Foreign and Domestic

US Senate

2012-01-21T13:44:00.000-06:00

Judicial paragons

2012-01-17T22:07:00.000-06:00

Walter Hudson wrote last week about the big debate of the week at The Late Debate-judicial retention elections. It was an excellent piece, and I can't think of a better compliment to Walter's integrity than this-he presented both sides so fairly that it was hard to tell what his own opinion is on the subject. I'm not as eloquent, so I will say up front that I fully support judicial retention elections, and here are the three reasons why.

1) I want impartial judges
2) Political parties fighting judicial elections leads to hyper-partisan madness
3) Conservatives cannot compete financially on judicial elections

As a brief review, here is what the proposal for judicial retention election would do; stop the almost always futile practice of running non judges against sitting incumbent judges in general elections, give judges a formal review based on input from their peers and those who do business in their court, and make it easier to get rid of judges who are out of touch with their communities.

Point one, impartial judges.

Call me a naive idealist, but I want judges who follow the law and the Constitution, not a party platform. Aside from the fact that the founding fathers never intended for our politics to be ruled by political parties, they certainly never intended for the judicial branch to be dominated by partisan politics. The judicial branch should be the wise elders who dispense wisdom and justice from an unbiased position. Is that naive? Probably, but if we give up on this simple tenet of the system of government our founders envisioned, we are making a dynamic shift away from their vision. Article 3, section 1 of the US Constitution says

The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour

But how can judges ever be deemed to have 'good behavior' if they are simple partisan activists, where at any given time at least 1/3 of the population will disagree with them simply because they are of the opposite party? See also Wisconsin Supreme Court Recall election, where the public confidence in the courts has dropped to historic lows after a hyper partisan election.

Point two, hyper partisan madness in the courts.

Outside of political activists of either stripe, how many people in US society today simply drone out a political ad on TV? How many people see partisan lit in the mail and throw it away as soon as they see a prominent 'D' or 'R'? A recent Gallup poll says that the majority of respondents don't identify with either the Democrat or Republican parties-they call themselves independent. Surely that is a backlash to the hyper partisan name calling displayed on the nightly news and on the front page of every newspaper. Whether that name calling is justified or not is irrelevant-the discouragement of the average voter is what matters here.

We already have partisan battles in 2 of the 3 branches of government-why would we possibly want to extend that partisanship to the third branch? Both political parties run the risk of either turning voters off from party politics and voting in general, or turning voters away and into a genuine third party movement. And for all those of you who say a third party will never happen in MN or the US, I'd remind you that both Ross Perot and Jesse Ventura led independent movements that would have been lasting had they both not been such fundamentally goofy individuals. American political history has a sad procession of political parties that lost touch with the people they claimed to represent and faded into the textbooks.

Retention elections would remove an unpopular judge and replace them with-wait for it-the next qualified candidate. Political parties would have no vested interest in mounting hyper partisan election campaigns against judges when they can't select the replacement. They could spend thousands to get rid of one judge only to have a judge with similar positions put in their place.

Point three, conservatives can't compete.

Have you seen the headlines? MNGOP 2 million in debt. Conservatives in Minnesota are in no position to try to go head to head with liberal special interest groups on judicial races. That didn't even work in 2010, when all three GOP endorsed supreme and appellate court nominees came up short, and who can forget how much special interest money went into opposing Tom Emmer. 2010 was a banner year for conservatives and the MN GOP in terms of money raised and dollars spent-and it was still not enough to win any major judicial election in Minnesota.

When you can finally admit that conservatives will be outspent if they engage in partisan judicial elections, then you have to remember the most sage advice on deploying your resources for battle-

Consequently, the art of using troops is this: When ten to the enemy's one, surround him. When five times his strength, attack him. If double his strength, divide him. If equally matched, you may engage him with some good plan. If weaker numerically, be capable of withdrawing. And if in all respects unequal, be capable of eluding him, for a small force is but booty for one more powerful if it fights recklessly.

Conservatives cannot win in a head to head battle for judicial elections. But there is a win-win solution; take politics out of the judicial equation and let the judicial branch remain impartial. The proposed amendment would create a selection board composed of members selected 1/3 by the governor's office, 1/3 by the legislature (equally by each party in both the house and senate) and 1/3 by the MN Supreme Court. There is little chance of a partisan gerrymandering of this selection board against conservative values, so why not call a truce in judicial elections.

We conservatives have a decision to make. Most in Minnesota already feel that they are locked in a battle for the direction of the state, and we fight that battle on two fronts; the governorship and the legislature. Those who advocate partisan judicial elections are in effect asking the MNGOP to open a third front in the war-the judicial branch front. While I am no anti war type, whether it is actual combat or political war, you can't commit to a new front if you don't have the resources available to fight it. Did the US open a second front in 1942 or 1943, when the Russians and English begged us for it? No, we wisely used our available resources where they could do the most good.

Judicial retention elections are not only a sound idea on their merits-removing partisan politics from the judicial branch-but they are a prudent path forward for a conservative base that cannot fill the coffers or man the defenses in a new partisan battleground.

I would encourage every Minnesotan, conservative or otherwise, to get more information about the proposed idea before rejecting it out of hand.

The story from last night that no one is talking about

2012-01-04T11:27:00.004-06:00

Update 3- The Army moves fast when you piss them off. Stars and Stripes reports that the Army has already opened an investigation into ~~CPL~~ PV1 Thorsen.

Update 2-I wrote below that he is probably in line for an Article 15, but since his conduct was beyond dumb. He showed up at a political rally in uniform, which is bad. Then he did an interview in uniform, which is worse. And to prove that he wasn't having any doubts about his actions, he went up on stage at a political rally and spoke on behalf or a partisan political candidate. This is a clear example of when a court martial is appropriate.

Update-the CNN video identifies the soldier as Corporal Jesse Thorsen, and AKO lists Thorsen as a member of the Army Reserve with the 402nd Sapper Co out of Des Moines. I think CPL Thorsen has some explaining to do today.

Why did a soldier in uniform stand on stage last night with Ron Paul, in a clear violation of military regulations? Why is no one talking about it? And why did some networks alter the video?

Here is a photo from the Daily Mail, showing a young man is US Army ACU's-

Paul identifies the man as Jesse Thorson, a 10 year soldier who has deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the uniform would seem to bear that out. His rank is hard to see, but looks like either two stripes of a corporal, or possibly three stripes of a sergeant. Either one makes him a non commissioned officer who should know military regs on uniforms and politics. On the top right of the uniform (as you see it in the photo) is a skill badge that appears to be a ~~CIB (Combat Infantry Badge)~~ Combat Action Badge given for direct combat with the enemy. On his right sleeve is the US flag, and what looks like a unit patch below it, indicating service in a combat zone.

All of the above is bad enough-whether Thorson is a corporal or sergeant, he is likely to be a private very soon, and a bit lighter in the wallet. Most people would assume he will be court martialled, but more likely will be an Article 15 punishment-loss of rank and forfeiture of 1/2 base pay for up to three months.

But then the plot thickens-CNN video of the event available on a Ron Paul website blurs out the soldiers name and US Army patches (left and right chest) as well as the US flag patch and combat patch on the right sleeve. (Shown clearly at the 1 minute 10 second mark). it looks like an attempt was made to blur the unit patch as well but failed. So the question is did CNN edit the video or did the website?

I've embedded the video below, in case it disappears from the Paul site.

Ron Paul and conspiracy theories go hand in hand, but this?d

Winning photo

2011-11-14T12:55:00.000-06:00

Beyond the Yellow Ribbon ran a photo contest in honor of Veteran's Day. The photo posted on their Facebook page with the most likes would win a stay at the Edgewater Resort in Duluth. Tons of great photos were submitted, but here is the winner-

Congratulations to SPC Brian Meeks, his wife Alicia, and of course little Thomas, 10 days old in this photo.

You can get more info and updates on the Beyond the Yellow Ribbon program at their website.

Wrong on principle

2011-11-01T11:18:00.000-05:00

The latest twist in the Vikings stadium debate involves Republicans in the legislature talking about using funds from the 2009 Legacy Amendment for the state portion of the proposed costs. On the face of it, this seems like a clever way to use an existing tax stream that conservatives generally opposed to solve the perennial problem of paying for a stadium. But it is really just wrong on principle.

