September 6-11, 2018
Sep 06 00:45 Kavanaugh v. Klobuchar mismatch Sep 06 09:24 Progressive hyperventilation Sep 06 12:28 DFL liars, Part III Sep 06 20:54 Law & order vs. Keith Ellison Sep 07 00:46 Are Democrats kidding themselves? Sep 08 14:02 Obama is still out of touch Sep 08 20:33 Al Franken, constitutional idiot? Sep 10 17:18 Kevin Hassett's statistics vs. President Obama's BS Sep 11 09:36 Brian Brenberg vs. Pres. Obama
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Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Kavanaugh v. Klobuchar mismatch
Saying that Sen. Klobuchar was outmatched when she questioned Judge Kavanaugh is understatement. Simply put, she got her butt kicked -- royally. At issue was an article Judge Kavanaugh wrote for the Minnesota Law Review .
In the article, "Kavanaugh, a D.C. appeals court judge, had proposed that presidents not be subject to criminal investigation while in office, citing the distractions caused by probes into misconduct by former President Bill Clinton in the 1990s." During testimony Wednesday, Kavanaugh explained, saying "that it would be up to Congress to consider what constitutes an impeachable offense, and that he had not intended to address it as a constitutional issue", adding that "The idea that I talked about was something for Congress to look at if it wanted to."
In other words, Judge Kavanaugh has a policy position on the matter and that it's irrelevant because his policy preferences don't matter once he puts on his black robe. This is the key part of the exchange:
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Judge Kavanaugh clearly stated that he hadn't written the article from a judicial position, that he'd written it as a thought piece. That apparently escaped Sen. Klobuchar, which is actually revealing. Based on her reaction, she apparently thinks that a person's personal beliefs should translate into their judicial rulings. It's apparent that Judge Kavanaugh thinks that a judge's personal opinions are irrelevant, that the law and the Constitution are the most important things.
Those are pretty dramatic differences in styles and outcomes.
Posted Thursday, September 6, 2018 12:45 AM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 06-Sep-18 05:19 PM
How does this know nothing and do nothing woman keep getting elected? She is an embarrassment to MN.
Progressive hyperventilation
Let's stipulate at the start that progressives hyperventilate about virtually anything conservative anytime it's brought up. Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings aren't an exception, apparently. This article fits into that category.
It starts by saying "The Brett Kavanaugh hearings - such as they are - began on Wednesday to take on a shape that ordinary citizens can understand. When discussing the law, Judge Kavanaugh has been an impressive witness. But anyone watching the hearings Wednesday morning could see the discomfort on Kavanaugh's face when Senator Patrick Leahy asked him about his potential knowledge of the theft of Democratic-committee emails a decade and a half ago."
I watched yesterday's hearing. Actually, you couldn't "see the discomfort on Kavanaugh's face when Senator Patrick Leahy asked him about his potential knowledge of the theft of Democratic-committee emails." Check out this video and determine for yourselves if Judge Kavanaugh looked uncomfortable at any point in this heated exchange:
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There was a point when Judge Kavanaugh looked inquisitive but there wasn't a point when he looked worried.
Posted Thursday, September 6, 2018 9:24 AM
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DFL liars, Part III
In Part II of this series, I wrote about a mailer that the DFL sent out a mailer claiming that Republicans voted to give themselves a 45% pay raise. I wrote that KSTP gave the mailer an F rating, meaning that it was "demonstrably false." That's the KSTP equivalent of the Washington Post's 4 Pinocchios rating.
Despite that awful rating, Melissa Hortman insists that the mailer is accurate. Apparently, it doesn't matter whether you're a woman or man in the DFL. If you're part of the DFL, apparently, you're expected to tell whoppers whether you're male or female. Hortman insists "that Republicans prioritized the funding measure while failing to complete other important work, including bills related to elder abuse and opioid addiction. She says the campaign material simply highlights those points."
First, Gov. Dayton line-item vetoed the funding for the legislature, which includes the funding for the Office of Legislative Auditor. It also meant that legislative staffers didn't get paid. That meant Gov. Dayton vetoed the funding for some important audits into his administration that cast his administration is a bad light. Isn't it amazing how Rep. Hortman omitted that from her statement?
Hortman contends that Republicans prioritized the funding measure while failing to complete other important work, including bills related to elder abuse and opioid addiction. She says the campaign material simply highlights those points. "That's entirely fair game, the Republicans priorities, what they chose to do and the order they chose to do things in and the fact that they never got the rest of the work done," she said.
Actually, Sen. Karin Housley took the lead on the elder abuse so the House knew that that issue was getting taken care of. Next, members of the House got after the opioid addiction crisis virtually immediately. It's impossible to argue with House Republicans' priorities.
