June 6-8, 2012
Jun 06 07:19 Sparks fly as Clark criticizes her DFL opponents
Jun 06 09:33 Smith didn't get the hint; now it's time to give him the boot
Jun 07 02:35 Did Mark Ritchie cross a line?
Jun 07 09:11 Californians reject lavish public employee pensions
Jun 07 10:48 The Scariest headline of the morning, Part II
Jun 07 23:56 Dayton admits defeat on child care unionization
Jun 08 09:22 Murphy's Law visits Obama administration, campaign
Jun 08 13:07 MPP's wimpy indictment of the conservative media bias
Jun 08 15:42 President Obama's schtick isn't selling anymore
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Sparks fly as Clark criticizes her DFL opponents
Sparks flew yesterday when Tarryl Clark took her first high-profile shots at her DFL primary opponents :
Clark's current primary opponents, former Rep. Rick Nolan and former Duluth City Council President Jeff Anderson, are emphasizing deep roots in a district that reaches from the northern Twin Cities suburbs to the Canadian border.
Clark characterized Anderson as inexperienced and claimed Nolan has spent considerable time out of state. She claimed her work and volunteer experience makes her the one with the best connections across the entire district, even better than the incumbent's.
"One of the real strengths I bring not just to the race but to the office will be having worked throughout the whole district. Congressman Cravaack obviously has been hit for his family being in New Hampshire. Rick has certainly lived in Florida a good chunk of the last 10 years. Jeff is newer to all of this," Clark said.
Spokesman Steve Johnson said Nolan, who lives on the Cuyuna Range in north-central Minnesota and served in the House from 1975 to 1981, has occasionally vacationed in Florida but is "a son of the 8th District." Nolan has the backing of the party and Oberstar.
Anderson has served on boards and commissions throughout the district and was a member of the Duluth City Council when Clark moved to town, spokesman Nate Dyvbig said.
Those shots, however, are the least of Tarryl's problems. This information is a major hurdle for her:
Clark is backed by Emily's List, a national network that helps female candidates who support abortion rights, and draws on her fundraising experience from the race against Bachmann, who went on to run unsuccessfully for president.
Being the pro-abortion candidate in the Eighth District is perilous at best. While that won't be a major problem in liberal Duluth, it's a major problem on the religious Range and throughout the heart of CD-8.
Another big problem facing Tarryl is her ties to the miner-hating BlueGreen Alliance:
In addition to the environmental groups like the NRDC and the Sierra Club, unions like SEIU have also joined an umbrella organization (the BlueGreen Alliance) to lobby for federal funding for 'green' projects. Collectively, these groups have been involved in hundreds of lawsuits with the federal government over stopping fossil energy projects. Key political appointees at the DOI are former employees of the NRDC and other environmental groups.
Expect the Cravaack campaign to exploit that weakness against the DFL candidate that wins the DFL primary. Rep. Oberstar's vote for Cap and Trade was the biggest driver for miners abandoning him in 2010. The animosity between the environmentalists and the miners hasn't healed. It's festered.
Finally, Tarryl's other major weakness is her less-than-enthusiastic support for the Second Amendment. That won't play well in the conservative parts of the district. It won't play well on the Range, either. That's a toxic blend on the Range.
The Eighth District isn't as liberal as people think. In 2010, Charlie Cook rated it as D +3. More importantly, most of the Range Democrats fit into the category of being conservative Democrats.
Tarryl's legislative history of voting for historic spending increases, unprecedented tax hikes, coupled with her being supported by an abortion-on-demand organization, won't help.
Being an environmentalist will be the part that finishes Tarryl off.
Tags: Carpetbagger , Tarryl Clark , Environmentalist , BlueGreen Alliance , Keystone XL Pipeline , Abortion on Demand , Second Amendment , Tax Increases , DFL , Chip Cravaack , MNGOP , Election 2012
Posted Wednesday, June 6, 2012 7:19 AM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 06-Jun-12 03:43 PM
I guess that Tarryl has just proved she doesn't know what she's talking about. She's the classic carpet bagger who thinks they are "Entitled" to a seat in Congress. So what if she can't convince people to vote for her.
