November 19-21, 2013
Nov 19 02:07 Nine years and getting stronger Nov 19 02:42 Obama ignores Lincoln, snubs history of Gettysburg Nov 19 03:37 President Obama -- proven liar Nov 19 09:33 Producers vs. Wasters Nov 20 01:27 Ending the ACA -- messaging matters Nov 20 06:38 Rebecca Otto-Iron Range relations get frosty Nov 21 08:36 Clintonista throws President Obama under the bus Nov 21 14:37 Gov. Dayton criticizes bill he signed Nov 21 22:35 Universities doing the DFL's work
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Nine years and getting stronger
The first thing I'd like to say to my friends and followers who faithfully read LFR is a simple Thank You. The thought that I'm having a positive impact on the conservative and TEA Party movements is inspiring and humbling to me. Nine years ago today, I created the original LFR via Blogspot. Back then, I chose Common Sense Conservative as the name of the blog.
When the Orange Revolution erupted in the Ukraine, I left a comment on a Ukrainian blog in which I said that "The revolution will be blogged." I wish I could remember the name of the blog but it escapes me now. I remember that King frequently visited the blog so perhaps he remembers. Minutes after leaving that comment, I decided to change the name of my blog to "Let Freedom Ring Throughout the World", partially because of the great liberation movement that was afoot at the time, partially because I'm partial to revolutions as a direct result of my being born on the 4th of July.
Speaking of which, I met King as a direct result of the Orange Revolution. Thank God for that. King has been a friend, a mentor in ways he possibly didn't notice at the time and a fantastic political ally.
King was my first friend in the MOB. Shortly after that, I met Mitch Berg at a MOB event here in St. Cloud. I'm proud to still call Mitch a willing co-conspirator in plotting the restoration of the free world and a true friend.
It wasn't until that spring that I met Leo Pusateri. The GOP and DFL were doing their end-of-session flyarounds that day. King introduced me to Leo. Minutes later, we decided to form the SCBA, aka the St. Cloud Bloggers Association. Somehow, we lost a member of that elite group along the way.
Throughout the years, LFR has helped the conservative movement by promoting a positive agenda for conservatives to be for. That isn't to say I haven't criticized wrong-headed policies. It's impossible to develop a positive, pro-growth, solutions-oriented agenda until you've identified what needs fixing.
I must've threatened the progressive powers-that-be because a hacker took LFR down from 2/22/12 through 3/9/12. At the time, I was calling out ABM, the League of Women Voters and Common Cause for their attempt to hijack the redistricting process.
Lately, I've written extensively about the corruption, financial mismanagement and enrollment declines at St. Cloud State. In that time, I've broken more stories about St. Cloud State than all other news agencies combined. That isn't bad for a guy who was recently called a "gossip columnist" by a member of the St. Cloud Times. The Times, BTW, is the official stenographer of the Potter administration.
President Potter's on-campus apologists have called me "an arch-conservative who doesn't have St. Cloud State's best interests at heart." I've never hidden my conservatism but I'm a bit confused about the difference between a conservative and an arch-conservative. I'm guessing that arch-conservative sounds more threatening. Oh well.
Be that as it may, much of the information that I've written about SCSU is information given to me by a liberal professor who simply got tired of President Potter's financial mismanagement. President Potter won't like this but his troubles are far from over.
Another thing I've focused on is MnSure, the DFL-created health insurance exchange. Minnesotans should be proud to have the first website that gets weekends and holidays off . With such a target-rich environment surrounding me, there's little wonder why I write as many posts as I do.
I've occasionally stayed up until 6:00 am transcribing testimony from the legislature or reading bills. That's why I was the first blogger to predict the e-tabs funding mechanism for the Vikings stadium would fail miserably.
Possibly my proudest moment was predicting Chip Cravaack's victory over Jim Oberstar in 2010, which I did 17 days before the election.
As I enter my 10th year of blogging, I promise to make LFR more prominent, informative and influential than ever before. I hope to do that by doing more first-hand reporting on local and statewide issues. If you see something that doesn't feel right, feel free to contact me. I'll gladly help if I'm able.
