March 11-13, 2011
Mar 11 00:57 Reclaiming the Vocabulary, All-Cuts Budget Edition UPDATED Mar 11 13:05 The High Price of Union Activism Mar 12 06:03 NFLPA Decertification, NFL Lockout Mar 12 10:29 Dayton, the 1980s & Nuclear Energy Technology Advances Mar 12 15:08 Reclaiming the Vocabulary, Middle Class Edition Mar 13 10:29 Sen. Klobuchar Picking Winners & Losers Mar 13 14:59 DFL, Voter Fraud, Photo ID & Misdirection
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Reclaiming the Vocabulary, All-Cuts Budget Edition UPDATED
One of the DFL's favorite chanting points is talking about the MNGOP's budget as an "all-cuts budget." Based on Sen. Robling's quote , that chanting point just lost traction:
Sen. Robling: "We have placed education has a high priority and they have actually seen growth in their budget."
Earlier this morning, I saw that the education budget increased by 2.5 percent. This demolishes another DFL myth.
It doesn't help that the budget is going from spending $30,700,000,000 for the biennium ending at 11:59:59 PM of June 30,2011 to spending a bit less than $34,000,000,000 this time.
Naturally, DFL Chairman Ken Martin chimed in with this deceitful statement :
The Republican majority has failed to deliver on their promises to Minnesotans yet again.
The budget targets released by Senate Republicans today will only drive up property taxes, slash vital services, and kill job-creation in our state. We've seen what these kind of slash-and-burn policies of the past can do, and the result isn't pretty for everyday Minnesotans.
All-cuts budgets kill jobs. We've heard from State Economist Stinson, from national economists, and from business leaders around the country that an all-cuts budget isn't the way to get our economy moving. Clearly, the Republican Majority isn't listening or just doesn't care.
Mr. Martin, Have you no shame? Spending is increasing from $30,700,000,000 to almost $34,000,000,000. How does a 7 percent spending increase represent the main characteristic of "an all-cuts budget"?
Perhaps these statistics compiled by ABM, Mr. Martin's former employer, will explain their fuzzy math:
Here's what the new numbers look like:
Education: .17% cut without the shift, 9.38% cut with the shift
Higher education: 14.1% cut
HHS: 12.97% cut
Agriculture: 14.04% cut
Environment: 24.53% cut
Jobs/economy: 38.63% cut
Transportation: 22.2% cut
Public safety: .5% increase
State government: 53.3% cut
Aids and credits: 9.64% cut
I looked at those numbers and was skeptical of their validity. Then I saw this statement:
Basically, the Republicans are saying "sure, we'll use that new billion dollars from the February budget forecast, but we won't measure our cuts against the expected spending standards in that forecast."
In the DFL's world, a spending cut is anything that doesn't exceed the DFL's previous biennium's budget tails. For instance, if the GOP budget target for HHS is 10 percent higher than the previous biennium but they planned for a 40 percent spending increase, the DFL thinks of that as a huge cut.
BTW, I don't know what the projected spending increase was or what the GOP spending target was. I just used those numbers as an illustration.
Nevermind the fact that the DFL is assuming no reforms in the delivery of services. Nevermind the fact that the DFL can't justify the need for that monstrous spending increase.
According ABM's thinking, that's a monstrous cut. On Main Street, that's considered a substantial spending increase. This proves that the DFL's special interest allies and their political hacks don't live on Main Street Minnesota.
Needless to say, Rep. Thissen picked up where ABM and DFL Chair Martin left off :
Today's release of Republican budget targets proves that the magic act Republicans promised Minnesotans is running into hard reality. The $32 billion that was enough a week ago is now more than $34.
We have the broad strokes of this budget, and we know how Republicans have balanced the budget under Governor Pawlenty. It appears that the property-tax-raising, job-killing budgets of the past will be the budget of our future if the Republicans have their way. As a result, middle-class Minnesota taxpayers should start guarding their wallets against a Republican pick-pocket budget characterized by hidden taxes.