Finally, the DFL voted overwhelmingly to sustain Gov. Dayton's veto of the MNLARS bill after they initially voted overwhelmingly for the bill. Thanks to the DFL's vote to sustain Gov. Dayton's veto, companies went out of business and families lost their homes.
What about those priorities, Rep. Hortman? Is it that lying and playing politics is more important to the DFL than saving families' homes from foreclosure? That's the definition of a dirtbag politician. It's time to throw the DFL out.
[Video no longer available]
Posted Thursday, September 6, 2018 12:28 PM
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Law & order vs. Keith Ellison
Anyone that thinks that Keith Ellison is a law-abiding citizen apparently isn't paying attention. First, Ellison is credibly accused of physically abusing a recent girlfriend. This is made more credible in the court of public opinion because he's praised and supported cop-killers in the not-that-distant-past .
In his post, Scott Johnson wrote "Ellison publicly supported the Haaf murder defendants. In February 1993, he spoke at a demonstration for one of them during his trial. Ellison led the crowd assembled at the courthouse in a chant that was ominous in the context of Haaf's cold-blooded murder: "We don't get no justice, you don't get no peace.' Ellison's working relationship with Sharif Willis came to an end in February 1995, when Willis was convicted in federal court on several counts of drug and gun-related crimes and sent back to prison for 20 years." Then Johnson added this:
Ellison's support for the murderers of Officer Haaf was not a one-off. In February 2000 Ellison spoke at a fundraiser sponsored by the Minnesota chapter of the old National Lawyers Guild, on whose steering committee he had served. The chapter was raising funds for former Symbionese Liberation Army member Kathleen Soliah after her apprehension in St. Paul (under the name 'Sara Jane Olson'). The National Lawyers Guild is of course the old Communist front group, though it has survived the fall of the Soviet Union.
In October 2001, Soliah/Olson pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing explosives with intent to commit murder in the long-pending Los Angeles case. In January 2002 Soliah/Olson and four other SLA members were charged with the murder of Myrna Opsahl in Sacramento in the Crocker National Bank case. Soliah/Olson's participation in the SLA's Crocker National Bank robbery/murder had long been a matter of public record. Soliah/Olson pleaded guilty to the murder charge in November 2002.
Keith Ellison hasn't stood with law enforcement in virtually forever. Compare that with this proud endorsement statement of Doug Wardlow:
If we're electing the chief law enforcement officer in the state, shouldn't we ignore a candidate who essentially ignores Minnesota's law enforcement officers? BTW, this isn't even close to the comprehensive list of cop-killers that Keith Ellison has supported.
Finally, anti-Semitism is a crime, too. There's no bigger anti-Semite than Louis Farrakhan. Guess what? Keith Ellison and Louis Farrakhan are friends. Surprised? I'm not.
Posted Thursday, September 6, 2018 8:54 PM
Comment 1 by eric z at 10-Sep-18 07:14 PM
Going negative, that's for the NRCC, not for learned discourse.
Are Democrats kidding themselves?
This article highlights the pickle that Democrats find themselves in over the Kavanaugh nomination. At one point, the article states "White House officials contend the Supreme Court was a powerful motivator for Republican base voters in 2016, when Trump won the White House, and they're seeking to capitalize on Kavanaugh's confirmation to help overcome an enthusiasm gap with Democrats. Likewise, a vote for Kavanaugh by either Tester or Heitkamp could frustrate their Democratic base eager for a more confrontational approach to the Trump administration."
With the Democrats' base getting crazier with each primary, the Democrats are in a difficult spot. Do they do the right thing and listen to their constituents? Or do they pander to the progressive extremists that fund their campaigns? If I was advising them, I'd advise them to take a centrist approach and tell the extremists to take a hike. I'd rather have the votes than the campaign cash. It isn't that complicated.
"It's a real pickle," said GOP strategist Josh Holmes. "There is no question that all of these red-state Democrats would prefer to have an extremely quiet experience when it comes to the consideration of Kavanaugh," he said. "They don't want to upset leadership and the liberal base that's funding their campaigns, but the voters who control their fate are overwhelmingly in favor of Kavanaugh."
The problem for these Democrats is that President Trump intends on making this a loud rambunctious election issue. If they vote against Kavanaugh, they'll lose. In fact, I'd argue that they're already likely to lose since they both voted against the Trump/GOP tax cuts. That issue hasn't been exploited -- yet -- but it soon will.
Democrats question whether the Kavanaugh vote will resonate in the race to unseat Tester, the Big Sandy farmer who has emphasized his independence and willingness to cross the partisan aisle to work with the president, who carried Montana by 20 percentage points two years ago.
"It's not like you're standing in the grocery store line and people are talking about the Kavanaugh confirmation. It's pretty inside baseball for folks," said Barrett Kaiser, a Montana-based Democratic strategist who advised former Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. Kaiser said Tester had demonstrated a "proven bipartisan record of working with this administration when it helps Montana and oppose them when it doesn't."