While almost everyone in the state supports the idea that we should

protect our drinking water sources; to protect, enhance, and restore our wetlands, prairies, forests, and fish, game, and wildlife habitat; to preserve our arts and cultural heritage; to support our parks and trails; and to protect, enhance, and restore our lakes, rivers, streams, and groundwater

the debate was over mandating a new tax to pay for it. Everything listed in the amendment falls just outside of the core services the state should provide; infrastructure, public safety and education, but they are all mostly in the second tier of services that most residents feel is reasonable and justified for the government to spend money on. But instead of trusting to our elected legislators to provide funding for items covered in the legacy amendment, we the people went over the legislature's heads to require that money be spent. Not that we required money to be spent wisely, mind you, but we required it to be taxed, collected, and spent.

With the GOP majority in the legislature last session, conservatives realized that they had the ability to ask the voters to repeal the legacy amendment directly, something that hadn't been fully considered when the DFL dominated both houses. Repealing the legacy amendment would be perfectly in keeping with the principles of conservatism-lower taxes, smaller government, and more accountability of elected officials by the voters.

Now, someone in the last few weeks had what they thought was a clever idea-instead of reducing taxes by repealing the legacy amendment, let's just use that tax stream to fund the stadium, therefore being able to say with a straight face that we didn't raise taxes for a stadium. The problem of course, is that two wrongs don't make a right. But what is worse, is that we are confusing conservative principles with conservative populism.

First, there is no need to repeal the Legacy Amendment. By passing the Legacy Amendment, Minnesotans emphatically stated that funding for the arts, outdoors and culture should be high priorities when the government decides how to spend our tax dollars. And the amendment will sunset by law in 2034, so it will not be permanent. So rather than fight the battle of repealing the amendment, which involves placing a repeal question on the ballot and convincing voters to vote down what they just voted for a few years ago, the legislature has a simple solution-lower the state sales tax rate by .375 percent. What was a tax increase to fund the outdoors and arts simply becomes a dedicated funding source. The sales tax rate in Minnesota has always gone up, never down, so this would be a simple and very visible tax to lower that the average voter would see and understand.

Second, conservatives need to see past their own rhetoric on stadium funding. While no true conservative should ever agree to raise taxes for a stadium for a private business such as the Minnesota Vikings, the state can easily contribute 300 million dollars while spending little or nothing. Consider it in terms of the mortgage most people have on their house-the state bonds $300 million for the stadium, and then charges the the team rent of 10 million per year, with a guaranteed lease of 30 years. The Vikings will have repaid every dollar of principle, and even with the state's downgraded credit rating the interest rate will be incredibly low. This very scenario is part of the Vikings current stadium plan.

The Republican party fell out of favor with many conservatives in the last 20 years when it let principle fade to the background in favor of populism and getting reelected. Redirecting legacy money to a Vikings stadium is exactly the type of cheap gimmick that got the party in trouble and out of power. Conversely, refusing to let the state be involved at all, even when a fiscally conservative plan is proposed, is little more than cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Common sense adherence to conservative principles should be the mantra of every Republican.

What color is the sky in your world?

2011-09-06T11:55:00.000-05:00

The Winona Daily News editorial board pens an editorial today that starts out by decrying half truths, and then proceeds to tell a couple of full lies to try to make its point.

Responding to Rep Steve Drazkowski's skepticism of the rash of school funding referendums on the ballot this fall, WDN says Drazkowski is telling a half truth when he mentions the per pupil increase in funding, because of the funding shift that ended up in the budget deal.

Drazkowski is half right: The Legislature actually gave a per-pupil funding increase, the first in a long time. That means every student is worth more to a school district than they were last year or the year before.
Yet that ignores what the Legislature did to those same schools. Instead of paying school districts the full amount, the state will now defer a larger percentage of those funds, causing districts to dip into reserves or, if they don’t have any, to borrow against the state’s promise of paying later.

But the next sentence shows the WDN editorial board is either partisan to the core, or unable to recall the details of the legislative session and resulting budget deal;

It’s called a funding shift and it was the only way the GOP-controlled Legislature, packed with more politicians than statesmen, could pass a budget.

This isn't a half truth, a simple mis-characterization, or a bit of rhetorical exaggeration. It is a flat out lie, in fact it is two lies for the price of one.

First, the GOP legislature passed a balanced budget that had no school funding shift included during the regular session. That budget was vetoed by Governor Dayton, and K-12 funding was not the reason for the veto according to the governor. Saying the funding shift 'was the only way' the GOP could pass a budget is a flat out lie, and the editors owe their readers an apology.

Second, the school funding shift was an idea presented by the DFL and the governor's office. It was not proposed by the GOP, as evidenced by the offer sheet from the governor's office on June 30th. It introduced the idea of increasing the previous funding shift of 70:30 (70% of budget this year, 30% next fiscal year) to 50:50.

I have yet to meet anyone in Minnesota who is happy with the school funding shift solution, either the previous 30 percent delay or the current 50 percent. But for the Winona Daily News to state (not even subtly imply) that the GOP did not pass a education budget without the shift, or that the shift was a GOP idea has no basis in reality.

Editorial boards are expected to express their opinions on controversial issues-but they cannot create their own facts. The Winona Daily News owes Steve Drazkowski an apology and a correction.

Discordant headlines

2011-09-03T10:14:00.001-05:00

Today's StarTrib is filled will headlines that just scream in opposition to each other.

'Deal saves four Minneapolis firefighter jobs' -The city of Minneapolis will cut 6 firefighter positions because of 'frozen state aid', even though they seem to have enough money for a 'bicycle and pedestrian coordinator', whatever the heck that is. This is the city's annual drama to try to bring public pressure to bear on politicians to keep the gravy train flowing to Minneapolis.

Also on the front page, the Minneapolis school district has been forced to report their graduation rates accurately. 'New 4-year formula slashes high school grad rates', which lets parents in the city know that less than half of the kids on Minneapolis high schools graduate. Unless of course you make the standard 6 years-then it is still a pathetic 73 percent. Think on that; 1 in 4 will fail even when they doctor the numbers. If the situation in the school district gets much worse, Minneapolis parents may be guilty of child neglect for sending their kids to public school.

But never fear Minneapolis residents, the cure to all your ills is on the horizon-in the midst of the Central Corridor disaster for businesses comes word that the Feds give preliminary OK to third light rail project, linking Minneapolis to the south west metro suburbs. Clearly light rail has been a life changing benefit to Minneapolis residents since its construction (or life-ending in too many cases), so more light rail will no doubt be better for Minneapolitans, right? Curiously, though, the projected cost will be $1.25 billion dollars, almost 100 million per mile, and twice as much as the amount the Vikings are looking for in government funding, yet no one has called for a public referendum on this public boondoggle.

Last headline and back to the bad news for the city, Minneapolis sees diminished clout at Capitol, with the passing of career politician Linda Berglin. With all due respect to the late senator, who by all accounts served honorably on behalf of her constituents, this nation was founded on citizen legislators, who would temporarily put aside their livelihoods to serve in politics. 38 years in the legislature is a failure of imagination, and the chaos left by her departure shows a lack of leadership. The loss of political power that the district is now dealing with clearly shows that Minneapolis has had far too much power for far too long.

So there you have it Minneapolis; when the city burns because bicycles were more important than firemen, your illiterate kids can escape the city by light rail. Just don't count on much money from the capitol to rebuild.

The empty podium

2011-08-09T15:20:00.002-05:00

Chinook down

2011-08-07T19:19:00.000-05:00

I've heard a wide range of comments on the loss of so many of our best warriors this weekend. From the lefties who celebrate the loss because we are 'invaders', to the Ron Paulites who question why the troops dies, to those who offered support and condolences. None however, were more eloquent than the former Naval Aviator who blogs at Neptunus Lex-

I believed that if I had played the game the way it was meant to be played, and caught a few lucky breaks, I might have made flag rank. I know that I do not have now, and never did have, what it takes to be a Navy SEAL.

Lex was a fighter pilot, the best of the best, the elite of the elite, yet he gives props to those who have even more talent then him-

I also know fighter pilots, know them well. They give pride of place to few, their arrogance is legendary, even if overblown by those who envy their accomplishments. I’ve known fighter pilots who can make an airplane sing, who can turn the turbulent world of air combat into an operatic ballet, with themselves as the conductor. Knowing every beat and stanza, placidly certain of the denouement. But I never knew a fighter pilot who in his most private self would not tip his head to those few, those noble few, who are qualified to bring death to our nation’s foes by sea, air and land.

He goes on to describe a little of the lifestyle that is being a SEAL-

The selection process is rigorous, the training syllabus withering. You may think you have what it makes to be a member of the teams. But if the instructional staff has doubts about your intelligence, your dedication, your ability to work as a member of a team, your physical stamina and endurance, you are done. There is no court of secondary appeal. And when they have decided that you do not have what it takes to make the grade, to fight alongside their beloved brothers in arms, you will leave thinking it was your decision. You will ring the bell and be grateful.