And hard-working Minnesotans should also guard their jobs. We know that the Republican budget will do more harm to Minnesota's fragile economic recovery than a balanced approach. Cutting nearly 50% of Jobs and Economic Development, raising property taxes, the largest tax businesses pay already, and slashing the workforce are a recipe for job killing, not job creation.
I'll just be blunt. Rep. Thissen isn't an impressive leader. His credibility doesn't exist because his constant sky-is-falling predictions aren't believable. People might or might not agree with the Republicans' plan. I suspect more do than don't because that's how they voted in November and because people understand that spending $34 billion is substantially more than spending $30.7 billion.
Thissen can talk all he wants about this being an all-cuts budget but that schtick isn't credible. DFL Chairman Martin repeating the all-cuts line diminishes his credibility, too.
The other thing at work here is the fact that Gov. Dayton's plan of raising taxes isn't appealing. People don't believe that you create jobs by raising taxes. Gov. Dayton's fighting an uphill fight this time.
Years ago, I heard a great cliche while I was playing poker. That cliche applies to this situation. Sometimes, the best way to throw a hand is away. The DFL's hand is awful. Their plans aren't that appealing. It's time for the DFL to admit that it's time to throw this hand away and return to the proverbial drawing board. They won't win this hand with the hand they're playing.
Posted Friday, March 11, 2011 12:57 AM
Comment 1 by Jeff Rosenberg at 11-Mar-11 04:15 PM
"Spending is increasing from $30,700,000,000 to almost $34,000,000,000?" Not according to the Senate Republicans' own numbers. They show it decreasing.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50460258/Untitled
The rest of the Republicans have given up on using those deceitful numbers, Gary. Time for you to do the same.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 12-Mar-11 06:29 AM
The stimulus money is one-time money. Using one-time money to artificially prop up sacred cow budgets is stupid. The DFL's spend alot, then spend some more, then kick-the-can-down-the-road budget scheme has failed. It's time for the DFL to notice that that's why they got voted out of office this past November.
If you want to pretend that there aren't any inefficiencies & wasteful spending in the budget, that's your option. Defending the failed status quo isn't my idea of governing in the 21st century. Then again, with all of the chits that the DFL owes its special interest allies, I wouldn't expect them to fight against the failed status quo.
The High Price of Union Activism
When the Wisconsin Senate stripped out the fiscal portions of their bill so it wouldn't need a quorum to get a vote, union activists stormed the Wisconsin Capitol. Thursday, Wisconsin state senators got an emailed death threat.
Meanwhile, Richard Trumka, race-hustler Jesse Jackson and Michael Moore made appearances in Wisconsin. The conventional wisdom is that this fight with Gov. Walker has re-energized the unions, which will sweep Democrats to victory.
That's why I routinely reject the CW.
It isn't that I think this hasn't re-energized union activists. It definitely has. It's that I reject the notion that this will help sweep Democrats to victory. I reject it because pictures of the activists getting dragged out of the Capitol were rather unsightly pictures. Let's just say that the majority of activists getting dragged out didn't look like they'd fit in on Main Street.
IMAGES MATTER.
Then there's the matter of how the public will react when they hear about the benefits of restricted collective bargaining rights. I'm betting that parents will love the notion that unions won't be able to negotiate seniority rights into their next CBA. That means that great young teachers will be kept and grumpy veteran teachers will be terminated.
The quality of the educational product will improve as a direct result of that policy alone. As education improves, Gov. Walker will get the credit. As parents see the benefits, they'll compare Gov. Walker's actions where he looked out for them against how the unions looked out for themselves.
There's no question that the Democrats' base will be excited. Likewise, there's little question that independents will flee the Democrats in big numbers.
This isn't a winning issue for Democrats. Alot of the union thugs that've appeared in TV videos look like neanderthals, which they too often are. Again, I'll repeat this: IMAGES MATTER!!!