Unfortunately for Chip the nominee will be one of the other two people.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Smith didn't get the hint; now it's time to give him the boot
When Rep. Steve Smith lost his endorsement fight against challenger Cindy Pugh, he didn't narrowly get defeated. He lost on the first ballot. Cindy Pugh got 70% of the ballots cast:
Cindy Pugh, co-founder of the Southwest Metro Tea Party, easily won the endorsement contest in House District 33B on the first ballot with nearly 70 percent of the vote . Minnetonka School Board member Pam Langseth finished second, while 11-term incumbent Smith was a distant third.
Getting humiliated apparently isn't enough for Rep. Smith. He filed yesterday for the opportunity to get humiliated again :
Republican Rep. Steve Smith, a 22-year House veteran from Mound who lost his party's endorsement to a tea party candidate last month, announced today he will challenge endorsed candidate Cindy Pugh in the Aug. 14 GOP primary.
Smith said tea party activists 'stacked the convention' May 23 and backed Pugh, a Chanhassen businesswoman and co-founder of the Southwest Metro Tea Party.
Smith, an attorney who has chaired the House judiciary, public safety and other committees, said he has been the chief author of more bills that became law since 1990 than any other House member.
Smith won't take 'Get lost' for an answer. Last month, it was the delegates that told him to get lost. This time, the voters of HD-33B will be the people telling Steve Smith to get lost.
This paragraph should be put on his political gravestone:
'I'm not ashamed of moderation, of talking to the governor before we pass a bill, of a little more civility or the hard work it takes to get a bill signed into law and not just passed by the House (Republican majority,' he said.
Rep. Smith lives in a deep red district. It's his responsibility to represent the views of his constituents. It's sad when a legislator puts a higher priority on bipartisanship than on representing his constituents.
Unfortunately, Rep. Smith insists on not representing his district. The potential good news is that Ms. Pugh will put him out of our misery.
Tags: Endorsing Convention , Steve Smith , RINO , Cindy Pugh , TEA Party , Activist , Primary , MNGOP , Election 2012
Posted Wednesday, June 6, 2012 7:29 PM
Comment 1 by eric z. at 06-Jun-12 12:39 PM
Sometimes the people who care enough to show up and vote in a primary election are a wholly different, or narrowly overlapping set of those who might call themselves party insiders. Citizens outnumber party insiders, and an election differs greatly from a political party's exclusive confab. Smith is within his rights. And might win. Some people do not think moderation is a sin, be it with alcohol, or in politics.
Comment 2 by MplsSteve at 06-Jun-12 12:44 PM
As I see it, SD 33 and HD 33B are as good a place as any for anti-stadium activists to make our voices heard.
We should go all out to kick both Steve Smith out of the House and keep Connie Doepke from moving up to the Senate.
If we don't do it, then no legislator is gonna feel like they have anything to worry about. They'll think "Hey, screw my constituents. I'm gonna do what I want".
I'm sending checks to both Cindy Pugh and Dave Osmek. I'm doing it today! Will you join me? Will you stand up and say "Now's the time when we make YOU answer for your voting record"?
Folks, there's no better time than now! At the risk of using a cheap cliche, it's really time to draw a line in the sand.
Comment 3 by IndyJones at 06-Jun-12 01:46 PM
He has all the appeal of Richard Lugar. And hopefully the same outcome. The Tea Party is a long, long way from leaving the political arena and woe to the Rino who thinks so.
Comment 4 by walter hanson at 06-Jun-12 03:39 PM
You mean after what we did to punish the override six (I believe we got 4 of them not endorsed and eventually kicked out). I guess we have to start teaching lessons again. You think a 22 yeard lawmaker would've learned the lesson back then!
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Comment 5 by IndyJones at 07-Jun-12 01:33 PM
Considering the previous party affiliation of Wisconsin since the days of Gaylord Nelson I think I would call that a small dead cat bounce.
Did Mark Ritchie cross a line?
Last weekend, the DFL held its annual state convention, at which time many of their elected officials spoke to the faithful. Mark Ritchie was one of those speakers:
On May 30,2012, a number of the DFL's special interest allies filed a lawsuit with the Minnesota Supreme Court requesting the proposed Photo ID constitutional amendment not be allowed on the ballot this November. Here's the description of their lawsuit:
In Supreme Court
League of Women Voters Minnesota;
Common Cause, a District of Columbia nonprofit corporation;
Jewish Community Action, a Minnesota nonprofit corporation;
Gabriel Herbers, Shannon Doty, Gretchen Nickence;
John Harper Ritten; and Kathryn Ibur, Petitioners
vs.
