the more lives will be saved and more destruction will be prevented.
President Reagan understood the necesssity of economic and benign military confrontation. Technically, President Reagan didn't fire a shot to defeat the Soviet empire. That doesn't mean he didn't sell military weaponry to the Soviet's neighbors. He let them know that he'd checkmate them wherever their expansionist goals took them.
There's no denying that Putin is a major player on the international stage. There's no denying that his expansionist goals are real. That doesn't mean he's the unstoppable superman that President Obama is helping through his inactions.
President Obama's policies just make a thug look like a superpower. That doesn't mean President Putin's Russia is worthy of superpower status. That's just what happens when he's matched against a lightweight US president.
Posted Sunday, July 20, 2014 5:24 AM
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Steyer's stunning fundraising failure
Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer promised to raise $100,000,000 for Democratic candidates who pledged to implement his climate change agenda. Apparently, he's falling miles short of hitting that pledge:
Billionaire Tom Steyer pledged to raise $50 million to make climate change and opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline a 2014 campaign headache for the GOP.
It's not going very well.
'[Steyer's] super PAC, NextGen Climate Action, has raised just $1.2 million from other donors toward that goal, according to still-unreleased figures that his aides shared with Politico,' wrote Politico's Andrew Restuccia and Kenneth P. Vogel. 'And he appears to be struggling to woo wealthy allies in his effort to compete with big-money conservative donors - leading some supporters to question whether his fundraising goal is realistic.'
'So far, the only really big donor to the Steyer cause is Steyer himself,' they added.
Apparently, Steyer's agenda isn't popular with Democrats. Apparently, Steyer's agenda is about as popular with Democrats as cockroaches are with the public.
What this means is that Steyer is getting humiliated on the national stage. He deserves it. The environmental movement isn't about saving the environment. It's about controlling people's lives. It isn't a centrist movement. It's a far left movement if it can be properly characterized as a movement.
At this point, I'd say that's questionable.
Raising donations to oppose Keystone XL is especially difficult, considering only hardcore leftists oppose its construction, according to a Pew poll from June 26. Further, combating climate change consistently ranks pretty low on the list of Americans' top priorities.
The question that hasn't been determined is whether union rank-and-file will vote Republican this November. Democrats like Al Franken have voted against the Keystone XL Pipeline project, which means he's voting against unions. The public chatter is that they're upset with the environmentalists and Democrats who side with the environmental activists. We'll see whether that's chatter or if they'll vote their wallets.
The bottom line is that Democrats should ignore Steyer. The oil companies are doing a great job of keeping people on their side. The environment isn't a winning issue that'll put them over the top this election. It's a drag on Democrats' electoral chances. The environment might help legislative candidates in a few states but it isn't a winning issue in Senate races. It's that simple.
Posted Sunday, July 20, 2014 6:10 AM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 20-Jul-14 01:55 PM
Wow what a dishonest person. I had the impression that he was planning to write a check himself for $100 million which is why Harry Reid and the other Senate Democrats had done that stunt!
Just think how much the Democrats could be out spent if the Democrats and the IRS aren't trying to scare conservatives to death not to spend money on issues they care about.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Campuses embrace censorship
Virginia Postrel's article is a welcome spotlight on the corrupt practices of "Citrus Community College near Los Angeles." Thankfully, someone afflicted by Citrus Community College's corruption has a spine:
Last September, Vincenzo Sinapi-Riddle, a student at Citrus Community College near Los Angeles, was collecting signatures on a petition asking the student government to condemn spying by the National Security Agency. He left the school's designated 'free speech area' to go to the student center. On his way there, he saw a likely prospect to join his cause: a student wearing a 'Don't Tread on Me' T-shirt. He stopped the student and they began talking about the petition. Then an administrator came out of a nearby building, informed them their discussion was forbidden outside the speech zone, and warned Sinapi-Riddle he could be ejected from campus for violating the speech-zone rule.
Sinapi-Riddle has now sued Citrus College, a state institution, for violating his First Amendment rights by, among other things, demanding that 'expressive activities' be confined to the 1.34 percent of campus designated as a 'free speech area.' Perhaps the most outrageous part of his experience is how common it is. The vague bans on 'offensive' language and other "politically correct" measures that most people think of when they imagine college speech codes are increasingly being joined by quarantine policies that restrict all student speech, regardless of its content.
People don't have a constitutional right to not be offended. As Ms. Postrel, these policies aren't just anti-constitutional, they're anti-educational:
Contrary to what many people seem to think, higher education doesn't exist to hand out job credentials to everyone who follows a clearly outlined set of rules. (Will this be on the exam? Do I have to come to class?) Education isn't a matter of sitting students down and dumping pre-digested information into their heads.
Higher education exists to advance and transmit knowledge, and learning requires disagreement and argument. Even the most vocational curriculum, accounting, physical therapy, civil engineering, graphic design, represents knowledge accumulated through trial and error, experimentation and criticism. That open-ended process isn't easy and it often isn't comfortable. The idea that students should be protected from disagreeable ideas is a profoundly anti-educational concept.
That Citrus Community College thinks that they can establish a rule that trumps the First Amendment of our Constitution is stunning. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights trump everything. If a law doesn't fit within the Constitution's framework, it's unconstitutional and it should be repealed ASAP.
Why would a college want to brag that they're producing intellectual wimps incapable of dealing with life's uglier moments? That doesn't make sense, especially to employers. They're looking for people who can defend their ideas, who can stand up to criticism and still deliver a high-quality product.