Seeing some union activists getting dragged out is only part of the problem. The other part of the problem is that alot of these activists look like they were taken out of central casting from a Hollywood studio for Woodstock. They definitely don't like Main Street people.
Repeat after me: IMAGE MATTERS!!!
Union activists don't play well on TV. What's worse is that they're too often on the wrong side of the issues they advocate. In the end, that's a lethal combination.
We aren't looking at a 2010-type blowout, in my opinion, but it won't be a good cycle for Democrats because they're controlled by extremists.
Posted Friday, March 11, 2011 1:05 PM
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NFLPA Decertification, NFL Lockout
Now that the NFLPA has filed decertification papers , the fight is headed to the courts. In the end, the NFLPA's demands for the owners to open their books was the final straw. By this time next week, there will be all-out war between the NFL and the NFLPA.
Why the NFLPA pushed for this is understandable. It's also unreasonable. This was a union power play all along. According to Chip Scoggins' post , the owners took the 18-game schedule off the table, a major consideration when negotiations started. That wasn't enough for the union.
Under the just-expired CBA, owners got $1,000,000,000 of the revenues before splitting the rest of the money with the players. This time, the owners wanted another $1,000,000,000 before splitting the revenue. When the players objected, the owners put a different proposal on the table, which the NFLPA rejected :
The NFL said its offer included splitting the difference in the dispute over how much money owners should be given off the top of the league's revenues. Under the expiring CBA, the owners immediately got about $1 billion before dividing the remainder of revenues with the players; the owners entered negotiations seeking to roughly double that.
But the owners eventually reduced that additional upfront demand to about $650 million. Then, on Friday, they offered to drop that to about $325 million. Smith said the union offered during talks to give up $550 million over the first four years of a new agreement, or an average of $137.5 million.
Cooler heads need to prevail ASAP. They certainly can't count on it from NFLPA attorney Jim Quinn:
After Pash talked to the media outside the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, union lawyer Jim Quinn spoke at NFLPA headquarters about three blocks away and said: "I hate to say this, but he has not told the truth to our players or our fans. He has, in a word, lied to them about what happened today and what's happened over the last two weeks and the last two years."
I don't think that the owners are a bunch of sweethearts but I don't think they've lied like Quinn said. The reporting on negotiations have been pretty accurate thus far. Quinn's statement will eventually be evaluated for its honesty when the full record comes out in a lawsuit.
What I haven't read is where the NFLPA budged one iota on any major position. If they aren't willing to negotiate in good faith, if they're taking a my-way-or-the-highway approach, then they should be blamed for triggering this work stoppage.
The NFLPA hasn't figured out that unions aren't held in high regard at the moment. If they were counting on public sympathy to be with them, then they're foolish. If they were counting on that public sympathy to put pressure on owners, then they're incredibly foolish.
Now this issue is headed for the courts. That doesn't mean it's headed for resolution. The courts can't force the sides into a new CBA. They can just rule on labor law.
In the meantime, players will get squeezed. The superstars don't have anything to worry about but the lunch-pale types do. Players in the league only 1-2 years aren't making alot of money. They haven't had the time to put some money aside. When September rolls around but the paychecks don't, how committed to the cause will they be?
Frankly, I hope the NFLPA takes a hit as a result of this. Based on the reporting thus far, they haven't bargained in good faith. Let's see how they react when September rolls around and players aren't getting checks.
Posted Saturday, March 12, 2011 7:59 AM
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Dayton, the 1980s & Nuclear Energy Technology Advances
Gov. Dayton has sided with the DFL's special interest allies in the militant environmental movement rather than siding with Minnesotans.
Apparently, Gov. Dayton didn't take this information into consideration:
Bill Grant, the Deputy Commissioner of Commerce, told the bill's conference committee Friday that the governor has three strict conditions for signing the bill, two of which didn't sit well with lawmakers.
The conditions: No new nuclear plants until there is a federally designated nuclear waste storage facility. Language guarranteeing that ratepayers are not on the hook for plant planning and design costs until it is online. A provision addressing the production of weapons-grade plutonium (already in the House bill).