For those few who make the cut, those who get to wear the Budweiser, the real challenges are yet to come. The challenge now is not to make the cut, it is not to grasp the intricacies of advanced training. The challenge is to go to places so utterly foreign, and fight foes so thoroughly implacable that to take the mission is to willingly part with all that you have, and all that you love, and place everything in the balance in a desperate gamble.

You will be expensively and thoroughly trained, of course. You will have practiced until your motions seem involuntary. You will have in your company men who know, trust and love you in their own rough way. You will have certain knowledge of the justice of your cause, and the depravity of your enemy. But you will also know that fate plays its own games as you feel the beat of your own heart in your breast, knowing – as young men should never have to know – that when you’re on a mission, the next beat is not promised. Knowing that the fog of war is ineluctable, no matter your training, experience and skill.

Knowing that things can and will go wrong.

And you go anyway. Night after night, week after week, taunting fate.
You go knowing that it is not merely your own life that trembles in the balance, but the lives of those you love, and who depend upon you. You go knowing that there is something more important even than those things: It is the idea we as a nation represent, whose best exemplification is those you fight alongside. You do not dwell on it, nor do you wear it on your sleeve. But it is there nonetheless.

I know this because I have met them.

America lost 25 of its best young men this weekend, fighting against an enemy who believes that women must wear a veil (at least), dancing is a sin, and that anyone who displeases their notion of Allah is fair game to be tortured, murdered and abused. People who hate freedom, abhor democracy, and think that everything America stands for is evil.

They gave their last full measure of devotion to this country, even as our country stands on the brink of tearing itself apart.

A Tea party slogan from a few years ago said that if you aren't outraged, you aren't paying attention. After this weekend, if you haven't shed a tear for these fallen heroes, then perhaps you don't understand their sacrifice.

Please take a minute to put your flag at half staff, and remind local businesses that fly Old Glory to do the same.

Swift Boat Vets vindicated

2011-07-27T08:54:00.000-05:00

Alternate headline: John Kerry's sphincter tightens

Remember John Kerry's claim to fame in the 2004 presidential run? He presented himself as a highly decorated Vietnam Vet, ready to ride to the rescue from cowboy W. But that claim was unraveled by a group of Navy vets who had served with Kerry and in his unit. Claims of heroism and bravery by Kerry were questioned by men who had been witness to the events. Kerry's claim of inserting spec ops troops into Cambodia on Christmas Day 1968 was debunked and his campaign subsequently admitted the fabrication.

The Swift Boat Vets for Truth who led this campaign to tell the truth about LT Kerry were themselves attacked by the liberal media, and by Kerry supporters who also claimed to be on the ground in Vietnam with Kerry. Kerry's strongest supporter from his time in Vietnam (some say he was the only one) was Wade Sanders. Sanders was a Navy swift boat captain in Vietnam, former deputy assistant secretary of the Navy, and recipient of the Silver Star for gallantry, one of the highest military awards. A very respected and reputable figure, he was the main defense against the Swift Boat vets.

Until now.

Wade Sanders is currently serving a federal prison term for possessing child pornography. But that isn't the most serious hit to his credibility. Navy Times (subscription required, Boston Globe link here) is reporting that the current Secretary of the Navy has revoked Sanders' Silver Star, citing "subsequently determined facts and evidence surrounding both the incident for which the award was made and the processing of the award itself." It is virtually unheard of for a top award for gallantry in combat to be revoked, unless evidence is brought to light that the award was unearned, or that the witness statements that supported the award are determined to have been false.

So why is John Kerry's sphincter tight? Recall that Kerry left Vietnam early because of a little known rule that gave an early out to anyone with three Purple Hearts, and that the Swift Boat vets have questioned the validity of all three of Kerry's Purple Heart awards. For the Navy to have revoked a Silver Star means they must have uncovered incontrovertible evidence of fraud from over 40 years ago, a fraud that occurred around the time and place that Kerry served.

Still repeating the lie

2011-07-02T18:02:00.000-05:00

Received in my mail yesterday from the Minnesota Department of Transportation:

We are writing because your organization (Steele County GOP) has a relationship with this agency under a current agreement to provide litter pickup services (Adopt-A-Highway).

As you may know, the Minnesota State Legislature adjourned May 23, 2011, without appropriation enacted to fund the operations of state government for the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2011.

The letter goes on to ask that all Adopt a Highway clean ups be suspended during the shutdown because MN DOT will not be able to pick up the garbage bags.

Of course the truth is that the legislature put a balanced budget on the governor's desk before adjourning, but the letter from MN DOT lays all the blame on the legislature, and in fact never once mentions the governor. This letter is similar to others and shows a pattern of the governor's office forcing state agencies to distribute their talking points, and makes it pretty hard to think that this shutdown was anything other than a premeditated plan to play politics with the taxpayers.

Aside from that, think of the message being sent to people all across Minnesota who volunteer their time to help keep our highways clean; you can't possibly do anything without the help of government. Somehow I don't think Minnesotans will agree.

Symptom of the greater problem

2011-07-01T15:38:00.001-05:00

As the Minnesota Shutdown (TM) begins, stories abound over the plight of the needy. But as long as the state has been shutdown, we need to examine such stories on a deeper level. Example-food shelves that get food from the government.

The Minnesota government shutdown is threatening delivery of some 700,000 pounds of food due at the state food shelves in the next two months. Colleen Moriarty, executive director of Hunger Solutions Minnesota, says the food comes from a federal program. Moriarty says its delivery depends on a single state employee who can work in a certain data management program.

Since when did the state and federal government become responsible for stocking food shelves? Since liberals realized that the more people depend on government, the more power and influence government has, and thus the more liberals can control other people.

Nearly 950,000 more pounds of food already in warehouses can't be distributed during the shutdown. Rob Zeaske is executive director of Second Harvest Heartland, which distributes food to programs in 41 counties.

Think of it folks, we have come from 150 years ago when the 1st Minnesota left to fight in the Civil War and left hundreds of families behind to fend for themselves, to food shelves with food on the shelves that they can't distribute without government assistance. Is this progress?

The long line of groups and individuals waiting to plead their case before the special master in St Paul need to take a cue from the pioneers who settled the Minnesota territory amid long odds and no thought of relying on government-look first to your neighbors, friends and family, and to government as a last resort.

(TM) Minnesota Shutdown is a trademark of the Dayton administration.

Interesting fact of the day

2011-06-26T19:31:00.000-05:00

Gateway Pundit had a post on Al Sharpton today, who is blasting GOP candidates for actually reaching out to black American voters. One of his links was on the under reporting of the number of Americans on food stamps, and another link was a piece on the effect of the Obama presidency on black Americans. Putting those two together, I came to an amazing conclusion--

The number of black Americans on food stamps today is higher than the number of blacks held as slaves just prior to the Civil War.

According the the 1860 census, there were about 3.9 million slaves held in America. That's an incredible number, especially considering there were only 31.4 million people living in the country.

But in 2008, America finally elected its first black president. Many people naturally assumed that a black president would improve the overall quality of life for black Americans. But in 2011, 44 million Americans are living on food stamps under the Obama administration. The latest census figures peg the percentage of black Americans at 12.5 percent, so when you do the math that means there are likely 5.5 million black Americans on food stamps. And that is assuming that black Americans are receiving food stamps at the same rate as the population as a whole-a dubious notion but one that I don't have any facts to disprove.

So, more African Americans are living on food stamps under the Obama administration than were held as slaves by the South before the Civil War. I guess that's an improvement, trading slavery for dependence on government to put food on your table, but far from the Hope and Change most black Americans were looking for when they marked the ballot for Obama in 2008.

Breaking news-President Obama to increase US troops in Afghanistan

2011-06-22T12:20:00.000-05:00

The White House signaled today that it will dramatically increase the number of US forces in Afghanistan over the next year. President Obama will address the nation tonight to announce that a 'surge' of an extra 10,000 US forces will be deployed, a stunning shift from conventional wisdom that called for a withdrawal.

Democrat Congressman Barbara Lee, California, said that a minimum of 50,000 US troops should be withdrawn this year, with the rest out as fast as possible. "Anything less," she said, "would be too modest." And even from the other side of the aisle, GOP presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman also denounced the president's surge of forces, saying "get American troops out faster".

