October 28, 2010
Oct 28 19:34 UMD Censorship Outrage Oct 28 16:26 The Ultimate X Factor Oct 28 04:18 Duluth Mayor Email Leaked Oct 28 06:24 Lenczewski's Misleading Mailer Oct 28 22:44 IP Opponent Endorses Chip Cravaack
Prior Months: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009
UMD Censorship Outrage
I just read a tweet from the MNCRs announcing that UMD is allowing this picture to be posted.
According to the MNCRs, they weren't allowed to put up pro-Emmer signs. Is this proof that UMD officially means the University of Mark Dayton? It appears so.
It's time for conservatives to go public with boldness that they're being treated like second class citizens on college campuses. It's time that the story got told that the powers-that-be at some major universities think of themselves as above the law.
Earlier this week, MDE's Luke Hellier posted about Frank Dolinar, a former SCSU professor, destroying Tom Emmer signs :
UPDATE: I confirmed with Ramsey County that the man in question was in fact arrested for
"He was booked for 5th degree misdemeanor arson and disorderly conduct."
The man in question is Mr. Frank Dolinar. Mr. Dolinar is a former Professor at Saint Cloud State University. His LinkedIn page says his one interest is "electing DFL candidates."
Why do liberals feel threatened by confident conservatives? More importantly, why do they ignore the First Amendment when the opinions differs from their own beliefs?
Frankly, it isn't difficult to make the case that progressives are intellectual cowards who can't win a fair fight. They have to hide their agenda until they're elected. Even then, they have to concoct silly mantras like "the party of no" in an effort to get people to believe that conservatives are as intellectually bankrupt as they are.
DFL Censorship: It's already invaded college campuses.
Posted Thursday, October 28, 2010 7:34 PM
Comment 1 by Ryan Lyk at 28-Oct-10 11:00 PM
I am the chairman at UMD for the College Republicans who took this picture and posted this story.
There was a voicemail on my phone from you guys, but no call back number. Please e-mail me at ryan.lyk@mncr.org if you would like to talk to me.
The Ultimate X Factor
If the 2010 election has an X-factor, it's the TEA Party. Pollsters don't know how big a factor it'll be, though Doug Schoen, Scott Rassmussen and Pat Cadell have come pretty close.
This op-ed does as much justice to the TEA Party movement. Check this out:
The hostility and jaded news coverage that the Tea Party movement evokes suggests that it must be onto something really big - beyond anti-incumbent attitudes or current-issue debates of Democrats or Republicans.
The Tea Party is animated by powerful enduring ideas expressed in the nation's founding through the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution: freedom, the natural law of inalienable rights and the sovereignty of the people that requires limited government.
Remarkably, the Tea Party movement has gained national prominence with unpaid volunteers in just a year and a half. Its people come from every walk of life from all over the country.
What has brought them together is an acute awareness that Washington has been tone-deaf to the voices of the people. They've had it with the posturing of both Democrats and Republicans. Through the Tea Party, the silent majority now has a giant megaphone.
The Tea Party movement provides a fresh and unvarnished combination of candor, authenticity and idealism. In the age of YouTube, politicians are having difficulty in managing their image or their audience through a largely supplicant news media.
The TEA Party movement has been as maligned as the conservative movement was during Reagan's time in office. In fact, I'd argue that the vitriol towards TEA Party activists is greater than the Democrats' vitriol towards Reagan.
The Progressive Left's hatred for limited government is best displayed by their rants. AFGE's ad is typical anti-TEA Party vitriol. Here's the text of their ad:
Tea party supporter:
Get government off our backs! We're going to take our country back!
John Gage:
That sounds good. But is this the time for bumper sticker solutions?
The Republican tea party Pledge to America says, Cut taxes for the rich and cut government. Some have even said, Close the government down. Then what?
Food and mine inspection ; gone.
Forget about border patrol or keeping terrorists locked up.
And returning veterans? Give them a cheap voucher instead of a quality VA hospital.
Let's dump in the rivers and pollute the air again.
And the tea bagger chanting, "Keep your hands off my Medicare." Sorry. Medicare will be whacked hard. The same for Social Security.
Schools, police and fire departments will disintegrate.
So Republican tea party folks, then what?
We're all angry and frustrated. But when you vote, remember who got us into this mess in the first place.
Announcer:
Paid for by the American Federation of Government Employees at afge.org.
Not a single statement in this commercial is accurate. This over-the-top ad isn't uncommon. The suicidal left that's leading the Democratic Party over the cliff insists that they know better.