"The governor believes that all three of these issues need to be addressed before the ban on new nuclear plants is lifted," Grant said. "In other words, we're not interested in a two out of three proposition."
Rep. Joyce Peppin, the House sponsor, wasn't happy with the news.
"It seems like the positions make it virtually impossible to make any of this happen," Peppin said.
After asking about the storage issue, Sen. Julie Rosen added: "Basically this just shuts the whole bill down."
Had he signaled a willingness to build nuclear power plants, Minnesotans would be assured of lower electricity prices. Instead, Gov. Dayton ignored Rolf Westgard's op-ed :
Dayton and many others are concerned about the long-term storage of radioactive spent fuel pellets.
The French deal with this issue for their 58 nuclear plants by reprocessing the spent fuel. Ninety-five percent of the material, including some fissionable plutonium, is recycled into new fuel, and the dangerous 5 percent is vitrified into glass cylinders for storage.
All of those cylinders from 58 reactors are stored in the floor of one large room at La Hague, France. They will eventually go to permanent geologic storage.
During their five years as fuel in commercial power reactors, the pellets produce some plutonium, which joins uranium 235 (U235) as additional fuel, extending fuel life.
After five years, the pellet's percent of U235 and plutonium declines from about 5 percent to 2 percent, and no longer sustains the chain reaction, but the 2 percent is very valuable reactor fuel when recycled.
Gov. Dayton is living in the twentieth century, when the technology that the French are using didn't exist. This is typical Dayton. He hasn't moved his mindset out of the 1980's yet. This was an issue in the 1970s. Technology has advanced a significantly since then. Gov. Dayton apparently hasn't.
If a nation that's as tied to green energy as France gets 80 percent of its energy from nuclear power, there's no justification for Minnesota, and the United States, from joining the 21st Century. That point is all the more emphatic when you consider the cost of heating and lighting a home.
Gov. Dayton is losing on issue after issue. If he wants to stick with his special interest allies, that's his right. It's also what will lead his party of electoral ruin. It's what will cause him to be a one-term governor.
That's the only silver lining to Gov. Dayton's idiotic position on nuclear power.
Posted Saturday, March 12, 2011 10:29 AM
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Reclaiming the Vocabulary, Middle Class Edition
Another of the myths that Democrats want to create through the misuse (some might say abuse) of the vocabulary is the myth that they're the party who cares about the middle class. That's clearly this tweet's message :
I think they gave that up well before Lent. RT Amanda_Scheid I guess the Wisconsin GOP gave up caring for the middle-class for Lent.
It's time conservatives started pushing back on this crap. Is the DFL beng a friend of the middle class by advocating for policies that cause gas prices to skyrocket to $4.00/gallon? Is the DFL being a friend to the middle class when their tax increases cause businesses to lay people off? Are national Democrats being a friend to the middle class when they enacted O'Care, which is a) causing hundreds of thousands of layoffs and b) discourag companies from hiring?
It's a myth that the DFL is a friend of the middle class. It wasn't a myth in the 90s but it's a myth now.
When MCEA pursues an attrition litigation strategy that prevented a coal-fired power plant that would've created several hundred construction jobs that would've lasted 2 years and required 200+ high-paying permanent jobs, is that being middle class-friendly?
Of course they aren't.
The DFL's special interest allies' actions can be tied DIRECTLY to killing jobs. That's isn't a conspiracy theory. That's documented fact. After all, MCEA bragged about killing the Big Stone II coal-fired power plant.
Liberals envision themselves as guardians of the middle class, the First Amendment and various other things. That's their image of themselves. That isn't reality. That used to be true but that hasn't been in a couple of decades.
Posted Saturday, March 12, 2011 3:08 PM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 12-Mar-11 08:18 PM
Really? You think that liberals cared about the middle class two decades ago? I think it's been at least 50 years since they could reasonably make that claim. And as for reality, I think it's been a long lifetime since liberals actually did things that improved the lives of the middle class, or anybody except the liberal elites.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 13-Mar-11 11:10 AM
Yes, I think that Bill Clinton cared about the middle class.