According to unnamed sources, the president intends to not withdraw 5,000 troops this summer, with further plans to not withdraw another 5,000 troops during the winter and spring of 2012. The administration left open the possibility of not withdrawing an additional 20,000 troops later in 2012. Anti war advocates who have demonstrated outside the White House for weeks called for a complete withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan immediately, and have expressed intense disappointment in the president's plan. "Anything less than a full retreat from Afghanistan and Iraq is, of course, unacceptable."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everything above was, of course, written tongue firmly in cheek. The US currently has approximately 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, so 10,000 troops coming home over the next year means that a drawdown will be happening. Basic math here, 90,000 < 100,000. (No, I didn't leave a tag open, < means less than. Just ask any 4th grader). Just because the president is not decreasing US forces as fast as anti war activists would like does not mean he is increasing the number of US troops.

Unless you are a logic challenged liberal.

The GOP budget proposal for the state of Minnesota will increase state spending by 6%. No matter how you massage the numbers, the state will outlay more revenue from its coffers than it did last year. The DFL, however, insists on calling the GOP budget 'all-cuts'. This is simply out of touch with reality.

Will the GOP budget increase spending as fast as the DFL and governor want? No. But a smaller increase is not a cut. DFL legislators and activists who are pushing this nonsense are deliberately distorting the truth for political gain, and they should be ashamed.

Not everyone can lead

2011-06-19T22:07:00.000-05:00

Last week's GOP debate featured 7 hopefuls (Romney, Pawlenty, Gingrich, Paul, Bachmann, Santorum and Cain) with another half dozen still sitting on the fence (Huntsman, Palin, Perry, Giuliani, and Bolton) plus or minus a few. Conservative activists are still trying to draft a few up and coming conservatives (Rubio, Christie, and Ryan).

All of the above names are by and large good conservatives, and all would very likely be a dramatic positive shift from the current occupant of the Oval Office. But there is a big difference between being a solid and principled conservative and being able to lead this country. The GOP should take a lesson learned from the Army when looking at presidential hopefuls.

20 years ago, the Army changed it's rank structure to reflect a post cold war mentality. Previously, there were two routes for career soldiers to take in the army-leaders and followers. Anyone who enlists in the army starts with the rank of private (officers being the exception, they are given commissions rather than enlisting). The ranks go buck private (Enlisted-1 paygrade), private second class (E-2) and then private first class. After that came a career choice in the old system-soldiers could be promoted to specialist (E-4) or corporal (also E-4). The pay was the same, but corporals were tagged as leaders, had command responsibility, and were soon promoted to sergeant. Specialists could continue to get promoted and thus get paid more, according to their experience and training.

Flash forward 20 years, and you will find a much different army. The rank of corporal still exists, but it is given out only in the rare case of a specialist ready for promotion but for whom there are no available positions. Privates automatically become specialists, and from there they can make the leap into the Non Commissioned Officer (NCO) corp, or they can stay at the rank of specialist. The result? Any soldier who wants more pay or more responsibility has no choice but to move into a leadership role, or they will be left by the wayside. In today's Army, a soldier who is good at his individual job (be it carrying a machine gun, working in supply or cooking) is strongly encouraged to get promoted to a leadership role, regardless of their ability to lead.

So what does this have to do with the GOP presidential field? The exact same concept applies. Congressman and Senators who are really good at their jobs are being encouraged to run for president, regardless of whether or not they are able to lead. Paul Ryan is a perfect example. He is a great congressman, and has the vision and clarity to help lead the Republican party in Congress over the next decade. But president? Being a steadfast conservative with strong conservative principles and a vision of government reform does not mean that he is ready or able to lead this nation. GOP activists are pushing strong conservatives to run for the ultimate leadership role simply because they are strong conservatives, not considering whether or not they are good leaders.

President Obama is beatable, as evidenced by the latest poll numbers. But the GOP needs to look not just for the candidate who can beat Obama, but for the best conservative candidate who can lead this country out of the quagmire that the Democrats have pushed us into. As President Obama has been instrumental in pulling the country to the left, we need someone who can lead the country back to the right, with leadership being the key to the shift. Those who hold out hope of a Christie or Rubio run need to realize that we need those strong conservatives in the positions they currently occupy, untarnished by a failed presidential run. We need to pick a candidate who has shown that they can lead, not just a candidate with strong conservative principles.

Just as not every soldier is born to lead others, not every conservative is born to lead this great country. Beating President Obama may seem a foregone conclusion to many, but replacing him with the right leader is at least as important as the desire to make President Obama a one term president.

God hates Camp Shelby too

2011-06-08T18:03:00.000-05:00

After 6 long months, most of us in the 1st BCT, 34th ID came to hate Camp Shelby in central Mississippi. Normally a miserable place, it was made worse by the passage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 just a month before we got there for mob training. We spent the next months hearing excuses for the poor state of the base with the endless mantra- "We had a hurricane here, ya know".

So color me surprised that apparently God hates Camp Shelby as well when I heard that a lightening strike injures 77. Of course it is only slightly more surprising that the Air Force was training outside. During inclement weather. Without air conditioning.

The Weiner Rule

2011-06-07T08:45:00.000-05:00

As demonstrated by a master of spin control yesterday, here is the Weiner Rule (TM) formerly known as the Clinton Method-

Lie...about your actions.

Deny...any responsibility.

Cry...live on national TV is best, but on camera at a minimum.

Rely...on the voters to forget their outrage before the next election.

The most appealing part of the Weiner Rule is the simplicity of remembering the four components; each contains the sound 'I', which is naturally the most often used word by any politician anyways.

You reap what you sow

2011-06-06T17:41:00.000-05:00

In the rash of articles about how painful a state government shutdown will be, there is one term that keeps being bandied about that will have a huge impact on who is furloughed-essential employee. In theory, the state is required to keep paying any employee designated as essential, but there is wide disagreement about what that term means. But state worker unions have been adamant in recent years that they are not essential employees. Why? Because essential employees cannot go out on strike.

State law clearly spells out who is essential in 179A.03-

Subd. 7.Essential employee.
"Essential employee" means firefighters, peace officers subject to licensure under sections 626.84 to 626.863, 911 system and police and fire department public safety dispatchers, guards at correctional facilities, confidential employees, supervisory employees, assistant county attorneys, assistant city attorneys, principals, and assistant principals. However, for state employees, "essential employee" means all employees in law enforcement, public safety radio communications operators, health care professionals, correctional guards, professional engineering, and supervisory collective bargaining units, irrespective of severance, and no other employees. For University of Minnesota employees, "essential employee" means all employees in law enforcement, nursing professional and supervisory units, irrespective of severance, and no other employees. "Firefighters" means salaried employees of a fire department whose duties include, directly or indirectly, controlling, extinguishing, preventing, detecting, or investigating fires. Employees for whom the state court administrator is the negotiating employer are not essential employees.

In fact, just this year the GOP legislature tried to bring more state workers under the 'essential' banner with a bill that would have prohibited teachers from striking. From the Strib March 15th-

One of Hann's more stringent proposals, which he calls the "nuclear weapon in employee relations," would bar teachers from striking, grouping them with "essential" employees such as police and firefighters. Negotiations where no agreement is reached would be sent to binding arbitration. Twenty-two states already prohibit teachers from striking, according to the Education Commission of the States.
The union showed up at a committee hearing Monday to protest that proposal.

Public employee unions in the past decade in Minnesota have argued vehemently that they have the 'right' to strike because they are not 'essential' employees. Whether you agree with that concept or not, the fact remains that thousands of public union workers have benefited from being 'non-essential' as defined by the law. Any union that now argues they are essential in order to avoid a furlough is trying to have things both ways.

20,000 state workers are missing

2011-06-05T09:39:00.000-05:00

MPR reports today that the state's largest employer, itself, will have to lay off tens of thousands of workers in the event of a shutdown. Aside from the fact that MPR can report that the state of Minnesota is the largest employer and not realize that means government is too big, they seem to be missing about 20,000 state workers. From June 3rd-

State government is the largest single employer in Minnesota. There are about 35,000 employees working for various state agencies under the executive branch. That doesn't include some 4,000 people working in state courts and higher education.

But wait a minute! Last year MPR fact checked a claim by Tom Emmer that three out of the top five employers in Minnesota were government. And they agreed with Emmer's source, Twin Cities Business Magazine, that there are almost 55,000 state employees-

The state of Minnesota is ranked first, employing 54,900 people.

They counted higher education separately, so that can't be the source of the error.

The University of Minnesota, which gets only 18 percent of its budget from the state, is in fifth place with 25,976 employees. It's important to note that the U of M is not part of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System, which employs about 19,500 full-and-part time workers. All told, that's 45,476 employees.

And they aren't getting confused by federal government workers, who were also identified-

In third place is the federal government, which has 32,637 employees

So what happened to the 20,000 state workers that Business Magazine counted last year and that MPR agreed with?