It's been a privilege to keep conservatives informed. I've covered St. Cloud State, the legislature and the Haditha Marines, almost all of whom were first accused of committing war crimes by Jack Murtha but who eventually had their charges dropped. I've been an active participant in the Freedom Movement, starting with the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, then moving onto the Purple Finger Revolution in Iraq, then moving immediately to the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon. Later, I was at the tip of the spear for the start of the TEA Party revolution that led to the biggest landslide in the past century.
What lies ahead is beyond my best guess. I'll just promise that I'll continue to make LFR the most informative blog it can be.
Finally, thanks for your support. It's been a blast.
Posted Tuesday, November 19, 2013 2:07 AM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 19-Nov-13 08:55 AM
Congratulations and best wishes. You're on my "must read" every day.
Comment 2 by Patrick-M at 19-Nov-13 09:13 AM
What J. Ewing said. Thanks Gary for keeping up the fight.
Comment 3 by Jethro at 19-Nov-13 09:36 AM
It is rare for me to miss a day reading LFR. Sadly, true investigative reporting is almost nonexistent in the mainstream media today. I cannot remember the last time a St. Cloud Times reporter did a serious investigative piece on a company or organization involved in corruption. What about Obama's "you can keep your heath plan" mantra? How did the Times miss an FBI visit to SCSU? How did they miss Coborn's apartments losing millions of dollars a year? Congratulations to Gary on "the revolution" because this blog has proven its salt over and over. The arguments are clearly well thought out, reasonable, and logically stated. The data used is from credible sources. Being called a gossip columnist or an arch conservative is utterly laughable. This is an emotional argument used by LFR critics because they apparently cannot refute LFR with a fact based argument. So a liberal professor is tired of Potter's financial mismanagement? Doing the right thing by speaking out against corruption should be vocalized by EVERYONE regardless of liberal/conservative leanings, political persuasion, gender, ethnicity, etc. Is LFR perfect and do I agree with everything that was written? No, but I have never read anything in LFR and said to myself, "that was way out there." Let Freedom Ring Blog truly lives up to its title. Congratulations, Gary!
Comment 4 by Gary Gross at 19-Nov-13 09:36 AM
Thanks Jerry & Pat. It's great to have allies like you.
Comment 5 by eric z. at 20-Nov-13 07:59 PM
Congrats. It is good to have you doing what you do.
As said before, your live blogging, when done, adds much coverage where it otherwise would be absent.
Strib has an item you might want to look at, and probably/possibly post about, "Overhaul OK'd for MnSCU colleges and universities - by: MAURA LERNER , Star Tribune - Updated: November 20, 2013".
It is not focused on SCSU, but you might enjoy it, as yet more well-intentioned commentary on something you believe important.
Comment 6 by Gary Gross at 20-Nov-13 08:28 PM
Thanks Eric. I want great colleges & universities. I've had a bird's eye view of MnSCU, including St. Cloud State.
I've seen that MnSCU is essentially a rubberstamp for the universities. As for SCSU, much of the information I'm getting is from liberal professors.
They're tired of Potter's abusive behavior. They're tired, too, of seeing their department budgets shrunk because Potter's trying to pay for his 'real estate' ventures, aka Coborn's Plaza & the National Hockey & Event Center.
This is a time when left & right meet.
Obama ignores Lincoln, snubs history of Gettysburg
Last night, Megyn Kelly interviewed Salena Zito of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review about President Obama's foolish decision to not attend the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. Here's the video of that interview:
What's incredibly stunning is that President Obama has frequently cast himself as a modern-day Lincoln, which is a fraud. Lincoln liberated slaves. President Obama's policies have created incredible hardships on people while limiting their options.
The other thing that's stunningly disappointing is that he's missing this historic opportunity to "speak at the annual meeting of the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council in Washington, DC." Ms. Zito highlighted the fact that Gettysburg "is maybe a 20 minute helicopter ride" from the White House.