That's BS. In Tester's case, he's already voted against Justice Gorsuch and the Trump/GOP tax cuts. If he votes against confirming Judge Kavanaugh, what type of chance will he have of convincing Montanans that he's a bipartisan on the issues that matter most? I'm betting that chance drops precipitously. Just watch this rally, then tell me that Trump isn't inspiring new voters:
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Heitkamp and Tester might as well vote against Kavanaugh. It isn't like they've got a great chance of winning this November.
Posted Friday, September 7, 2018 12:46 AM
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Obama is still out of touch
President Obama's speech yesterday at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana was vintage Obama. He took credit for things he didn't do. He accused others of doing things that he'd done. He's trying to make his legacy look better than it is.
For instance, President Obama said "Out of the turmoil of the industrial revolution and the Great Depression, America adapted a new economy, a 20th century economy - guiding our free market with regulations to protect health and safety and fair competition, empowering workers with union movements; investing in science and infrastructure and educational institutions like U of I; strengthening our system of primary and secondary education, and stitching together a social safety net. And all of this led to unrivaled prosperity and the rise of a broad and deep middle class in the sense that if you worked hard, you could climb the ladder of success."
That's mostly true, though important parts of it are BS. The industrial revolution helped build "educational institutions" like the University of Illinois. Unfortunately, unions, big government, intolerance and political correctness are killing higher education institutions. The intolerance towards conservatives on campuses is hurting universities like U-Cal Berkeley, the University of Missouri and a number of Ivy League schools.
we have a responsibility to conserve the amazing bounty, the natural resources of this country and of this planet for future generations, each time we've gotten closer to those ideals, somebody somewhere has pushed back. The status quo pushes back. Sometimes the backlash comes from people who are genuinely, if wrongly, fearful of change. More often it's manufactured by the powerful and the privileged who want to keep us divided and keep us angry and keep us cynical because that helps them maintain the status quo and keep their power and keep their privilege. And you happen to be coming of age during one of those moments. It did not start with Donald Trump. He is a symptom, not the cause. He's just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years. A fear and anger that's rooted in our past, but it's also born out of the enormous upheavals that have taken place in your brief lifetimes.
What BS. President Trump isn't the problem. His predecessor is. His predecessor told everyone that he wanted to fundamentally transform the United States:
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President Obama, not President Trump, is the one that's out-of-step with America. President Trump is rebuilding the United States that prospered and was respected by world leaders. President Obama looked the other way when Putin invaded Crimea, then made signals that he wanted to retake Ukraine. When Ukraine asked for defensive weapons to protect itself, President Obama sent them MREs instead.
And President Obama thinks that President Trump isn't in touch with American ideals? Apparently, President Obama disagrees with JFK's infamous speech:
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Sending MREs to a just-invaded friend isn't "bearing any burden" or "paying any price" for the cause of freedom. Sending MREs in that situation is shrinking from what Americans have traditionally done. It's apparent that President Obama's view of the United State' role in the world is badly warped. Why would we listen to that idiot? He took us in the wrong direction for 8 years. We rejected his policies in 2016.
I mention all this just so when you hear how great the economy's doing right now, let's just remember when this recovery started. I mean, I'm glad it's continued, but when you hear about this economic miracle that's been going on, when the job numbers come out, monthly job numbers, suddenly Republicans are saying it's a miracle. I have to kind of remind them, actually, those job numbers are the same as they were in 2015 and 2016.
What utter BS. Did President Obama's regulations on the coal industry transform the US from reliant on foreign sources of energy to being "energy dominant" now? Of course they didn't. Did President Obama's corporate tax increases cause trillions of dollars to come flooding back from other countries? No. Those corporate tax increases caused the outmigration of capital to low-tax nations.
Put differently, President Obama's policies caused the problems that President Trump and Republican legislators are fixing. While we're at it, let's admit that, despite the Democrats' vigorous efforts to resist that effort, robust economic growth is back like we never saw during President Obama's time in office. That's because we've got an expert handling the economy now. We don't have a pointy-headed liberal professor setting economic policy.
It's time to declare that we aren't going back to the failed policies of the last 8 years.
Posted Saturday, September 8, 2018 2:02 PM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 09-Sep-18 12:36 PM
Problem is there a still far to many people who believe the crap that comes out of this snake oil salesman's mouth.
I will say that he did create this current economy. By stifling the economy so badly while he was President, it only had one way to go once he was gone and that was up so in essence, he did create this economy. Of course if ol' Hillary had gotten in, she would have continued his failed policies and they both would still be blaming Bush and the GOP for the failed economy.
Al Franken, constitutional idiot?