This Think Progress post is a perfect example of how unhinged the suicidal left is:
After their attempt to privatize Social Security in 2005 was met with widespread public outcry, the GOP's strategy on Social Security has been two-fold. First, Republicans deny they are interested in privatization. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) recently told the Wall Street Journal that "no one has a proposal up to cut Social Security," (his own book proposes doing so), while conservatives in the media have tried to argue that Republicans don't actually want to privatize Social Security.
The second tactic has been to obfuscate their privatization plans by sugarcoating them in flowery, palatable language. President Bush's privatization plan is a prime example. In his 2005 State of the Union, President Bush said we needed to "save" Social Security and give younger workers a "better deal" by having "voluntary personal retirement accounts," the poll-tested language for privatization. Bush now says his greatest failure was not privatizing Social Security.
The Suicidal Left insists that today's Republican Party is no different than the 2006 Republican Party. In that they're wrong. They'll hold Republicans' feet to the fire if they meander too far from the principles of limited government.
That said, Democrats that hoped the TEA Party would splinter into a third party are now worried that they're about to get flattened by the TEA Party steamroller.
Welcome to the Ballot Box Revolution.
Posted Thursday, October 28, 2010 4:26 PM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 28-Oct-10 04:40 PM
It's all bilge, bombast and baloney. The only people threatening Social Security are Democrats, by insisting that a system doomed to fail is a "good deal" for younger workers and that reform necessarily means cutting benefits for current recipients, a flat-out lie.
What it points out is that Republicans need to just do the right thing, explain it well, and let the MSM hyperventilate as they are going to do anyway. If the TEA party means anything and are the driving force we think they are, they will understand and applaud. Of course stopping runaway spending has to come first before we can worry about small debts like Social Security.
Comment 2 by Stonewall Jackson at 28-Oct-10 10:03 PM
The Tea Party nationally is wonderful to behold. The Tea Party here in Minnesota,however, is in the immortal words of Jed Clampett, "Pitiful. Just pitiful."
Look, for example, at Tom Emmer's Faceook comments on his website. There, the Tea Party types malign Emmer constantly with complaints about Emmer hiring "neo-con" Cullen Sheehan as his campaign manager, bringing in Gingrich and Romney for appearances, supporting a Viking Stadium, and the like.
The problem is that the Tea Party types here in MN have no loyalty to anything other than their belief that a candidate must support their views 100%. Any variation from what they see as their pure ideological positions and they'll drop their support of a candidate like they would drop day-old dental floss.
What I predict is that many Tea Party types don't see Emmer meeting their pure ideological stances and they will sit out the election as they did when Norm Coleman was on the ballot in 2008. The result will be the same, a close defeat for a good GOP candidate.
"Pitiful. Just pitiful."
Response 2.1 by Gary Gross at 28-Oct-10 10:41 PM
SJ, As a TEA Party organizer, I can state without hesitation that the TEA Party activists that I know & stay in touch with are thrilled with Tom.
Duluth Mayor Email Leaked
When Duluth Mayor Don Ness emailed the powers-that-be at the Duluth News Tribune with his views on their endorsement in the Eighth District , he didn't expect his views to be known to the general public.
At least, that's his version now that MDE has exposed his email . If that's the case, why didn't he say that his comments were off the record? Better yet, why didn't he use his private email account?
Here's part of Ness's email:
The rumor at the Chamber dinner last night is that the DNT was considering endorsing Chip Cravaak. I was hoping to talk directly to one or both of you about this prior to publication, but that request was denied. Let me first acknowledge the obvious, you can endorse whomever
you would like to, and it is not my place to insist that you change it.
However, I feel it both necessary and important to express my concern if the rumor that I heard was indeed true. Given the refusal to meet today and the message that my option is to provide a written rebuttal to the endorsement, I will assume that the rumor is correct and the remainder
of this message is written under that assumption. I do so with the full hope that it was nothing more than an ugly rumor.
I will also acknowledge that I am far from an unbiased observer. I worked for Jim for many years and I know, first hand, the quality of his character, the importance of his service to our area, and how deeply and profoundly he loves our area. Jim Oberstar has dedicated a lifetime to fighting for the people of our area, he gives every ounce of his person and his energy to public service, not only to the people of Minnesota, but for the betterment of our nation.
My first question is simple: Does that sound like a mayor speaking there or an activist? I'd argue that it sounds like an activist.
Now Ness insists that his email shouldn't have been made public. If he wants something off the record, he should've said that it's off the record AND it shouldn't sound like it was written by Rep. Oberstar's publicist or a DFL activist.
I'd also argue with Mr. Ness's talking about "the quality of [Oberstar's] character." When Rep. Oberstar got earmarks for bike trails subtracted from the Highway Trust Fund, was that a picture of "the quality of [Oberstar's] character"?
During the debate, the Congressman attempted to settle his supporters, with a calming motion with his hands. Cravaak, made no such attempt. Moreover, Cravaak's sound-byte answers seemed to be designed to do just the opposite: to incite the crowd into rally type responses.
If the two of you can look me in the eye and with all honesty and integrity tell me that you believe that Chip Cravaak is the better person, the better man, the best person to represent the people of the 8th district for the next two years when Duluth has so much at stake, then I will be astonished, but I will simply respectfully disagree.
But, if there is something else going on, if there is some sort of effort to use this endorsement to meet some outside agenda or objective, then I believe the people of Duluth and your readership deserve to know what that agenda is and who is actually making these endorsement and
explain their criteria for making these decisions.
Maybe it's the libertarian in me that's overreacting but having a politician question a journalist's integrity rubs me the wrong way.
The other thing that's rubbing me the wrong way is Ness's insisting that Duluth's economy hinges on Oberstar's ability to bring home the bacon. If that's true, then it's probably time to consider the possibility that Duluth needs to head in a new direction that doesn't rely on government handouts.
This paragraph tells me alot about Ness:
Cravaak seems like an intelligent person, he is impressively polished, and he is well-practiced at tea-party and Karl Rove sound-bytes. But there is no conceivable way that an independent, unbiased assessment of these candidates could possibly bring you to the conclusion that Chip
Cravaak would be better for the residents in your readership area than Jim Oberstar would be. If I am mistaken on this point, then everything that I know about public service, about the importance of national leadership, and about the issues and challenges facing our region must
be wrong.
Anyone that doesn't know that TEA Party speakers are more about substance than sound-bytes isn't informed. The TEA Party movement is the most powerful political force and will be for the next 2-3 election cycles.
Politicians like Mayor Ness and Rep. Oberstar are so tuned into government that they haven't noticed that the people they serve have changed their priorities. Perhaps Rep. Oberstar would've noticed had he met with his constituents more often.
Posted Thursday, October 28, 2010 4:18 AM
Comment 1 by eric z at 28-Oct-10 12:47 PM
"But, if there is something else going on, if there is some sort of effort to use this endorsement to meet some outside agenda or objective, then I believe the people of Duluth and your readership deserve to know what that agenda is and who is actually making these endorsement and
explain their criteria for making these decisions."
That is as offensive as some of the sour grapes carping some have made over the landslide of press endorsements of Tarryl Clark, over the grandstanding individual now holding the MN 6 seat.
You give up the right to opinions and to inferences in situations, by taking public office?
If so why is Mary Kiffmeyer still talking against separation of church and State? Hasn't she given up the right to criticize?
What am I missing. Can't the mayor of Duluth have opinions, and is he restricted from expressing them?
Now you say hellier was the one jumping up and down about the email, but the Duluth people did not publish it but instead routed it up to Brodkorb who routed it down to hellier, and that sort of press conduct is no worry to you?
Think it over. I see a problem to that kind of partisanship. Had it been Strib going to DFL sources, would you be turning a blind eye?
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 28-Oct-10 01:24 PM
If the mayor wants to state his opinion on a general election endorsement, he shouldn't be using his mayoral email to make an activist's pitch. In 2006, Mike Hatch used his AG stationary in his campaign. That's a definite no-no.
Comment 2 by Jim at 28-Oct-10 08:15 PM
As I wrote on the libs blog, Donny has been Jimmy's bootlicker for over 20 years. He's the heir apparent, and will do anything to help him along. Look at the press conference he threw together yesterday. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Donny, as with the rest of the disfunctional progressives in this town, will stop at nothing to see their own succeed; even if it means using his pulpit for less than ethical purposes...
Lenczewski's Misleading Mailer
A faithful reader of this blog just emailed me a copy of a mailer sent out by State Rep. Ann Lenczewski. Here's the mailer:
According to Lenczewski's mailer, she's the "only candidate with a proven pro-life voting record." That's more than a little misleading, if for no other reason than the fact that she's the only candidate with a voting record.
Based on information included in the Minnesota Family Institute's voter guide , it appears as though Sanu Patel-Zellinger, Ms. Lenczewski's opponent, has a pretty stellar record on family issues, including on pro-life issues.
These developments make me more than a little suspicious. If Lenczewski thinks Sanu isn't a threat, she wouldn't be sending out this type of mailer.
On the other hand, if this is the type of chicanery Ms. Lenczewski resorts to when she's facing real competition, that speaks volumes about her character.
In late April, 2009, I wrote this post about Ann Lenczewski's idea of 'tax reform'. Here's what jumped off the page at me about her proposal:
In addition to the tax hikes, Lenczewski's bill removes a variety of tax breaks for homeowners and businesses. Charitable contributions, the mortgage interest tax deduction and the property tax deduction for homeowners are eliminated and replaced with a tax credit based on income. The bill also eliminates several business tax breaks, like the Research and Development credit and parts of the governor's JOBZ program.
Look at the list of deductions and credits Lenczewski's bill would've eliminated had it passed. The bill was so bad that most of it didn't get included in the conference report. I can't say that I'm surprised.
Ann Lenczewski's voting record isn't a picture of conservatism. It isn't even a picture of moderation. It's a picture of radicalism.
That's why it's time for Ms. Lenczewski to go.
Posted Thursday, October 28, 2010 6:24 AM
Comment 1 by eric z at 28-Oct-10 12:31 PM
Both intrusive busy-bodies, wanting to make family choices for others where it's wholly none of their business. Great choice you have there. It must be Wright County. Or Sherburne, the Kiffmeyer family's neighborhood. If Mr. Rogers were alive now, and that were Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, he'd move out to a more cordial and civilized place.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 28-Oct-10 12:38 PM
Yeah, those pesky pagans that insist on protecting unborn human life. The nerve of those heathens.
Comment 2 by Gretchen Leisen at 28-Oct-10 01:31 PM
I did not recognize her name, so I looked it up. She represents the Bloomington area and is serving out her 6th term.
Response 2.1 by Gary Gross at 28-Oct-10 02:21 PM
Lenczewski chairs the committee on taxes.
Comment 3 by Janet at 29-Oct-10 03:09 AM
Ann did this 2 cycles ago, I think. She mailed this mailer and overnight, her opponent, Don.... says he lost 5000 votes. I think Ann is Catholic - she may be pro-life but the Dems are not and she votes for the most left person to be leader.
It's a classic Dem tactic - take credit for something that matters but in the big scheme of things, her stance means nothing b/c she votes against people in most every other place.
Response 3.1 by Gary Gross at 29-Oct-10 06:02 AM
Janet, This is precisely why the DFL MUST BE DEFEATED this cycle. Terms like pro-life, moderate, Blue Dogs, etc. don't mean anything. They've been proven to be obsolete. 'Fiscally conservative' Evan Bayh voted the same way that self-proclaimed Socialist Bernie Sanders voted on the stimulus & Obamacare. Ditto with moderate Amy Klobuchar. Ditto with moderate Ben Nelson.
The media accords these different titles to these liberals without really looking at how they vote when it's crunch time. That's when the various labels disappear. Then they're all just liberals who will do what their leaders tell them to do rather than doing what their constituents want them to do.
This Tuesday, we must get to the polls & vote out the DFL from the House & Senate. We must elect Tom Emmer, too, so good reforms won't die a cruel death to Mark Dayton's veto pen.
Before Tuesday, though, it's time for everyone to litdrop, phone bank or whatever is needed to get our candidates elected. Then it's time to help as a pollwatcher. No turning back. No alternative but VICTORY.
Victory, as Janet so often enjoys describing it, is defined as We Win, They Lose. Nothing else is acceptable.
IP Opponent Endorses Chip Cravaack
In a major development to the Eighth District campaign, IP candidate Tim Olson announced that he's endorsing Chip Cravaack :
We are fortunate to live in an area of abundant resources. Minnesota's Congressional District 8 has forests, mining, tourism, seaports, and hardworking people. Yet, our families are forced to move out of this district to find employment elsewhere. We need leadership that will allow families to remain and thrive in this district.
I am the Independence candidate for Congress who wishes to endorse my opponent, Chip Cravaack. We both hold the same ideals and values when it comes to smaller government, reducing the national debt, and protection of our freedoms as Minnesotans and Americans.
After spending much time with Chip, I am convinced that he is the District 8 candidate who will lead Minnesota and our country back to a United States of America that belongs to the people, not to the government. He understands the issues and will represent us well.
I am actively campaigning for Chip Cravaack and encourage your vote for him Tuesday.
This is a big deal. Chip will cheerfully welcome Mr. Olson's support. When running against an entrenched incumbent like Jim Oberstar, it's best to grab as many votes as possible.
The fact that Mr. Olson cited his own belief in limited government as a reason for supporting Chip ought to clear a path for Olson's supporters to switch their support to Chip.
This is feeling very much like everyone is piling onto Oberstar, essentially saying that he's lost touch with the district. I think Oberstar's response is the direct result of his thinking of this race as a coronation, not an election.
That's what happens when a complacent incumbent is challenged by a clear-thinking, talented challenger like Chip.
Posted Thursday, October 28, 2010 10:44 PM
Comment 1 by Ryan Lyk at 28-Oct-10 10:59 PM
I am the chairman at UMD for the College Republicans who took this picture and posted this story.
There was a voicemail on my phone from you guys, but no call back number. Please e-mail me at ryan.lyk@mncr.org if you would like to talk to me.