This is what being politically tone deaf looks like. The first black president won't attend the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address so he can speak with the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council in Washington, DC. Where's President Obama's sense of history? This certainly puts into question whether his expressed affinity to President Lincoln is schtick or whether it's genuine.
Ms. Zito added that President Obama was invited to speak at the event over a year ago. It's puzzling that the first black president would opt to not speak at this historic event. Sending a low-level cabinet secretary to the event is shameful.
Posted Tuesday, November 19, 2013 2:42 AM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 21-Nov-13 04:24 PM
Gary:
Lets not forget on the 50th anniversary of JFK's debt he was doing ceremonies to honor JFK forgetting that Kennedy:
* Stood up to evil even if it might mean war.
* Cut taxes for everybody to raise the economy which worked unlike the stimulus bill.
* And lets not forget Kennedy asked what can you do for the government not what he government can do for you. Obama will say the government needs to give you food, health care, your money, and everything else.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
President Obama -- proven liar
Andy McCarthy's article brilliantly exposes President Obama as a serial liar. Liar is a strong word, especially when used in connection with a sitting US president. Unfortunately for this administration, Mr. McCarthy has proof that President Obama is a serial liar:
But that's not the half of it. Obama's claim that unwelcome cancellations are confined to the individual-insurance market is another brazen lie. In the weekend column, I link to the excellent work of Powerline's John Hinderaker, who has demonstrated that, for over three years, the Obama administration's internal estimates have shown that most Americans who are covered by 'employer plans' will also lose their coverage under Obamacare. Mind you, 156 million Americans get health coverage through their jobs.
John cites the Federal Register, dated June 17, 2010, beginning at page 34,552 (Vol. 75, No. 116). It includes a chart that outlines the Obama administration's projections. The chart indicates that somewhere between 39 and 69 percent of employer plans would lose their 'grandfather' protection by 2013. In fact, for small-business employers, the high-end estimate is a staggering 80 percent (and even on the low end, it's just a shade under half, 49 percent).
That's proof that President Obama knew he wasn't telling the truth when he said people could keep their plans if they liked their plans. That's part of the proof that President Obama repeatedly lied to the American people but it isn't all of it:
My friends at the American Freedom Law Center (on whose advisory board I sit) are representing Priests for Life, a group aggrieved by Obamacare's denial of religious liberty - specifically, the ACA's mandate that believers, despite their faith-based objections, provide their employees with coverage for the use of abortifacients and contraceptives. On October 17, the Obama Department of Health and Human Services, represented by the Obama Justice Department, submitted a brief to the federal district court in Washington, opposing Priests for Life's summary judgment motion. On page 27 of its brief, the Justice Department makes the following remarkable assertion:
The [ACA's] grandfathering provision's incremental transition does not undermine the government's interests in a significant way. [Citing, among other sources, the Federal Register.] Even under the grandfathering provision, it is projected that more group health plans will transition to the requirements under the regulations as time goes on. Defendants have estimated that a majority of group health plans will have lost their grandfather status by the end of 2013.
HHS and the Justice Department cite the same section of the Federal Register referred to by John Hinderaker, as well as an annual survey on 'Employer Health Benefits' compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2012.
The Obama Justice Department verified as fact that the grandfathering provision would be rendered moot by the end of 2013. That isn't just the 5% in the individual market. It includes the "156 million Americans" who "get health coverage through their jobs."
The last time I checked, 156,000,000 people is approximately 50% of the population of the United States. Based on HHS's calculations, tens of millions of people will be pushed into the exchanges as a direct result of the Affordable Care Act.
President Obama had hoped he'd solve his credibility problems with his disastrous press conference last Thursday. Based on Andy McCarthy's and John Hinderaker's work, it appears President Obama's problems are just beginning.
Posted Tuesday, November 19, 2013 3:37 AM
No comments.