Mark Ritchie, in his official capacity as Secretary of State of the State of Minnesota, and not in his individual capacity, Respondent.
The way that last part is written caught my attention because of the way Ritchie was introduced at the DFL convention :
INTRODUCTION: He wants to talk with you today, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.
RITCHIE: Thank you, everyone. I'm honored to serve you and all Minnesotans as your Secretary of State. But today, I'm here in my personal and passionate compassion as a social studies teacher.
That's total BS. The DFL didn't invite him to speak at their convention because he's a social studies teacher. He wasn't introduced as a social studies teacher. He was introduced as Minnesota's Secretary of State. He was invited to speak because he's, regrettably, the most hyperpartisan Secretary of State in Minnesota history.
Here's part of what he said during his speech at the DFL convention:
Ritchie: I want you to go into your packets and get out this yellow sheet of paper that has the actual language of the proposed constitutional amendment dealing with elections...Today, we face the same opportunity to defend liberty and justice for all. Take that yellow sheet of paper out of your packet. Go while I read the four lines that matter in this proposed constitutional amendment. The first line says "All voters voting in person must present valid government-issued photographic identification before receiving a ballot."
That's all voters. This is in the Constitution. Every other state that has debated Photo ID has always exempted military voters, absentee voters, the Amish, people with religious objections.
Other states like Alabama and Mississippi and Indiana have exempted people with disabilities, senior citizens. In this proposal, there are no exemptions. It's in the Constitution forever. It is an affront to us to put this in front of the public.
That hyperpartisan rant calls into question Ritchie's ability to defend the right of the legislature to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot.
Ritchie expressed his disdain for the proposed Photo ID constitutional amendment in plain-spoken terms. He said that it's "an affront to us to put this in front of the public."
Though he claimed that he was saying this as a social studies teacher, that isn't a credible statement because he was introduced as Minnesota's Secretary of State. Whenever he speaks in public, he's recognized because he's Minnesota's Secretary of State.
On May 15, Ritchie spoke to the Stearns County commissioners about the proposed Photo ID amendment. Again, he was introduced as Minnesota's Secretary of State. Again, he specifically ranted about what a terrible idea the constitutional amendment was.
Did Ritchie cross a line? I'll let the legal eagles decide that. Can he be trusted with passionately arguing that this constitutional amendment be put on this November's ballot? I don't see how after this weekend's partisan diatribe.
Tags: DFL State Convention , Constitutional Amendment , Photo ID , Lawsuit , Mark Ritchie , Partisanship , Secretary of State , DFL , Elections
Posted Thursday, June 7, 2012 2:35 AM
Comment 1 by Steve at 07-Jun-12 09:51 AM
Did you listen to the speech? He was speaking as a Social Studies teacher to teach people about history and current events, he wasn't saying 'I'm not the Sec. of State now.' He was teaching. And the hyper-partisan comment is laughable. He is and has been as passionate against a voter ID amendments as Mary Kiffmeyer was passionate for a voter ID amendment. How can he be more partisan than her if that's the case?
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 07-Jun-12 10:00 AM
Steve, You might want to notice that legislators are supposed to be partisans. Secretaries of State should be impartial arbiters of the laws on the books. In fact, it isn't a secretary of state's responsibility to lobby against the laws he might have to enforce in the next election.
That's why he's defenseless against the accusations of conflict of interest.
Comment 2 by eric z at 07-Jun-12 01:34 PM
Ritchie is an honorable man. As honorable as his predecessor, Kiffmeyer, perhaps more so. I would say more so, since he is free of corrosive ties to ALEC.
Comment 3 by Gary Gross at 07-Jun-12 03:25 PM
Ritchie is dishonest, he's corrupt &, most importantly, he hasn't kept the SVRS updated since he started.
ALEC, by the way, isn't evil. They provide ideas. They aren't dictatorial like Alida Messinger is. What Alida demands, the DFL does ASAP.
Is it evil to write legislation that GOP lawmakers are already thinking about? That's what ALEC does. Personally, I don't think that's a big deal at all.