Al Franken's USA Today op-ed is proof that he's either a constitutional idiot or a total hypocrite. Franken's op-ed starts by saying "The nomination and confirmation of a Supreme Court justice is supposed to be a grave and solemn exercise of carefully apportioned constitutional powers. These Justices, granted lifetime terms in order to insulate them from political considerations, must be exemplars of sound judgment, even temperament and, above all else, impartiality."
Then he continues, saying "I know this because I keep hearing Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee say this stuff. But having served alongside them for three Supreme Court confirmations - and now watching Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation process unfold - I have to say, I don't think they really mean it."
Coming from the disgraced former senator that couldn't keep his hands off a sleeping woman's breasts and the senator who questioned a Supreme Court nominee about his recollection of an episode of Perry Mason, that's quite a joke:
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Let's get serious for a moment. First, the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee didn't pretend to care about judicial philosophies or judicial temperament. One Democrat tried re-enacting a scene from a classic movie even though he'd gotten permission the night before to use the material. Some commentators, including one from CNN, hinted that Sen. Booker's stunt was the first speech of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
In other words, Sen. Grabby Hands, spare me the diatribe about how Republicans don't take Supreme Court confirmation hearings seriously. That's your opinion. We have verifiable proof that Democrats don't take these hearings seriously.
Put differently, shut up and go away. Forever .
Posted Saturday, September 8, 2018 8:33 PM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 09-Sep-18 08:43 PM
He's an all around idiot, not just a constitutional idiot. Why would USA today print an op-ed from a guy who had to resign his seat because he's a pervert?
Comment 2 by eric z at 10-Sep-18 06:57 PM
Doth protest too much.
Comment 3 by Chad Q at 11-Sep-18 07:41 PM
What am I protesting too much about? I stated a fact and asked a question. No protesting. That's something your ilk likes to do.
Kevin Hassett's statistics vs. President Obama's BS
Today's White House press briefing deviated from most White House press briefings in that it included a lengthy presentation from Kevin Hassett, the current chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. During his presentation, Hassett presented slide after slide verifying the fact that the economic growth we're currently experiencing isn't a continuation of economic performance under President Obama. During Hassett's presentation, his charts showed economic activity during President Obama's final term in office, the trend that President Trump inherited and the economy's performance during President Trump's time in office.
You'll see in this video that most of the trends inherited by President Trump were either flat or going down:
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These aren't marginal or obscure statistics, either. Measuring whether it's a good time to expand your small business isn't insignificant. When the answer given is that it's a good time to expand, that's proof that the economy is heading in the right direction. What's more is that Hassett's charts show that opinions have changed on this matter since President Trump took office. President Obama's statements claiming credit for the strong Trump economy are either BS or outright spin. (The second chart especially exposes President Obama's claims as foolishness.)
The trend for core capital goods changed pretty dramatically, too, both in terms of orders and shipments. Only a partisan would argue that President Trump's policies haven't significantly changed the trajectory of the US economy. It's like arguing that water isn't wet. Nobody in their right mind will believe President Obama's claims after seeing this information. Then again, Democrat partisans will trust him rather than these statistics.
Here's hoping that GOP candidates, especially those in the House, start challenging their Democratic challengers with these statistics. It's time to force Democrats to deal with reality.
Posted Monday, September 10, 2018 5:18 PM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 10-Sep-18 05:50 PM
I'm so glad we finally have someone in the GOP who is willing to fight back against the lies and deception of the progressives. Now if we could only get him to stop tweeting so much.
Comment 2 by Mitchell Berg at 10-Sep-18 06:33 PM
Here, I believe, are the charts he used:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Press-Briefing-9.10.18-CEA_Final.pdf
Response 2.1 by Gary Gross at 10-Sep-18 07:39 PM
Good job finding those charts. They kill (for honest people anyway) the notion that the Trump boom is just a continuation of President Obama's sputtering economic growth.
Brian Brenberg vs. Pres. Obama
Monday night on Fox News @ Night, Brian Brenberg was asked to comment on whether President Obama deserved any credit for today's booming economy. Brenberg told Shannon Bream that it was fair to give President Obama part of the credit for the job creation. After that, like most honest economists, he didn't deserve much credit.
For instance, this chart shows that President Obama doesn't deserve credit for business investment:
The trend during President Obama's final term in office vs. what's happening right now is sharp. There isn't a real comparison between the 2. It's a waste of time to think that they're similar. They aren't.
Digging further into the economic data, the differences become clearer. For instance, small business optimism, especially whether it's a good time to expand, is skyrocketing:
Another area that President Obama doesn't deserve credit is with durable goods orders:
As you can see in the charts, they'd been tanking the previous 4 years. Now, they're skyrocketing. It's impossible to honestly say that durable goods orders and shipments are a continuation of the Obama administration's policies. The difference between administrations is night and day.
BTW, it's worth checking out Brenberg's interview with Shannon Bream:
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Posted Tuesday, September 11, 2018 9:36 AM
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