Producers vs. Wasters
One of my weekly highlights is reading Glenn Reynolds' columns for USA Today. This week's column focuses on "the America that works":
Thanks to the fracking revolution, the air is cleaner, gas is cheaper, and petro-state dictatorships have less geopolitical influence. But this happened not as a result of some big-government program, but as the result of individuals staking their lives and fortunes on a risky venture, one that, as Zuckerman notes, made some rich but left others near bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, the America that destroys wealth keeps plodding along, doing what it 'does best':
The America that doesn't work was very much in evidence this past week, as the Obamacare roll out continued to be -- in Democratic Sen. Max Baucus' memorable phrase -- a "train wreck."
I'd add that HealthCare.gov isn't the only example of government sloth destroying wealth. Last week, I wrote that MnSure, Minnesota's state-run health insurance exchange, is the first website that gets weekends and holidays off :
Service Notice
The Contact Center is closed today, Veterans Day. In addition, federal account and application services are undergoing maintenance and are unavailable, 8 pm Saturday - 6:30 am Tuesday. You can still view plans .
I told Ox about this, too:
Seriously? I just tried to login to the site to view and apply for plans at 10:33 pm on Saturday, Nov 9, 2013 and I got this message:
the system is available monday through saturday, 6 am to 10 pm please visit us during those hours to apply and enroll Thank you for your interest in MNsure
Thanks to the fracking revolution, America is inching closer to energy independance that doesn't rely on Middle East tyrants. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, Americans a) will pay higher premiums at a time when we're becoming a Part-Time nation, b) will have fewer choices for health care, c) won't always be able to keep the doctor or team of doctors treating them for cancer and d) will have to worry about doctor shortages.
Neither the state or federal government has the requisite skills to run health insurance exchanges. There's plenty of proof that they're pretty much worthless at it.
Thanks to the government's failed attempt to get HealthCare.gov running, a new poll out today shows that, if the 2012 election were held today, Mitt Romney would defeat President Obama :
As more bad poll numbers continue to pour in for President Barack Obama, a new survey finds that if the 2012 election matchup were held this month, Mitt Romney would hold the edge with the voters.
Romney topped Obama 49 percent to 45 percent among registered voters in the Washington Post-ABC News poll released Tuesday. Among all Americans, the 2012 rivals would be tied, at 47 percent.
I think that signals the end of the HopeyChangey Express. I think it might also signal the start of President Obama's lame duck status.
Posted Tuesday, November 19, 2013 9:33 AM
No comments.
Ending the ACA -- messaging matters
The health care industry experts that I've talked with agree wholeheartedly about one thing: the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, will fail. They also agree with me that bill's title is its biggest weakness. What they don't agree on is the timetable that it'll happen on.
The official bill title is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. To fully appreciate why that title is a major weakness, it's important to talk about the Democrats' chanting point for about a week. That chanting point talked about substandard policies and how the ACA would put people into better policies.
That isn't reality. I wrote here about a young married couple. Here's their story:
The information is not very complete as I don't see anything about deductible or other detailed info, but it does given an actual price as to the 'Premium.' It is VERY SCARY! For example, my insurance plan right now for my spouse and I costs $545 a month with 100% coverage after my $2500 deductible. We are both 32 years old. When I looked at this site for 80% coverage it says it will be $954.78 a month! So compare my old Plan: 100% coverage for $545 a month To New Plan: 80% Coverage for $955 a month. This is only only an estimate but it is VERY Scary for me to see this kind of increase in rates and reduction in benefits!
First, the thought that a young, healthy married couple would be charged $955 a month for health insurance under the ACA is outrageous. That's highway robbery. Unfortunately, that's just the start of it. Let's imagine the husband suffering a heart attack and getting hospitalized for a week.
While the odds aren't high of that happening at age 32, it isn't impossible either. That bill, depending on what procedures are performed, could approach $100,000. Under their original plan, this couple's out-of-pocket expenses would be $6,540 for the premiums, with another $2,500 for the deductible. That's a total of $9,040 for the year.