The caliber of the men and women who defend us

2011-06-04T18:29:00.001-05:00

'I am so sorry I will not be able to see you grow up,' he wrote. 'But remember, your Daddy is not gone. I am in heaven now smiling down on you every day.'

Hard to read without a tissue, but worth the read none the less.

Take away question-why does it take a British newspaper to report on such an eloquent story of a US Army officer?

Don't Ask Don't Tell and DOMA

2011-05-18T09:51:00.000-05:00

When the White House announced earlier this year that it would not continue to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, conservatives were shocked that the administration could decide which laws to defend and which to abandon. But the demise of DOMA would have a major impact on another group you might not realize-the US military.

The repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is in the early stages, with training and briefings going down to the unit level about the new policy. My unit was briefed last week, and while most of the information was exactly as we all expected, the most interesting detail was the military’s new reliance on DOMA. Many military members, myself included, have speculated that the end of DADT is just the beginning for the agenda that gay and lesbian advocacy groups have in mind for the military. The argument for the end of DADT is that servicemembers should be able to serve without having to hide their sexual orientation. But many feel that open service is just the beginning and that the ultimate goal is official acceptance of gay marriage and the full progressive lifestyle.

The military has been adamant that the end of DADT will only mean open service, and not gay marriage. The official explanation is that while the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly has been removed, nothing else will change. But here comes the unexpected weak link in this policy-the military is reliant on the federal Defense of Marriage Act. As we were briefed, gay marriage will not be allowed or recognized by the US military because federal law (DOMA) states that marriage is between one man and one woman. The Defense of Marriage Act was referenced several times during our briefing, and was listed as a resource for anyone looking for more information. DOMA was cited when the Navy reversed itself after announcing it would conduct gay marriages.

And that’s where the problem comes in. If the military is relying on DOMA to keep the issue of gay marriage at bay, what happens when DOMA is overturned because the administration won’t defend it from court challenge?

The US military is in the midst of one of the largest fundamental cultural changes since the integration of the armed forces in the 1950’s. But even as we are struggling with this change during a time of war, the White House is leaving the military open to an even bigger culture shock-mandatory acceptance of gay marriage.

Gay and lesbian advocacy groups have to realize the opportunity that they have here. Rather than fight uphill battles state by state against an idea that does not have overwhelming popular support, they can fight a smaller battle in the court system to force gay marriage on the US military. They would be fighting against an administration that has no skin in the game, so to speak, and in fact would probably like to see both the repeal of DOMA and the integration of gay marriage into the military. Both fit in with their ideology, and perhaps more significantly, both would be seen as a victory by the progressive left in America, potentially shoring up the Democrat base going into next year’s elections. The risks and costs for progressives is very small, but the potential payoff could be a game changer socially and politically.

My personal opinion is that DADT worked well. Gays and lesbians were never banned from serving in the military; they were simply prohibited from talking about their sex lives. Despite the Hollywood stereotypes, the integration of women into the military has already had the effect of making discussions of your buddy’s sex life much less common. But the repeal of DADT will be a decade long transition for the military. Because we have been trained to accept good order and discipline as the norm, I think the military can handle the transition. But another large cultural shift, such as gay marriage, could well push the military beyond its breaking strain in terms of morale and discipline. It’s a challenge we simply do not need right now.

All opinions are of course my own.

A vote of no confidence for our courts

2011-05-09T18:41:00.004-05:00

With the Wisconsin Supreme Court recount still going on, Minnesota has a chance to keep the specter of a full scale battle for our courts from ever happening here. We all saw what happened there-special interest groups unhappy with the legislature and Governor Walker tried to circumvent two branches of government by buying an election for the third. The fact that they came as close as they did should give every conservative pause.

While I am no expert on the law or judicial elections, the answer seems clear--take the politics out of the courtroom.

Today, the House Government Operations and Elections Committee will hold an informational hearing on a bill to take the politics out of selecting judges. HF 1666 would propose a constitutional amendment to create retention elections for judges in Minnesota, rather than direct head to head races. Retention elections are not new, in fact they are used in 20 other states. The plan would also create a public performance evaluation for all Minnesota judges, as well as ensure that judicial appointments are based on a recommendation from a bipartisan merit selection commission. In Minnesota the group behind this proposed change is the Coalition for Impartial Justice, and the bill was discussed briefly over at Politics in Minnesota last week.

At first glance, the idea may seem to go against conservative principles. It would prevent candidates from running for the office of judge, instead using a non partisan commission to provide a list of qualified candidates for the governor to select from for appointment. That gives a lot of power to the governor and the merit selection committee, which runs counter to small government libertarianism. But in this case I think reality trumps principle. How many people can name one judge they voted for last November? My ballot in Steele County had over 20 judicial elections. The only races where I even recognized the names were for the Supreme Court, and that only because I met the two GOP endorsed candidates at campaign events. Most people either do not vote for the judicial races, or simply check the box for the incumbent. Even if the voters are paying attention, 90% of judges in Minnesota run unopposed--so the voters have no choice, and some judges wind up with de facto lifetime appointments. With a retention election system, voters would have a choice 100% of the time.

So what are retention elections? Simply put, they are a chance for voters to remove a judge if they aren't doing a good job. But rather than pit one judge against another, a retention election simply asks the voters if they want to retain a judge. This means that there is no head to head race, no candidates attacking each other, and no reason for special interest groups to spend large amounts of money to effect the election, unless a judge has overstepped their bounds or violated a major principle. For example, last year in Iowa, three Supreme Court justices who decided that same sex marriage was permitted under the Iowa constitution lost retention elections. Rather than being an election where you need to convince the voters that one candidate is better than another, this was a simple referendum on the job performance of these three justices. If a judge is voted out (not retained) then the replacement is appointed by the governor from a pool of qualified applicants.

So why should we as conservatives be interested in this idea? Why spend the time and political capital on this, when there are so many other pressing issues? A couple of reasons that I can see. First, while political operatives will tell you that negative ads are popular because they are effective, in the big picture they are a turn off to the independent voters. Retention elections would keep Minnesota from being bombarded by more attack ads. Second, it would take politics out of the courtroom while enhancing accountability. We shouldn't be electing judges based on their political ideology, but rather their ability to interpret the law and apply it equally. Third, it would keep political parties from spending money and time on judicial races. With no disrespect to Tim Tinglestad or Greg Wersal, the GOP endorsed candidates for the MN Supreme Court last year, we lost the governor's race by only a few thousand votes. While it's impossible to say for sure that the money and resources spent by the GOP on judicial races would have made a difference in getting Tom Emmer across the finish line, it is clear that money was a huge factor. Focusing less on judicial candidates and more on the endorsed candidates for house, senate and the governor's office would be a significant benefit to the party.

But the biggest reason conservatives should take a good hard look at this plan is the same reason we are pushing for photo ID at the polls-guaranteeing the integrity of the system is a win for everyone.

Nice job Mr President

2011-05-02T14:20:00.000-05:00

Give credit where credit is due-President Obama deserves significant credit for the sudden loss of body temperature of Bin Laden.

If conservatives and Republicans are going to be intellectually honest-and I hope we are- then the facts outweigh emotion here. The emotion says that we can't ever give props to the enemy or agree with something they have done. But the facts are different-

-Pres. Obama did not pull out of Afghanistan after being elected, despite significant pressure from his base to do so.
-Obama listened to the commanders on the ground in Afghanistan and escalated the US presence last year because it was the best strategic option.
-Obama yielded to common sense and did not close Gitmo, despite making specific campaign promises to do so, and signing an executive order to do so. We now know that it was information from Gitmo detainees that led directly to OBL's death.
-The president gave the green light for this specific mission to go after Bin Laden, despite significant political risk to himself. Imagine for a moment what would have happened had the mission failed catastrophically, ala Desert One. Conservatives would have been chastening the president as a military bumbler and weak leader.

Just like with the birth certificate issue, there are plenty of legitimate issues to criticize President Obama on. The take down of Bin Laden is not one of them. The administration may use this to their own purposes, such as calling for a full retreat from Afghanistan or making it a campaign talking point, and those would be legitimate issues to criticize the president for. But the takedown of Bin Laden is not one of them.

For eight years I watched my commander in chief be ridiculed and reviled by his political opposites on every single issue, regardless of what it was. President Bush was evil in their eyes, and thus every action he took was tainted. I hope conservatives can understand that such thinking was wrong then and is still wrong today. If we can't congratulate those we disagree with politically when they do something that we all agree was right, then we are nothing more than partisan hacks.