Places like Citrus Community College and other like-minded institutions are producing the opposite of what businesses are looking for.
Sinapi-Riddle, in other words, can make a strong case that the Citrus Community College District blatantly violated his First Amendment rights. That's why his lawsuit and two others involving speech zones at other public schools are part of a new litigation push by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a civil-liberties watchdog group on whose board I serve. By bringing cases that don't require new precedents, FIRE hopes to make public colleges pay for their violations of free speech and thereby change the financial incentives facing administrators. 'They're probably going to succeed,' says Volokh, who is not involved in the litigation, 'because the case law is generally on their side.'
These lawsuits are great if you're attempting to right a wrong. Litigation should always be a weapon in the citizen's arsenal if anyone violated their constitutional rights. What's better, though, is that state governing boards would discipline institutions that violate students', or faculty's, civil rights before it gets to a lawsuit.
Shouldn't universities be held to a high standard of obeying students' civil rights? After all, these instutions are shaping future captains of industry. They should respect a person's civil rights.
I suspect, however, that they aren't enforcing the Constitution because today's 'intellectuals' don't agree with the US Constitution. That attitude must stop ASAP. Any institution that doesn't respect the Constitution deserves getting ridiculed. It's that simple.
It's time universities not hire administrators who won't sign a pledge to live by the Constitution. It's time that attitudes started changing about the Bill of Rights.
Posted Sunday, July 20, 2014 7:19 AM
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Ken Martin vs. Polymet
Last week, I wrote this post highlighting DFL Chairman Ken Martin's PolyMet temper tantrum. Clearly, he didn't want to talk about that thorny issue. This editorial highlights how ridiculous Chairman Martin's arguments sounded:
State Sen. Karin Housley, who is the lieutenant governor candidate pick of Scott Honour who is seeking the Republican nomination in the Aug. 12 primary, said her failure to file was an honest mistake and she had nothing to hide. In fact, the filing she made after the deadline was the same as the last one she had done as required as a state senator.
So she was clearly wrong in not filing on time. And Martin did the political party partisan-thing that would have also been done by his Republican counterpart if the late filer had been, say, Gov. Mark Dayton.
But what's really interesting and also quite telling about the release was not the usual DFL-GOP banter. It was the mention of PolyMet as an investment held by Housley - all $300 of an investment.
Yep, that was the lone investment of Housley singled out in Martin's news release, based on her state Senate financial disclosure. No other investment or investments. Just one, PolyMet, the copper/nickel/precious metals project near Hoyt Lakes that is in a far-too long environmental review phase.
Aside from the tit-for-tat chatter that both parties feel obligated to spewing, the lesson from Chairman Martin's tantrum is that PolyMet is a poisonous topic for him. The only time that issue isn't a a negative for Martin is when he's talking to the environmental activists in the DFL.
That's a big problem for him because, though that part of his party is the dominant part of the party, environmenal activists are just a small portion of his party numerically. If he alienates the construction and trade unions by catering to the environmental activists too much, that'll hurt his party this November.
But hey, let's zero in a $300 investment in PolyMet by a running mate of one of four possible GOP gubernatorial candidates.
'.... this has nothing to do with PolyMet,' Martin said in a telephone interview with the Mesabi Daily News for last Sunday's story. It's all about a candidate's transparency, he stressed.
That, of course, leap-frogged the question as to why PolyMet was targeted in the news release.
Martin said PolyMet 'just popped out' from Housley,'s Senate financial statement to DFL Party researchers in advance of Martin's news release on the issue. But, of course, no other investment of Housley 'just popped out.'
I wonder if the researchers who scoured Sen. Housley's financial statement are environmental activists. It's certainly a legitimate question. Why would a $300 investment catch the researchers' attention? Sen. Housley's committee assignments aren't related to PolyMet.
Chairman Martin doesn't owe Sen. Housley an explanation. She should've filed the report on time. However, Chairman Martin owes mining activists an explanation why he's singling out their industry in his statement. Will Chairman Martin show a spine for once? Will the DFL stand unconditionally with the miners? Will Chairman Martin finally tell the environmental activist wing of his party that, this time, he's siding with Iron Range families?
If he won't stand unconditionally with the miners, the miners should vote for the pro-mining party. This year, that's the GOP. This year, that isn't the DFL.
It's impossible to serve 2 masters. That's what Chairman Martin is attempting to do. The miners should demand more than token expressions of loyalty from the DFL. It's difficult seeing that happen in the near future.
Posted Sunday, July 20, 2014 10:24 AM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 20-Jul-14 02:06 PM
Gary:
As you're clearly showing Ken has the problem when he says that Republicans are evil you have to vote Democrat can't work anymore since:
* If you're an union member the Democrats are trying to destroy your chance to have a high pay job.
* If you're black we say we love you and want your vote, but since we want Hispanic votes even more we will give them government benefits you don't get right now and embrace them even though they are draining away resources to the schools for your kids and are providing people who will take a lower wage to work the job you might be working.
* If you believe it's a sin that marriage should be just between a man and woman we will say not only don't you know what you're talking about, we won't stand up for people saying you can't have a job because of that, and a gay person is more special than a person who believes that marriage should be just between a man and a woman.
That sounds like a real problem. Fortunately for Ken the Republican leadership nationally has no idea how to run with stuff like that.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