With the Affordable Care Act policy, the couple's out-of-pocket expenses would be $11,460 for the premium plus the $5,000 deductible plus the 20% of the expenses beyond the deductible, which is $19,000. The grand total under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would approximately be $35,000, almost quadruple what it would've been with their old policy. The Affordable Care Act policy would cost that family significantly more than their old, supposedly substandard plan would cost them.
It's questionable whether the policies sold under the Affordable Care Act will provide more protection to families. It's questionable, too, whether these policies are more affordable than the policies they got kicked out of.
If Republicans want to put the proverbial wooden stake through the Affordable Care Act's heart, they should solicit the public to tell their story about how the ACA policies will cost them more than their old policies did. I'd recommend that the superPACs start with significant ad buys against each swing-district Democrat. Let them know how unaffordable the ACA is. Let them know that these families are mad as hell and that they demand a solution to the ACA.
Running a campaign that tinkering around the edges of the Affordable Care Act won't help is important because tinkering won't solve the policy problem. The only thing that tinkering will do is provide temporary political cover for Democrats. That isn't a solution. That's a band-aid.
Posted Wednesday, November 20, 2013 1:27 AM
Comment 1 by MtkaMoose at 20-Nov-13 10:01 PM
But Gary, their old policy must have come from a "bad apple" insurance company - right?!?!?
Comment 2 by walter hanson at 21-Nov-13 04:21 PM
Gary:
You want to talk about renaming garbage the President yesterday apparently had journalists for a meeting and he expressed his concern that the insurance companies had called renewal notices for the better policies "Cancellation notices" an effort to blame the insurance companies instead of Obama and the act are in motion.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Rebecca Otto-Iron Range relations get frosty
Recently, Rebecca Otto voted against approving exploratory leases for precious metals. This website, titled Dump Otto , was quickly created to show how upset the Iron Range DFL are with Otto:
Auditor Otto says that she and her family live 'in a wind-powered, passive solar home they designed and built with their own hands' in ritzy Marine on St. Croix, MN, a Twin Cities exurb. She also says she owns a hybrid car. It may be news to Otto, but wind energy, solar energy and hybrids ALL depend on copper and nickel.
A single 3MW wind turbine needs 4.7 tons of copper. Where does Auditor Otto think that copper should come from?
Rebecca Otto stirred up a hornet's nest by voting against these leases:
But the real issue is that an elected official who has received significant support out of Northeast Minnesota over her past elections not only voted against a generation of potential new mining jobs, but then she sent out a fundraising letter bragging about it.
That paragraph sounds like Iron Range DFLers are taking things a bit personally. They even corrected her for not telling the truth:
She says that copper mining hasn't 'gone well' anywhere it's been done. That's not true. She obviously hasn't done her homework. She's clearly never heard of the Flambeau Mine - right next door in Wisconsin. It operated for several years and has been totally reclaimed, and has been found to be in full compliance with all Wisconsin standards.
I've written about Flambeau in this post . In fact, I included these before and after pictures of Flambeau in that post:
This picture shows the restored mine site:
I just wish these Rangers would figure it out that the DFL is ruled by Metrocrats who hate mining with a passion. Theoretically, Sen. Bakk is from the Arrowhead but that's more facade than truth. I looked at his campaign disclosure form last spring. What's interesting is that he got a single contribution from northern Minnesota. The rest of his campaign contributions came from the Twin Cities. In verifiable terms, Sen. Bakk is a Ranger in name only. He, like Ms. Otto, is a Metrocrat who doesn't fight for mining jobs.
Posted Wednesday, November 20, 2013 6:38 AM
Comment 1 by Terry Stone at 20-Nov-13 09:49 AM
The DFL now have their own RINO in Senator Bakk ; Ranger In Name Only.
Comment 2 by Chad Q at 20-Nov-13 04:25 PM
And yet the DFL faithful on the range and everywhere else in MN will continue to vote for those limousine liberals that vote to deny good paying jobs to those that so desperately need them. They get the government they deserve.