Meanwhile, Alida Messinger is doing everything she can to sabotage the mining industry while telling miners that they're part of the DFL team. Meanwhile, unemployment is high on the Range & their incomes are $10,000 a year less than the state average.
Aren't Messinger's actions of depressing a formerly important part of Minnesota's economy disgusting? Don't those miners' lives matter to you? They certainly don't matter to Ms. Rockefeller-Messinger.
As for Ritchie & the DFL, if there isn't voter fraud, why'd they vote against absentee ballots at the precinct caucuses? We know because of the video.
They voted against allowing absentee ballots for the 2016 presidential preference ballot because they were afraid of voter fraud.
For all their public bluster that voter fraud doesn't exist & that Minnesota's election system is airtight, the 'gold standard' for the nation, etc., their actions said the opposite.
They voted for election integrity because they didn't trust the current system. PERIOD.
Your spin is worthless, Eric. It's time you admitted what the DFL admitted last Saturday: that the current election system is flawed & needs fixing.
Californians reject lavish public employee pensions
California's public employee pension fund has been a mess since before Gray Davis' recall in 2003. With things getting out of hand, the citizens of San Diego and San Jose took matters into their own hands Tuesday night :
In San Diego, payments into the public-employee retirement fund went from $43 million to $231.2 million - or 20 percent of city's general fund - in little over a decade. So it's not surprising that two reform proposals easily won over voters.
Proposition A prohibits the city from using union-only 'Project Labor Agreements', which force it to accept prevailing union wages and health care coverage, to be instituted on municipal construction contracts, opening up competitive bidding and saving the city millions. Voters approved the measure, even though California's governor Jerry Brown recently signed a bill that would deny any state construction funds to a city that bans union friendly agreements.
Proposition B will reform city pensions plans by moving all city employers (except for police officers) from defined benefit plans to an effective 401(k) run in the private sector. It also calls for initiating a five-year freeze on the portion of union salaries used to calculate future pension payouts. At last count, 69 percent of voters supported Proposition B.
San Diego is a relatively conservative city so this result isn't that surprising. San Jose, though, is anything but conservative. Still, the results came back the same:
Then there is the case of San Jose, where pension payments jumped from $73 million in 2001 to $245 million, or 27 percent of the general fund budget. In this city, police and firefighters own lavish tax-free retirement plans that should be the envy of public-employees everywhere.
It's also a city where Democrats solidly outnumber Republicans. Yet, a Democrat Mayor, Chuck Reed, and an 8-3 Democrat majority in the city council championed a reform labor measure. Reed claimed it was his 'No. 1 priority because it's the biggest problem we face. It's a problem that threatens to our ability to remain a city and provide services to our people.'
To adapt an old Frank Sinatra jingle to this situation, if unions are losing there, they're losing practically everywhere. The unmistakable message being sent to the politicians is that people are primed to go ballistic over what they consider to be lavish, undeserved, pensions.
The unions have argued for years that they gave up wages for their pension plans. That isn't playing anymore. In most people's opinions, they think that most public employees already benefit from a type of job security that private sector workers don't have.
These referenda happened at the city level. The next step in California will be to use the I & R process in getting the issue of state employees' pensions under control.
With the State pension fund underfunded by almost $500,000,000,000 (yes, that's $500 billion), California is killing themselves economically with excessive pensions. It's to the point where public employees are getting laid off and services aren't getting delivered just so cities can meet their pension obligations.
California legislators have refused to fix the system since Tom McLintock ran on that issue in the 2003 recall election against Gray Davis. Things didn't boil over on that issue then but it's reached a boiling point now.
If the 'leaders' in Sacramento won't do something bold to fix the pension system, the people will. If it isn't something that fixes the crisis, the next step might be installing a new legislature.
Tags: Pensions , San Diego , San Jose , California , Politicians , We The People , Potholes , Layoffs , Unemployment , Gray Davis , Sacramento , Democrats
Posted Thursday, June 7, 2012 9:11 AM
No comments.
The Scariest headline of the morning, Part II
Minutes ago, I published this post titled Scariest headline this am. Had I seen this headline , I would've ranked them 1 and 1A.