Thank you President Obama, for having the courage to do what was right even though it would have been far easier not to. Thank you for bringing justice to someone who so richly deserved it. And thank you for trusting our best warriors to conduct an operation that will become legend among those serve in uniform. I may criticize you tomorrow, but today, thank you.

The last full measure

2011-04-27T13:50:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow, Thursday the 28th, all US and Minnesota state flags have been ordered to be flown at half staff by Governor Dayton in honor of Army Specialist Joseph Alan Kennedy of Inver Grove Heights, who was killed in action last week in Afghanistan-

In honor of Army Specialist Joseph Alan Kennedy, Governor Mark Dayton has ordered all U.S. flags and Minnesota flags to be flown at half-staff at all state and federal buildings in Minnesota from sunrise until sunset on Thursday, April 28, 2011, the day of his interment. Kennedy, a native of Inver Grove Heights, was killed in combat in Afghanistan on April 15, 2011. He graduated from Simley High School in 2004, and was a member of the U.S. Army Company D, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry, based out of Fort Knox, Kentucky.

33 days from now is Memorial Day, the one day set aside by our country to honor all those who gave their last full measure of devotion to the United States. Although many people tend to think of Memorial Day as just another three day weekend, it is your chance to show that we will never forget those who gave everything for our freedom. It was first celebrated in 1868 with the placement of flowers at the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers in the newly opened Arlington ceremony. After World War One it became a national day of remembrance, and was declared a federal holiday in 1971.

This year will be especially bittersweet, as hundreds of Minnesota National Guardsmen from across Minnesota will mark Memorial Day with farewell ceremonies before they leave for a yearlong deployment to Iraq and Kuwait.

Please honor Specialist Kennedy tomorrow by lowering your flag at home to half staff and/or asking your employer to do the same. Please honor all of our brave warriors on Memorial Day by making plans now to attend a parade or ceremony, visit a veteran's memorial, or even just explaining to your children the reason behind the holiday.

Janet for RNC

2011-04-14T07:44:00.001-05:00

There are two simple reasons that Janet Beihoffer will get my vote for National Committee Woman.

Housework is something you do that nobody notices until you don't do it. ~Author Unknown

In party politics, housework is the ground game that nobody likes to do but is vital to a successful campaign. In 2010, the ground game that everyone took for granted was the battle for election integrity-making sure those who voted were actually eligible to do so.

In 2011 we have the luxury of discussing which voter ID bill is best suited to be passed out of the GOP majority legislature. What happens when it gets to the governor's desk is open for debate, but for the first time in decades there is real hope for actual change. But six months ago, Minnesota Republicans were still wondering how many college students would vote twice, how many felons would cast a ballot, and how many absolutely unknown voters would be vouched for by somewhat known voters, and then disappear back into the shadows.

The battle for election integrity in 2010 began in 2009, when the MN GOP Chairman Tony Sutton asked Janet Beihoffer to handle the election day operations for 2010. Her idea was to increase the number of GOP election judges so that we could have a better presence inside the voting precincts. The 15 month long project started with plans to register more Republican election judges, beginning with precinct caucuses in February, continuing through district and state conventions, and ended up with a record number of Republican election judges last November.

I have yet to meet another candidate for RNC who can show me a year long plus unpaid volunteer position for a project that most people said was impossible, but in the end played a key role in giving the Republican party its first majority in both houses since before I was born.

The second reason I support Janet is that I trust her completely. That's no small statement for someone who defines trust as 'someone you would share a foxhole with'. I met Janet by mail when she started sending care packages to my unit in Iraq after reading a Powerline post. I met Janet in person in 2007 when I was fresh back from Iraq, and interested in getting involved in party politics. I actually remember asking her what a 'Bee-Pow' was, not understanding what this BPOU acronym stood for. Since then I have had hundreds of conversations with Janet, and I have never known her to be anything but honest and upfront with the truth. The two people that the Minnesota GOP chooses to send to the RNC are our representatives to the national party, so trust in what they are doing to represent us is critical. I trust Janet.

I will cast my vote Saturday based on two simple criteria-who has the experience to tackle the issue of election integrity at a national level, and who I trust with representing me to the national Republican party. Janet is the runaway favorite in both areas.

Open Letter to Congressman Ellison

2011-03-08T09:53:00.001-06:00

Congressman-

you are in the news today, quoted in the Star Tribune as saying that the hearings scheduled by Rep King of New York into domestic terrorism is a "McCarthyistic witch hunt." While I understand your trepidation of hearings that would focus on homegrown radical Islam, I have to question your integrity on this issue. As the highest ranking elected official in this country who is Muslim, you have an enormous opportunity to be a leader and spokesman for your faith. And you do speak out-but only on half the issue. Your quick condemnation of anyone who is critical of Islam might resonate with me a bit more if you were as quick to condemn any Muslim who attacks (in Eric Holder's phrase) my people.

In June 2009, one of my people was murdered and another severely wounded when a member of your faith opened fire in the name of Allah. You made no official statement on the killing of Pvt Long and the attempted killing of Pvt Ezeagwula, although you did issue statements condemning the murder of a Kansas abortion doctor and a shooting at the national Holocaust Museum, which occurred in the same month.

In November of 2009, a member of your faith praised Allah at the top of his lungs while he gunned down 13 of my people in cold blood, and tried to kill 29 others. One of them, Kham See Xiong, was a constituent of yours. Your official statement contains only words of sorrow, rather than the words of condemnation that were needed. As a high profile Muslim, you had an opportunity to decisively and vehemently condemn the actions of Major Hasan, and set the record straight that mainstream Muslims do not condone the murder of non-Muslims in the name of Allah. Instead, you spent the next week talking about focusing on the families and the terrible effects of PTSD. But Major Hasan wasn't motivated by PTSD--he was motivated by radical Islam and a desire to kill Americans.

Last week, two more of my people were gunned down by a member of your faith, again loudly proclaiming the greatness of Allah as he pulled the trigger. You had nothing to say once again on the murder of Airman Cuddeback or Airman Alden, although it hasn't yet been a week, so maybe you just didn't want to "rush to judgment".

That makes for 16 of my people murdered in cold blood by radical members of your faith. I'm not even counting civilians; the victims of honor killings, those who nearly died in the air, those who avoided being butchered at Times Square only because of the incompetence of the bomber, or the thousands of people who might have been killed had a Christmas car bomb been real.

Maybe I'm just missing something, but I can't seem to find any instance of you condemning any of these radical, militant Islamic attacks on my people, the US military, or even on American civilians.

It is perfectly appropriate for you to defend your religion from criticism, just as Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and even Wiccans would defend their beliefs. But in order to show some integrity, you also have to be the first to be critical of your own religion when it is wrong, or wrongly interpreted by those easily swayed.

Until you stand up before the cameras and say definitively that you believe murdering US soldiers on American soil is wrong, you have no credibility as an unbiased source on the subject of Islam.

Strategic Pandering

2011-03-07T18:27:00.000-06:00

"under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket" Sen Obama, Jan. 2008

"The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), filled to capacity at 727 million barrels, is the world's largest supply of emergency crude oil." "In the event of an energy emergency, SPR oil would be distributed by competitive sale. The SPR has been used under these circumstances only twice (during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005)." Department of Energy SPR website

Word today that President Obama is considering tapping the Strategic Oil Reserve makes absolutely no strategic sense. Neither the situation we are currently in (civil war in Libya and unrest in the greater Middle East) nor President Obama's long term goals are well served by tapping the reserve and easing oil prices.

First, the Obama administration is categorically opposed to oil. From his support for cap and trade, to his (illegal) prohibition on deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, there is no one inside the administration that favors the status quo in US oil consumption, let alone expanded drilling domestically. And that was before the Gulf oil spill last year. After the spill, he made breaking the US dependence on oil a major priority.

Second, the spike in oil prices is blamed on the civil war unfolding in Libya, as well as the unrest all over the Mideast. But while part of the spike may be blamed on market jitters, the cold reality is that only about 100,000 barrels of oil per day from Libya have been affected. The rebels control large areas of oil production and pipelines to port, and it is in their best interest to keep the oil flowing and sell it as quickly as possible. They need the cash to buy weapons and influence against Gaddafi.

Third, even if the entire production of Libya were shut down, it would account for 1.6 million barrels per day of output. If the loss of 1.6 million barrels of oil to the worldwide market qualifies as an 'emergency' per the SPR directive, then why doesn't the potential production of 1 million barrels per day in ANWR qualify as an emergency? The Obama administration could affect oil prices far easier than tapping the strategic reserve by simply announcing that it was dramatically easing restrictions to domestic drilling. Remember, Saudi Arabia alone has slack capacity to increase production 1-2 million barrels per day, and they could do it almost overnight. If the US announced its intention to drill in ANWR, the likely response from OPEC would be to increase output, thereby lowering prices and making oil production in ANWR and dozens of other areas less profitable.