Comment 3 by walter hanson at 21-Nov-13 04:17 PM
Gary:
I realize that they were working to dump Otto, but didn't Dayton and Swanson who are running for reelection cast the same vote along with Mark Ritchie?
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Clintonista throws President Obama under the bus
Last night, Clinton consigliere Lanny Davis threw President Obama under the proverbial Clinton bus during his interview with Megyn Kelly. I was astonished that he made this statement at the outset of the interview:
LANNY DAVIS: Well first, I hate the idea that we're blaming Barack Obama when other people like myself and members of Congress have supported for years this national health care idea. I think we all let the American people down by not thinking through how complicated trying to revolutionize the health care system would be and I think we have to fess up that we messed up and maybe hit the reset button and start to take another look at a more incremental approach that brings Republicans over so this isn't a partisan issue anymore.
Part of Davis' statement indicates that he wants Democrats to not get hurt in the 2014 midterm elections. Part of him is willing to accept partial responsibility for approving of the Affordable Care Act. That said, there's no doubt that the Clintons have a purpose in sending Lanny Davis into this situation.
Their purpose is to get rid of the Affordable Care Act before Hillary's campaign. The last thing she wants to do is deal with this disaster. By getting out in front of things, she can look more moderate while casting President Obama as a hard-line ideologue. Watch the entire interview here:
The entire interview lasts 5 minutes so it's well worth your while.
Posted Thursday, November 21, 2013 8:36 AM
Comment 1 by Jethro at 21-Nov-13 09:13 AM
According to the video, the approval rating for the new healthcare law is 31%. Forget hitting the reset button...hit the Obamacare self destruct button.
Gov. Dayton criticizes bill he signed
According to this article , Gov. Dayton is criticizing the construction of the Senate Office Building, aka SOB. That's rather strange considering the fact that Gov. Dayton signed the Tax Bill that included funding for the new SOB:
Plans for a controversial new Minnesota Senate building that would include a reflecting pool, skylights and a fitness center drew a cool response from Gov. Mark Dayton Wednesday.
'Any new building should be functional and modest,' Dayton told the Star Tribune. 'And if it can be built for less than the amount allocated, it definitely should be.'
Apparently, Gov. Dayton is attempting to pull off a President Obama bystander-in-chief chief executive act. He signed the Tax Bill that included funding for the SOB. That appropriation was for $90,000,000. Did Gov. Dayton give it a second thought at the time he signed the tax bill?
Let's remember that Gov. Dayton could've line-item vetoed the appropriation without vetoing the Tax Bill. It's important that we remember that including funding for an office building in a tax bill is likely unconstitutional.
New details of the gleaming, five-story building emerged after a two-day workshop last week. According to a draft design obtained by the Star Tribune, it would have many of the standard features of a modern legislative structure: offices for senators and staffers, parking ramps and hearing rooms.
But according to a report from the workshop, architects, designers and key legislators also debated elements such as roof skylights, the location of the gymnasium and a glass-enclosed walkway at street level.
In other words, Sen. Bakk's initiative spends money taxpayers can't afford on a building that's more opulent than politicians need. Sen. Bakk's actions shout that he doesn't care about the taxpayers who'd pay for this building with their taxes.
Former Rep. Jim Knoblach has filed a lawsuit claiming that the appropriation of money for the SOB is a violation of the single-subject clause of the Minnesota Constitution, found in Article IV, Section 17. It's likely that the appropriation will get thrown out because funding the construction of a building has nothing to do with setting tax policy for the state.
Sen. Bakk insists that including the funding for the SOB is appropriate. Then again, he insisted that putting a prevailing wage provision in the 1997 Tax Bill was legitimate, too. The Minnesota Supreme Court disagreed with then-Rep. Bakk on that one. Sen. Bakk doesn't have much credibility about whether something is constitutional because he's shown contempt for Minnesota's Constitution before.
As for Gov. Dayton, he's shown a willingness to sign accountability provisions into law when Republicans ran the House and Senate, then sign the repeal of those provisions the minute Democrats control the legislature. In other words, he's an unprincipled man who won't do the right thing if the spotlight hasn't been shined on him. He certainly didn't mind signing the farm equipment repair sales tax increase into law. It wasn't until he got to FarmFest that he reversed course . Then he reversed himself again.