ROMNEY CASH HAUL TOPS OBAMA
The contents of the article aren't a joy to the Obama campaign either:
(Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Republican groups raised more than $76.8 million in May, his campaign said on Thursday, topping the $60 million President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies hauled in.
The campaign and Republican National Committee have $107 million cash on hand, the campaign said.
(Reporting By Patricia Zengerle)
This is the worst news President Obama could get from the campaign operation. First, news that President Obama's major ad blitz didn't barely move the needle of public opinion. Next, the news that he'll actually be outfundraised (and probably by a pretty wide margin) won't cheer him up, either.
This is shaping up to be another miserable morning for the Obama campaign. It's time for Mssrs. Axelrod and Plouffe to order more cases of Maalox.
Tags: President Obama , Fundraising , DNC , Democrats , Mitt Romney , RNC , GOP , Election 2012
Posted Thursday, June 7, 2012 10:48 AM
Comment 1 by eric z at 07-Jun-12 11:44 AM
He should give some to the Minn GOP. If it is broke, fix it. Write them a rent check. At least that. Charity is a long recognized virtue.
Comment 2 by walter hanson at 07-Jun-12 04:28 PM
Eric:
The MN GOP is in better shape than the Obama campaign is. Maybe Michelle and the kids will like to move out of Chicago in 2013 and want to live in Minnesota since they won't be living in Washington D.C. unless the Obamas by a house to live in since they won't legally be living at 1600 P.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Dayton admits defeat on child care unionization
Yesterday, Gov. Dayton gave up the fight to unionize child care small businesses:
ST. PAUL, MN (AP) - Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton says he won't fight a court ruling that blocked a unionization vote he called for home-based child care workers.
Dayton said Tuesday that he disagrees with the April decision but opted not to appeal it. A Ramsey County judge said the Democratic governor had overstepped his bounds by calling the election via an executive order rather than going through the Legislature.
The development further stalls a collective bargaining push by unions trying to organize child care providers. The election was supposed to take place in December, but a judge first halted balloting and later quashed the Dayton order altogether.
President Lisa Thompson of AFSCME Child Care Providers Together says Dayton "respects our democratic right to decide for ourselves whether or not we want a union."
First things first. Enough with the euphemisms. The people that AFSCME and the SEIU wanted to force unionization onto aren't "home-based child care workers." They're small businesses delivering child care services.
Next, AFSCME CCPT President Thompson is lying through her teeth when she says that Gov. Dayton "respects our democratic right to decide for ourselves whether or not we want a union." Gov. Dayton doesn't respect people's rights to unionize. That's why he attempted to only let 4,300 of the 11,000 licensed child care small businesses vote . He tried rigging the vote .
Gov. Dayton's admission was essentially moot since child care small businesses filed a federal lawsuit challenging the unions' ability to tell small businesses who will be their lobbyists:
The federal lawsuit will contend the union effort authorized by Governor Dayton's executive order on November 15, 2011 violates the providers' first amendment right of free political expression and association. The National Right to Work Foundation, a nonprofit legal aid association based in Washington, DC, has offered free legal assistance to child care providers who are battling what they view as compulsory unionization.
'The allegation is going to be that it's unconstitutional, that the First Amendment guarantees everyone the right to choose with whom they associate to petition government and that the government can't choose who's going to represent providers for lobbying the state,' said Bill Messenger, an attorney with the National Right to Work Foundation who's working on the case.
This case is essentially finished. Here's the text of the First Amendment :
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
In short, small businesses can't be forced to hire Company A or Union B or anyone without their consent. If ABC Child Care wants to lobby the legislature on their own, that's their right. Congress can't infringe upon that right. Gov. Dayton can't either. The unions can't tell these small businesses that they have to associate with the unions, either.
The First Amendment says that individuals or a collection of individuals can petition their government and seek resolution of their complaints in the way they determine best meets their needs.
Tags: SEIU , AFSCME , Mark Dayton , Executive Order , Special Interests , Lisa Thompson , DFL , Judge Lindman , Federal Appeals Court , First Amendment , Small Business , MNGOP
Posted Thursday, June 7, 2012 11:56 PM
No comments.
Murphy's Law visits Obama administration, campaign
This CBS interview pretty much sums up President Obama's pathetic, disappointing week:
