October 31, 2016
Oct 31 00:02 Clintons: the original Alinskyites Oct 31 01:00 Bill Clinton pollster drops bomb Oct 31 01:48 Dorholt's thin, unimpressive resume Oct 31 10:00 DFL not negotiating on MNsure fix Oct 31 10:23 Feingold's campaign finance corruption Oct 31 11:14 Koenen's insincere gesture Oct 31 17:16 Mills ad hits Nolan hard
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Clintons: the original Alinskyites
This article reminded me of something I'd hoped I'd forgotten forever. The article reminded me that the Clintons are the original Alinskyite administration. Seriously, long before Tony Rezko had corrupted the Obamas, the Clintons were painting their political opponents as political boogeymen.
Newt Gingrich was the Clinton's first boogeyman. Dick Armey was the Clintons next boogeyman. Tom DeLay was the final boogeyman of Bill Clinton's administration. They taught the Democratic Party how to paint conservatives as boogeymen. During the Obama administration, Democrats painted ALEC, the Club for Growth, Americans for Prosperity, the TEA Party and, most importantly, the Koch Brothers as political boogeymen.
Before she's even been elected, Mrs. Clinton is attempting to paint FBI Director Jim Comey as the latest boogeyman. That's the Clinton's habit. The Clintons understand that they're seen as sleazy people. That doesn't bother them a bit because they're comfortable with rolling around in the mud. That's who they are. That's who they associate themselves with.
In the 1990s, after President Clinton got caught with his pants down, literally, Hillary dispatched Jim Carville to intimidate Paula Jones. Carville's now-infamous line was "If you drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you'll find."
Trey Gowdy, quite possibly the sharpest person in Congress, isn't buying into Mrs. Clinton's attempts to tarnish Dir. Comey's reputation:
Here's part of what Rep. Gowdy said in response to the Clinton campaign's attempt to paint Dir. Comey as the villain:
GOWDY: Yeah, that's an old trick, Bret. Blame the cops. If you're being investigated, you blame the cops. Jim Comey is not responsible for a single one of the facts at hand. He didn't tell her to use a private server. He didn't tell Huma not to turn over all of her devices. And God knows he didn't tell Anthony Wiener to allegedly send sexually explicit texts to allegedly underage people so Comey's not responsible for any of this. The timing is a direct and natural consequence of decisions that Hillary Clinton made. So I get that Podesta is upset. Bret, remember that he didn't even know about the email situation and then he thought that it had been taken care of by Cheryl Mills and Patrick Kennedy so I get that he's frustrated. He's just frustrated at the wrong person.
Mrs. Clinton established the home-brew server to hide emails from FOIA requests. If Mrs. Clinton hadn't insisted on hiding public information from the public, none of this would have become an issue. Period. She would've coasted to the White House if not for this email scandal.
It's a given that the Clintons will use Alinsky's tactics to push their way through their scandals. Their habit is to make things about the boogeymen they've created, not the boogeymen they are.
Posted Monday, October 31, 2016 12:02 AM
Comment 1 by eric z at 31-Oct-16 11:24 AM
Weiner emails 'em. Trump gropes 'em. Something of a standoff, except Weiner's not seeking high office these days.
Aside from that, it is interesting how the Clintons and Weiner-Abedin while now separated, are not divorcing.
Is it a case of rocky but stable marriages in some sense, or an artifact of the spousal testimonial privilege?
Bill Clinton pollster drops bomb
To say that Doug Schoen dropped a bombshell during Sunday night's segment of the Political Insiders is understatement. After Schoen, who is usually a faithful supporter of the Clintons, said that he's reassessing his support for Mrs. Clinton, host Harris Faulkner could be heard loudly saying "Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You are not going to vote for Hillary Clinton?"
The transcript of that part of the segment starts with Mr. Schoen saying "As you know, I have been a supporter of Secretary Clinton... But given that this investigation is going to go on for many months after the election... But if the Secretary of State wins, we will have a president under criminal investigation, with Huma Abedin under criminal investigation, with the Secretary of State, the president-elect, should she win under investigation. Harris, under these circumstances, I am actively reassessing my support. I'm not a Trump --" At that point, Faulkner replied "Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You are not going to vote for Hillary Clinton?"
It isn't that difficult for the Clinton campaign to criticize FBI Director Comey. He isn't one of their people. He's causing heartburn for Mrs. Clinton's campaign so he has to be vilified. It's different with Schoen. It isn't that Mrs. Clinton, Robbie Mook or John Podesta will hesitate in criticizing Schoen. It's that they'll have difficulty getting credibility criticizing Schoen because he's a reasonable Democrat.
First, here's the video of that portion of the segment:
Next, here's the transcript of that portion of the segment:
DOUG SCHOEN: As you know, I have been a supporter of Secretary Clinton... But given that this investigation is going to go on for many months after the election... But if the Secretary of State wins, we will have a president under criminal investigation, with Huma Abedin under criminal investigation, with the Secretary of State, the president-elect, should she win under investigation. Harris, under these circumstances, I am actively reassessing my support. I'm not a Trump --
HARRIS FAULKNER, FOX NEWS: Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You are not going to vote for Hillary Clinton?
SCHOEN: Harris, I'm deeply concerned that we'll have a constitutional crisis if she's elected.
FAULKNER: Wow!
SCHOEN: I want to learn more this week. See what we see. But as of today, I am not a supporter of the Secretary of State for the nation's highest office.
FAULKNER: How long have you known the Clintons.
SCHOEN: I've known the Clintons since '94.
FAULKNER: Wow! But their friend here has said he's reconsidering.
SCHOEN: I have to, because of the impact on the governance of the country and our international situation.
FAULKNER: So the news in that is are there other people, I would imagine, like Doug Schoen.
This isn't just interesting gossip at Monday morning's water cooler. This is a major event that's destined to create headlines on social media and create heartburn for Mrs. Clinton's campaign.
Posted Monday, October 31, 2016 1:00 AM
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Dorholt's thin, unimpressive resume
Kirsti Marohn's article offers insight into how Zach Dorholt is trying to defeat Jim Knoblach. One thing he's doing is he's overinflating his professional resume while de-emphasizing his partisan resume.
When he said "I get to see how the system, the health care system, the social system, the economic system, helps them get up and out or keeps them down. I would dare to say that that is the most unique and also most needed insight within government today", he's intentionally de-emphasizing the fact that, as a partisan DFLer, Dorholt supports single-payer health care. He admitted he supports it during the St. Cloud Times' SD-14 candidate forum, which I wrote about in this post.
Dorholt's also trying to de-emphasize the fact that he's partially responsible for the MNsure/ACA crisis that Minnesota families are fighting through. Dorholt voted to create MNsure. Thanks to his support for the ACA, farmers and other small businesspeople will pay sky-high health insurance premiums, have fewer choices when picking insurers and will have to deal with unaffordable deductibles. That isn't the type of voting record I'm looking for.
Further, Dorholt is trying to hide the fact that he's bought and paid for by the DFL's special interests. It isn't that he's dedicated to serving his constituents. It's that he's committed to doing whatever the DFL's special interest puppetmasters tell him to do.
Posted Monday, October 31, 2016 1:48 AM
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DFL not negotiating on MNsure fix
It isn't surprising that the DFL isn't negotiating with Republicans on a long-term fix of the ACA and MNsure. They're hoping that they win back total control of the legislature on November 8th. That isn't likely to happen but it's what the DFL is hoping for.
The truth is that the powers-that-be within the DFL, aka the Metro DFL, would like to destroy Minnesota's health care system by implementing single-payer health care. They think that would improve Minnesota's health care. We don't need to figure what would work. Minnesota's system was working beautifully prior to passing the ACA.
MCHA, Minnesota's high-risk pool program, did a good job of getting people with pre-existing conditions insured. Proof of that was the fact that 92.8% of Minnesotans were insured -- in 2007.
In the final days of this campaign, Gov. Dayton is trying to convince voters to put the DFL back in charge. His argument essentially is that voters should put the DFL back in charge of fixing the thing that they broke in 2013. Friends, that's warped logic, even by DFL standards.
Posted Monday, October 31, 2016 10:00 AM
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Feingold's campaign finance corruption
It's been assumed for quite some time that Russ Feingold would defeat Ron Johnson and reclaim the seat Feingold lost in 2010. A funny thing happened on the way to Feingold's victory celebration, though. Mr. Campaign Finance Reform got caught up in a major campaign finance scandal . According to the Boston Globe, "From 2010 through 2014, [David] Strouss and [Garrett] Bradley, along with founding partner Michael Thornton and his wife, donated nearly $1.6 million to Democratic Party fund-raising committees and a parade of politicians - from Senate minority leader Harry Reid of Nevada to Hawaii gubernatorial candidate David Ige to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Over the same span, the lawyers received $1.4 million listed as 'bonuses' in Thornton Law Firm records; more than 280 of the contributions precisely matched bonuses that were paid within 10 days ."
In that same article, Feingold " had received $45,000 in apparent straw donations from employees of the law firm." Not that amazingly, "Within hours, his campaign announced they would be returning the $45,000 in donations ."
Apparently, Mr. Squeaky Clean isn't so squeaky clean.
Posted Monday, October 31, 2016 10:26 AM
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Koenen's insincere gesture
Now that it's reached crisis stage, Sen. Lyle Koenen is insisting that there be a special session called to fix Minnesota's health insurance crisis .
Koenen "has joined the list of legislators calling for a special session to address rising health insurance premiums in the individual market." Think of that list of legislators as people who could've prevented this crisis in the first place. Sen. Koenen could've shown leadership and told Gov. Dayton that he wasn't going to vote for Tony Lourey's MNsure legislation. Instead, Sen. Koenen acted like a wimp and voted to create this crisis.
Koenen issued a statement on the crisis he created, saying "I support a special session so these rising health insurance costs can be addressed immediately. Many of my constituents and people across the state are understandably concerned and frustrated, so we need to take action to not only fix this problem, but to give Minnesotans peace of mind. We have to make a concerted effort to address these premium hikes immediately. We have an immediate solution - the Minnesota Health Insurance Premiums Tax Credit."
The only thing missing from Sen. Koenen's statement is that "we need to take action to not only fix this problem, but to distract my constituents' attention away from the fact that I voted for this crisis." Sen. Koenen wanted the credit for voting for MNsure. Now that it's failed, he should be criticized for the damage he's done, especially to his constituents.
I don't have a demographic breakdown of Sen. Koenen's district but I've got to think that a high percentage of his constituents are farmers. Farmers are among the hardest hit by this DFL-created crisis. Minnesota voters have a right to expect their legislators do the right thing the first time rather than fixing things when they become a crisis. The DFL is the party that starts crises, then whines when Republicans don't fix things to the DFL's liking.
Posted Monday, October 31, 2016 11:14 AM
Comment 1 by eric z at 31-Oct-16 12:54 PM
Republicans do not want healthcare fixed. They want to perpetually complain, and if it IS fixed, then they've nothing to carp over. Quit the smoke-screening, and install single payer so the nation can then move onto other cost efficiency improvements. Cease the diddling, please. Job-healthcare lock in has worked for those offering crappy jobs, where fear of loss of health coverage is a disincentive to quitting and finding better. The worse of the cadre of wage-slaving employers know this, like it, and pursue its continuance.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 31-Oct-16 03:51 PM
Eric, where do you get this BS? This is why the DFL isn't trusted anymore. We care when families are hurt by the government. We want the ACA fixed so that families can prosper. That's always been the case. It didn't get to crisis stage until the ACA was passed. Pre-ACA, we didn't have a crisis. Prior to the crisis, Republicans didn't take that much of an interest in health care as a group. Now that it's a crisis, yeah, we're all over it. And yeah, we've got the right solutions.
Mills ad hits Nolan hard
There's nothing that hurts liberals more than using other Democrats' words against them. That's why Stewart Mills' latest ad is so devastating. Couple Mills' ad with Donald Trump's op-ed in today's Duluth News Tribune and you've definitely got pro-Trump momentum in the Eighth District. Anything that increases pro-Trump turnout is virtually assured to help Stewart Mills.
Here's the transcript of Mills' ad:
MILLS: I'm Stewart Mills and I approve this message.
FEMALE NARRATOR: Leading Democrats agree: Obamacare is broken.
GOV. DAYTON: The Affordable Care Act is no longer affordable.
BILL CLINTON: Premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It's the craziest thing in the world.
FEMALE NARRATOR: But Rick Nolan still supports Obamacare, cutting billions from Medicare, driving up premiums by 67%, costing thousands of families their coverage, jeopardizing jobs and raising taxes. Rick Nolan: wrong on health care. Wrong for your family.
Let's be clear about this. Rick Nolan hasn't hidden the fact that he prefers single-payer health insurance. Nolan's 'fix' is to essentially demolish the American health insurance industry.
The issue of health care alone disqualifies Nolan. While it won't hurt Nolan in Duluth and the Arrowhead, it'll definitely hurt him in places like Chisago, Lindstrom, North Branch, Little Falls, Park Rapids, Brainerd and Pierz.
Posted Monday, October 31, 2016 5:16 PM
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