Sen. Klobuchar Picking Winners & Losers
Sen. Klobuchar has joined with Tim Johnson to co-sponsor legislation that picks economic winners and losers :
Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Tim Johnson of South Dakota introduced an energy bill Thursday that focuses on developing domestic renewable energy. The move comes after months of Republican attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and government-funded clean energy projects.
Called the Securing America's Future with Energy and Sustainable Technologies (SAFEST) Act, the bill would establish long-term incentives for the development of biofuels infrastructure, extend ethanol tax credits, and impose a renewable electricity standard of 25 percent by 2025.
Last year, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved a plan with a renewable electricity standard of only 15 percent by 2025.
'The strength of our nation is tied to the strength of our energy economy,' Klobuchar said in a statement announcing the bill. 'At a time of rising gas prices, this bill will provide incentives that can help us utilize more homegrown biofuels, strengthen our homegrown energy economy in Minnesota, and secure our energy future.'
'This legislation invests in jobs on farms and in manufacturing in America,' Johnson added. 'This will prevent us going from importing oil to importing wind turbines and electric cars.'
This is real legislation from pretend politicians who need to be run out of the Senate ASAP. Ethanol has been a total failure, whether you're talking about its worthless gas mileage to consuming refinement capacity to its pathetic environmental record .
Why we'd want to extend subsidies for that type of failure is typical Washington thinking. DC is into subsidizing failures. It's one of its specialties.
My first reaction to this was that Klobuchar and Johnson are overthinking this. After thinking this through, though, my reaction is that they're doing as their militant environmentalist supporters want them to react. They're up for re-election and they need to fill their coffers again.
Their first reaction is to pander to their special interest groups, then watch the checks come rolling in.
This isn't serious legislation. Sen. Klobuchar and Sen. Johnson aren't serious legislators. This is legislation premised on the belief that government is good at picking economic winners and losers. History says that government is pathetic at it. Utterly pathetic.
The simplest way to eliminate this special interest-created crisis is by telling the special interests to take a hike. We've got a couple centuries of energy resources sitting at our fingertips. The problem is that these special interest groups' litigation is preventing us from tapping into those resources.
We're known as the Saudi Arabia of coal. Why aren't we using that? Technology has advanced to the point where storage of spent nuclear fuel rods isn't the problem that it posed 30 years ago. Gov. Dayton told the conference committee dealing with lifting the moratorium on nuclear power that he won't sign their bill . Here's the conditions for his signing the nuclear moratorium ban:
The conditions: No new nuclear plants until there is a federally designated nuclear waste storage facility. Language guarranteeing that ratepayers are not on the hook for plant planning and design costs until it is online. A provision addressing the production of weapons-grade plutonium (already in the House bill).
Rolf Westgard shot down Gov. Dayton's arguments with ease:
The French deal with this issue for their 58 nuclear plants by reprocessing the spent fuel. Ninety-five percent of the material, including some fissionable plutonium, is recycled into new fuel, and the dangerous 5 percent is vitrified into glass cylinders for storage.
All of those cylinders from 58 reactors are stored in the floor of one large room at La Hague, France. They will eventually go to permanent geologic storage.
During their five years as fuel in commercial power reactors, the pellets produce some plutonium, which joins uranium 235 (U235) as additional fuel, extending fuel life.
After five years, the pellet's percent of U235 and plutonium declines from about 5 percent to 2 percent, and no longer sustains the chain reaction, but the 2 percent is very valuable reactor fuel when recycled.
The storage issue isn't an issue, meaning that Gov. Dayton either has another motive for making this a precondition or he's badly ill-informed. Personally, I'm leaning toward his having an ulterior motive, most likely his cowtowing to militant environmentalist groups.
Time after time, lefties like Sen. Klobuchar and Gov. Dayton ignore science, then accuse conservatives of ignoring science. The facts are clear. The ethanol that Sen. Klobuchar's legislation would subsidize is inefficient in terms of gas mileage and a pollution hog.
Nuclear power plants, oil refineries and new oil rigs won't get built because organizations like MCEA won't let them get built.
If Sen. Klobuchar was interested in proven solutions, she needs to ignore these special interest groups when their agenda runs contrary to the needs of We The People.
Unfortunately, I'll be surprised if that happens. If it does, the first thing I'll do is look skyward to see if there are flocks of pigs flying in V-formation.
Posted Sunday, March 13, 2011 10:29 AM
Comment 1 by Rex Newman at 13-Mar-11 08:12 PM
The Strib is all over Michele Bachmann again, claiming she's not a "deep" thinker. Never a peep about Betty McCollum or Amy Klobuchar, who show few signs of thinking.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 13-Mar-11 09:36 PM
I can't argue that Michele stepped in it but your point is exceptionally well taken. Klobuchar smiles alot, sounds relatively reasonable in a liberal way but shows no signs of intelligence.
Comment 2 by Brian at 14-Mar-11 01:04 AM
You think Amy got that 25 percent by 2025 from Gov. Pawlenty? I think that is about what he signed into law in Mn.
Response 2.1 by Gary Gross at 14-Mar-11 09:43 AM
I'd bet you're right. The major difference is that Gov. Pawlenty learned from his mistake. Klobuchar didn't.
Comment 3 by J. Ewing at 14-Mar-11 10:09 AM
As soon as legislation uses the word "mandate" you know it's trying to make something happen that would not and should not happen if the free market and common sense prevailed. You have to ask for what REASON would anyone want "25 by 25"?
Comment 4 by Shelley at 14-Mar-11 04:20 PM
Mn has already met its RES with hydro. Time to count it! The"GREEN" renewable energy mandate is costing ratepayers w/subsidies up front and higher utilities on the backside. The hundreds of miles of powerlines are in the middle. No CO2 is reduced. Wind energy production is "Trade Secret!" Ratepayers are forced to buy at the highest price without proof of what they are getting. Contested Case at the PUC starting 3-15 on the subject. Look at www.goodhuewindtruth.com for more info.
Response 4.1 by Gary Gross at 14-Mar-11 04:52 PM
Shelley, Thanks for that information. I'll certainly check it out Tuesday am.
DFL, Voter Fraud, Photo ID & Misdirection
Anyone who's paid more than a minute's worth of attention to Minnesota's election system knows that it's got a great reputation. The problem with that perception is that Minnesota's reputation is sliding downhill because we aren't focusing on what's most important.
For instance, SecState Ritchie, with assistance from the DFL chairman , insists that ease of access to voting is the top priority. Certainly, I don't want unreasonable barriers built to prevent people from voting. That said, I don't want the system to be so easy that anyone, including felons and " volunteers ", can vote. Here's what then-Chairman Brian Melendez said about what the DFL's priorities are with regard to the election system:
'The Secretary of State's most important duty is protecting the citizens' right to vote, that crown jewel of liberty that safeguards all other rights. But Dan Severson would toss up barriers to citizens voting. His rhetoric is disrespectful to the hard-working election officials who, county by county, community by community, shepherd our democratic processes. Severson is a radical partisan who is unsuited to the office of Secretary of State.
The "barriers" that Chairman Melendez is talking about are what sane people refer to as safeguards.
Republicans think that it's important that the people who cast votes are eligible to vote. That means implementing a system that prevents felons from voting. That means implementing a system that prevents "volunteers", possibly including "volunteers" from other states, from voting because a legally registered Minnesota voter vouched for "volunteers":
Election Day is upon us. You are confirmed to volunteer with ACT (America Coming Together - http://www.actforvictory.org/) on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov 2.
We will be creating name badges that include your Ward and Precinct information for each of the thousands of volunteers that day to make it easier to find a volunteer to vouch for a voter at the polls.