So if tapping the SPR isn't in line with long term administration goals on oil dependence, and if the situation in Libya isn't really an emergency according to what the SPR exists to cover, then why would the Obama administration even consider floating a rumor about possibly thinking about tapping the SPR? Pure politics. As much as they will talk about reducing their carbon footprint, liberals and environmentalists don't like high gas prices anymore than the rest of us. With his poll numbers still fading, it is no coincidence that Rasmussen has a bounce in presidential approval that neatly coincides with public rumors of tapping the SPR.

All of which means that conservatives should not be surprised to see President Obama tack to the middle, right or even back to the left to court whatever group he needs to get reelected.

7+43=myth dispelled for the DFL

2011-03-02T19:23:00.000-06:00

We're number 7!

Minnesota ranks 7 out of 50 in the just released Tax Foundation's ranking of tax freedom day among the state.

Too bad the study is ranking the worst states, which means Minnesota is 7th from the bottom. We also rank 7th worst in total state and local tax burden by capita, and 7th worst in state and local tax burden as a percentage of income. These statistics are for 2009, which means that the DFL meme that Minnesotan's don't pay enough taxes is simply a lie. We are well inside the top ten high tax states in the country already, without governor Dayton's proposal to give us the highest tax rate in the country.

So what did we score 43rd on? 43rd best on state business tax climate, as measured by corporate tax rate, income tax rate, sales tax rate, unemployment insurance tax rate, and property tax rate.

The whole push from the DFL over the last election cycle was that Minnesota was under taxed, rich Minnesotans especially, and that fairness demanded that we raise taxes on the rich to pay for all the important social programs for the poor and needy.

Aside from the nonsense of politicians trying to determine what is 'fair' for every income level to pay in taxes, the sheer folly of an already high tax state trying to present itself as a state that doesn't pay enough taxes would be amusing if it weren't so dangerous to the long term economic health of our state. The governor's budget assumes a 20% increase in the spending levels of Minnesota, based on a 20% increase in taxation levels in Minnesota. It's all fine in a class warfare debate to say 'yes but the rich can afford it', but the bottom line is the average taxes across all income levels in Minnesota is already too high.

The GOP insistence on no tax increases doesn't seem so radical when you actually consider the facts.

Country Club...Pipefitters?

2011-02-23T22:35:00.000-06:00

In what has to be terrible timing for the meme that unions in America are suffering from a sustained attack from budget cutting conservatives, the Steamfitters and Pipefitters Local 455 has too much cash on hand, so they decided to buy-a golf course and country club.

A local pipefitters union has snapped up the old Hillcrest Golf Club in St. Paul, paying $4.3 million for the private club and vowing to keep it private for at least two years.

Irony galore, not only does a union have enough money (actually cash) to invest in a golf club that couldn't make money under private management-

The union said it hopes to breathe new life into the business, which has been in the red with sliding membership. The all-cash deal closed earlier this month.

but they will keep the course private. As in closed to the great unwashed masses of the public.

Erlander said the union is going to "try to get our arms around running a golf course" and make it flourish again. The plan is to work their business contacts to sign up new members

But this wasn't just a good deal for the union, it worked out fine for the golf course, which got above its asking price for the facility.

It went on the market last August for $4.2 million, attracting a flurry of interest, before finally closing Feb 3.

So it sold for 100K more than the asking price. Must be rough days at the Steamfitters and Pipefitters union. Think of it for a moment, 4.3 million dollars in cash just sitting around in the union coffers that they decided to plow into a golf course and country club..

No word on whether the union members will at least get discount memberships..

The stark difference between American and Canadian medical care

2011-02-23T13:51:00.000-06:00

In the US, doctors fight to keep patients alive, to the point of a nationwide manhunt to bring a 13 year old boy with cancer and his mother back to Minnesota for radiation treatment. The two fled because they wanted less medical care.

In Canada, doctors are fighting to let a 13 month old boy die, to the point of getting a court order to overrule the family's attempts at keeping the child alive. The family is trying to get legal permission to flee the country to get medical care in the US instead.

Anyone who still believes that Obamacare wont lead to medical rationing is not facing reality.

Civility in politics

2011-02-23T10:19:00.000-06:00

Over the past few years I've been involved in politics, I've been called a teabagger, right-winger, war monger, neo-con, gun nut, and of course my favorite was 'in the pocket of big business'. I don't really care about most of that stuff, as it tends to reflect more on the people issuing the supposed insults than it does on me. But when a congressman called for supporters to 'get a little bloody', I couldn't help but wonder about the logic of this.

The two main ideologies in this country today are liberalism and conservatism. (Sure, there are plenty of variations and those are broad terms, but follow me here for a minute.)

Liberals are known, whether accurately or not, for the following personal labels; hippies, vegans, pacifists, anti-war protesters, progressives, peace advocates, tree-huggers, socialists, communists, and the blogger favorite moon-bat.

Conservatives are known, whether accurately or not, for the following labels; ex-military, gun nut, bible thumping religious nuts, racist, mentally unbalanced, NRA members, and the 60's radical favorite baby-killer.

The gist of these labels is clear-liberals like to classify themselves as peaceful, fairness loving people who are in tune with the environment, the arc of justice and cosmic euphoria. At the same time, they deride conservatives as violent, angry people who 'bitterly cling to their guns and religion'.

So it begs the question-if Congressman Capuano wants to mix it up in the streets and get a little bloody, which side is more likely to win--the gun toting ex military protester who has a German Shepard, or the peace loving vegan carrying a poodle in a Gucci bag?

We've been here before

2011-02-22T18:34:00.000-06:00

Today, pirates off the coast of Africa murdered in cold blood 4 American civilians. Our government's response?

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the killings "deplorable." She said in a statement that the killings underscored the need for international cooperation on fighting the scourge of piracy in waters off the Horn of Africa.
She urged international partners to provide material, financial and logistical support to an African peacekeeping mission in Somalia, the country the pirates use as the launching point of their attacks.

I'm sure the pirates are quaking in their boots at the thought of Sec Clinton getting our allies to help. Wait, do we still have any allies left?

How did we deal with pirates the last time they threatened our country? We tried diplomacy, and then found that dealing directly with the threat was much more effective.

In his autobiography Jefferson wrote that in 1785 and 1786 he unsuccessfully "endeavored to form an association of the powers subject to habitual depredation from them. I accordingly prepared, and proposed to their ministers at Paris, for consultation with their governments, articles of a special confederation." Jefferson argued that "The object of the convention shall be to compel the piratical States to perpetual peace."

Paying the ransom would only lead to further demands, Jefferson argued in letters to future presidents John Adams, then America's minister to Great Britain, and James Monroe, then a member of Congress. As Jefferson wrote to Adams in a July 11, 1786, letter, "I acknolege [sic] I very early thought it would be best to effect a peace thro' the medium of war." Paying tribute will merely invite more demands, and even if a coalition proves workable, the only solution is a strong navy that can reach the pirates, Jefferson argued in an August 18, 1786, letter to James Monroe.

Hope and Change and good intentions are wonderful concepts, but in the real world there are still people who are best dealt with by violence. I disagreed with our last president on a number of things, but his understanding of the right time to use force was one of his best presidential traits.

Governor's budget demonstrates how to redistribute wealth

2011-02-17T12:37:00.000-06:00

The governor's budget admits that it redistributes wealth, but not just in the Robin Hood sense of taking from the rich to give to the poor. The proposed budget demonstrates how to take wealth from Minnesota and give it to Wisconsin, South Dakota, and other low tax states. There is simply no other way to explain why his 4th tier and special 'tax the evil rich' tax generate progressively less revenue over a three year period.

According to the budget proposal, the new 4th tier tax rate of 10.95% for those making over $150k joint or $85k single will bring in an additional $1,003,900,000 in FY 2012(page 6). But the same tax rate only brings in $886,400,000 in FY2013. That is a 13% drop. FY 2014 predicts another drop in revenue, down another 3% to $862,800,00. Over two years, revenue from the new 4th tier tax rate will decline by 16.3%. Why is that?

The revenue predictions for the special 'tax the evil rich' tax are even more dire. The additional 3% tax on incomes over $500,000 is predicted to bring in $483,800,000 in FY 2012(page 8). The next year revenue from this special tax will drop to $434,600,000-an 11% drop. But that is pittance to FY 2014, when the special tax only brings in $248,400,000. That represents a 94% decline in revenue.