The reality is that Gov. Dayton and the DFL are the defenders of the special interests, not Main Street. This year alone, Democrats voted to raise taxes on the middle class and the working poor. In the bill that included the sales tax increases, they tucked in the funding for the Senate Office Building.
How fitting is it that Gov. Dayton, Sen. Bakk and the DFL used the Tax Bill to fund a luxury office building for themselves, then use the same bill to tax hard-hit farmers, the middle class and working poor?
The new building itself will cost $63 million, with the remainder for parking structures.
Amos Briggs, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, a supporter of the project, said the plans are not yet final. 'These drawings and models change day by day, based on cost limitations, tenant feedback and site restrictions,' Briggs said. A final design plan, he said, must be approved by House and Senate Rules committees.
Simply put, the SOB shouldn't be built. These features shouldn't be considered. They didn't expand the number of senators, which means this office building is mostly about pampering the Senate. In this instance, that means pampering Sen. Bakk.
It's clear that Sen. Bakk wanted to work in a taxpayer-funded Taj Mahal shrine. Those features didn't just accidentally make their way into an architect's proposals.
Posted Thursday, November 21, 2013 2:37 PM
Comment 1 by Bob J. at 22-Nov-13 12:32 PM
Someone should just tell Dayton that Zygi Wilf can use the new SOB free of charge. He'll fall right into line.
Universities doing the DFL's work
This afternoon, a faithful reader of LFR alerted me to the fact that MnSure will be on the St. Cloud State campus to recruit young healthy adults for MnSure. Here's what the announcement said:
Faculty/Staff:
A number of departments on campus are involved in a partnership to educate students about the Affordable Health Care Act and to assist students who are uninsured (or underinsured) get insured through MNSURE. Rolanda Mason, of the Minnesota Health Insurance Exchange Advisory Task Force and other staff from Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid will discuss and answer questions to help students get the right health insurance. Please inform students about the upcoming educational sessions scheduled for November 26 and December 2. More details are listed below.
When it comes to campus advocacy organizations, the Women's Center is among the most partisan organizations on campus. Think of them as the DFL's on-campus tentacles. The Minnesota Health Insurance Exchange Advisory Task Force knows that students under the age of 26 can be insured through their parents' policy. That's one of the Democrats' favorite selling points.
What this means is that the DFL is using student-funded organizations on campus to sell health insurance. Like President Obama, the DFL knows that they're in trouble if they don't get lots of young healthies signed up through the exchange. The SCSU Women's Center is complicit in selling that insurance.
The Women's Center is funded by the taxpayers. Taxpayers have a right to expect the money to not be used for purely partisan purposes. Further, the event notice is condescending. Saying that "health care can be confusing" is the ultimate in condescension. These are college students, not third graders.
Riffing off of that point, these students understand their choices. If students aren't purchasing health insurance, it's likely that they don't like their options. Telling them that the policy they purchase has to have ambulatory care doesn't make much sense to a healthy 28-year-old.
The problem isn't that health care can be confusing." It's that the options available through MnSure and the Affordable Care Act aren't appealing. That's what happens when bureaucracies collide with free market options. Free markets might take time adjusting but they wise up or they go bankrupt. Bureaucracies will take time and they won't adjust. Unfortunately, they won't go bankrupt for having stupid, unresponsive ideas. Each year, they know they'll get a new infusion of cash to tide them over until the next year.
Rather than sending people to college campuses to sell policies kids don't need and can't afford, the Dayton administration should spend more time increasing sensible options for students. That way, they can buy a policy that makes sense for them rather than a policy that the government, in their inifinite wisdom, says they need.
The notion that taxpayers should fund an on-campus advocacy group is appalling. That this advocacy organization is helping implement a partisan policy is unjustifiable.
Posted Thursday, November 21, 2013 10:35 PM
No comments.