I am emailing you to request your street address, city and zipcode. We've already got your other contact information, but your record in our database does not include this information.
You can save us time on election day by replying today to this email with this information, or give us a call at [phone number with St. Paul area code].
In order to get your badge correct, please reply by Thursday.
Thank you for your help and cooperation. See you on Election Day!
Once a ballot's been fed into the optical scanner, it's impossible to repair the damage caused by felons voting illegally. Yes, you can prosecute them and send them back to prison but their vote still counts.
When the DFL, whether it's Mark Ritchie, Brian Melendez, Ken Martin or one of their special interest allies like Common Cause MN, talk about Minnesota being the gold standard, they immediately and exclusively talk about recounts turning out great.
That's fair enough. Minnesota's recount system is the gold standard. That's because Mary Kiffmeyer put it together. The job was done right.
Saying that recounts are done flawlessly is proof that the entire election system if flawless is misinformation. Recounts are only part of the election system. Recounts only tell us that the ballots that got read into the optical scanner got counted properly.
That's the part that Rep. Kiffmeyer refers to as the back end of the process. Rep. Kiffmeyer's Photo ID legislation is the solution to the gaping loopholes in the system's front end.
When a Joe Mansky cites "a compliance rate of 99.99 percent", he's basing that on potentially incomplete information. He's basing that on the information that 28 felons voted illegally in Ramsey County out of 278,000 ballots being cast.
What his impressive-sounding statistics can't tell us is whether people who were vouched for were legal residents of that precinct/legislative district/congressional district. Those statistics can't prove whether the person is even a resident of the United States.
Simply put, the statistics are based on the assumption that people didn't commit voter fraud. Let's consider the verifiable facts about the front end of Minnesota's election system. We know that:
felons cast illegal ballots in 2008;
a progressive special interest group named ACT put together an elaborate voter fraud scheme in 2004 and
a staffer at the Clark Lake Group Home filled out an absentee ballot for Jim Stene , a mentally disabled resident of the Clark Lake Group Home.
Based on this verified information, I'd argue that there's tons of things to tighten up on the front end of Minnesota's election system.
It isn't just that the front end of the system suceptible to fraud. It's that group home residents are particularly vulnerable. That's why Rep. Kiffmeyer included this guardianship provision in HF210 :
Subdivision 1. Polling place roster. (a) An individual seeking to vote shall sign a polling place roster which states that the individual is at least 18 years of age, a citizen of the United States, has resided in Minnesota for 20 days immediately preceding the election, maintains residence at the address shown, is not under a guardianship in which the court order revokes the individual's right to vote , has not been found by a court of law to be legally incompetent to vote or has the right to vote because, if the individual was convicted of a felony, the felony sentence has expired or been completed or the individual has been discharged from the sentence, is registered and has not already voted in the election. The roster must also state: "I understand that deliberately providing false information is a felony punishable by not more than five years imprisonment and a fine of not more than $10,000, or both."
If this bill becomes law, which it should, the apparently corrupt people at the Clark Lake Group Home might think twice about preying on a vulnerable person like Jim Stene.
There's something more despicable involved in the Clark Lake Group Home that transcends politics. What type of despicable people would prey on someone this vulnerable for political gain?
When I listened to Mitch Berg interview Monty Jensen, Ron Kaus and Jim Stene's dad Saturday, I was already agitated. When I heard Al Stene talking about his son and the trauma Jim suffered, my heart absolutely broke. You can't be human and hear this without a) your heart breaking and b) clenching your fists in anger.
If the DFL wants to insist that Minnesota's election system, front to back, is flawless, they'll need to explain away all of the voting irregularities over the past 4 election cycles. They'll need to admit that there's more to a great election system than just having orderly recounts.
I've said this before and I'll repeat it now: The DFL's claims that voter fraud doesn't exist in Minnesota isn't credible. It's impossible to find a) if you don't have a system that verifies a person's identity and b) if you're unwilling to scrutinize the system inside and out front to back.
Posted Sunday, March 13, 2011 2:59 PM
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