Combined, the two tax rates are predicted to bring in additional revenue of just under $1.5 billion dollars next year. But two years later the two tax rates only bring in $1.1 billion dollars. How does half a billion dollars of annual tax revenue disappear in three years?

The tax payers in Oregon know where the money will go-out of state. Oregon tried a special 'tax the evil rich' tax in 2010, and 10,000 of the 38,000 'rich' tax filers disappeared.

The tax payers in Maryland know where the money will go-anywhere but Maryland. When they tried a special 'tax the evil rich millionaires' tax in 2008, 30% of Maryland millionaires were nowhere to be found come tax filing time.

The tax payers in New York know where the money will go-their special 'tax the evil rich' tax is so far running about $1.4 billion under projected revenue.

Not only will Governor Dayton's proposed budget not raise the revenue it claims it will, but it will seriously damage the state economy for years to come. Every 'rich' tax filer that leaves Minnesota (those making over $500k) will have to be replaced by 10 households making $50k, just to keep tax revenues at current levels. Using Maryland and Oregon as examples, let's say only 10% of high income filers in Minnesota leave the state (or just hide their income in South Dakota like our governor does). The state budget office estimates there are 20,557 tax filers over the $500k level, so that means Minnesota could expect to see at least 2,000 high income tax filers leave the Minnesota tax system.

If you are thinking that it is unlikely that 2,000 of the richest Minnesotans will flee Minnesota for other states, you are probably right. But they don't need to physically flee the state. They simply need to reduce their taxable income in Minnesota below the magic number of $500k and $150k. Unfortunately the complexities of our federal tax system make that a very reasonable goal.

This redistribution of wealth is not only likely, it is accounted for in the official revenue forecast in the governor's budget. There is no other reason for a tax rate to bring in 30% less revenue in a three year period.

A question for Governor Dayton

2011-02-16T10:31:00.001-06:00

Last week in the State of the State address, the governor asked this question-

Then we need to commit more state money to providing all parents with the option of affordable all-day kindergarten for their children. How can states like Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi fund all-day kindergarten, while we in Minnesota do not?

It quickly became a liberal talking point, repeated on blogs and twitter. But here is the question I would like any of those liberals or the governor to answer-

How is it that the three states you mentioned can afford all day kindergarten even though their income tax rates are far lower than Minnesota, even before your proposed tax hike?

Alabama and Mississippi have top tax rates that are lower than Minnesota's lowest tax rate. 5% is as high as it goes in those two states, while in Minnesota we tax our lowest income level at 5.35%. Louisiana's top tax rate is 6%, only slightly higher than Minnesota's lowest rate.

With the governor's confiscatory new tax rates in place, Minnesota's top tax income tax rate would be more than double the top rates for the three states he mentioned in the State of the State address (10.95% vs 5% and 6%). Adding in the 'temporary' 3% tax on the uber wealthy, and Minnesota's top tax rate would be 13.95%, vs Alabama and Mississippi's top rate of 5%. So can someone please tell me how these three states can afford all day kindergarten without sticking it to the evil rich people?

The DFL's mantra that the rich don't pay enough taxes in Minnesota, and that is the cause of the budget 'deficit' is belied by the fact that three states with almost half the income tax rates can afford services that Minnesota cannot.

Veterans not victims, part 7

2011-02-15T10:17:00.000-06:00

The new liberal meme at both the state and federal level is that Republicans are cutting money for veterans. How evil we Republicans are, right? Except that the truth is that out of control government spending has put our state and federal governments in danger. While conservatives have done their share of spending tax dollars with reckless abandon, the fact is that in the year 2011, conservatives are pushing to reign in spending, while liberals are uniformly pushing to continue spending and hope for a miracle somewhere in the future.

But the notion that we can't cut even a dime from veteran's benefits is false. In order to solve this crisis, every American must help, every special interest group must take a hit, and every area of government spending has to be held accountable for every dollar it spends. NIMBYism will be the death of us all.

The VA is no different, and should start now by stopping the fraud that pays out an estimated $24 million per year to phony soldiers. From Military.com-

There are only 21 surviving POWs from the first Gulf War in 1991, the Department of Defense says. Yet the Department of Veterans Affairs is paying disability benefits to 286 service members it says were taken prisoner during that conflict, according to data released by VA to The Associated Press.

That's right, the Veteran's Administration that liberals will tell you needs every dollar we give it, can't even be bothered to verify that soldiers claiming to have be Prisoners of War are telling the truth. Given the possibility of those numbers being off by one or two either way, it still means that the department of Veterans Affairs is paying benefits to at least 260 men and women who claim to have been POW's in the Gulf War but were not. Even though the VA knows this to be the case, they refuse to act on it. And it isn't just the Gulf War-

A similar discrepancy arises with Vietnam POWs. Only 661 officially recognized prisoners returned from that war alive - and about 100 of those have since died, according to Defense figures. But 966 purported Vietnam POWs are getting disability payments, the VA told AP.

That is a total of over 680 phony POW's that the VA knows are likely fakes, yet they still refuse to act. In fact, the VA is paying more phony POW's (687) than real POW's (565) from Vietnam and the Gulf War. At an estimated (minimum) $35,000 a year in benefits to former POW's, that is over $24 million a year in money that the VA knows it shouldn't be paying out.

Congresswoman Bachmann proposed a budget cut to VA funding a few weeks back, and took quite a bit of political flack for it. While I disagree with the intent of her proposed cut (eliminating veterans from collecting disability pay from both the VA and social security, known as concurrent receipt), I applaud the fact that Bachmann had the courage to put VA funding on the table.

We all know what is coming if our country is to be saved from the looming fiscal nightmare. Simply cutting non-defense discretionary spending will not solve our problems. Social Security needs to be cut and reformed. The Pentagon needs to learn how to do without expensive new weapons programs. States need to be allowed to go bankrupt if they can't save themselves. Keynesian economic theory needs to be understood for the failure that it is.

The looming financial collapse of this country is no longer an academic question. If we don't change our spending ways, our country will default on its obligations and be forever damaged. The men and women who wear and have worn the uniform of our country's military have a 200 plus year history of making personal sacrifices in order to save our country when crisis threatens. This financial crisis will be no different. We all sacrifice together, or we all watch our country fall, together.

A challenge for Mark Ritchie

2011-02-08T13:37:00.001-06:00

Opponents of voter ID say that there is no evidence that voter fraud is a problem. They say Minnesota has a great voting system, one of the best in the country, and there is no need to change to a voter ID system. But how do we know that?

Bars are routinely tested to ensure that they are not serving alcohol to minors by having undercover and underage patrons try to buy booze. Wally the Beer Man was cited this last fall in just such an undercover sting operation by Minneapolis police.

Minnesota law requires at least one annual compliance check for any retail business that sells tobacco products to verify that only purchases are made only by those legal to do so.

We test airport security screeners constantly, to make sure they are doing their jobs correctly. Sometimes the results are so bad, the TSA doesn't want to release the results.

So why don't we test the integrity of the voting system here in Minnesota?

There is a special election in Northern Minnesota next week. If Sec State Mark Ritchie is confident that our voting system is fraud-proof, let him put his money where his mouth is, and do a compliance check.

There are 44 precincts in HD 5B, so let the MN GOP pick 44 activists to do a compliance check. Each activist would be legally authorized by the Secretary of State to attempt to vote illegally in one precinct, and would be responsible for recording their actions so that A) the false vote can be identified and removed from the pool of legal votes, and B) they can explain and demonstrate how and why they were successful or unable to beat the system. Some activists could try the vouching system, others could take the place of actual registered voters. Heck, one could even try to vote in place of Cathy Daniels, the Chair of the SD5 DFL party.

HD 5B is considered by the DFL to be a safe district, so they couldn't claim that undercover voters had help from fellow conservatives from inside the system. And during a special election, both parties will have more than the usual number of poll watchers and election judges, so the deck is theoretically stacked against fraudulent voting.

If liberals are serious in their belief that there is no illegal voting potential in Minnesota, then they should jump at the chance to prove it. They could head off the voter ID bill that is likely headed to the governor, and prevent DFL legislators in swing districts from having to vote against something that nearly 4 out of 5 voters support.

Bringing a weapon on an airplane is a felony, as is fraudulent voting. But selling tobacco to a minor is only a misdemeanor, and selling alcohol to a minor is a gross misdemeanor. Why do we let something as serious as voting go without testing, just because we can't prove there are problems?
Come on DFL, what could you possibly have to lose?

Photo ID

2011-02-07T21:18:00.000-06:00

When liberals talk about showing a photo at the polls, they claim it is an incredible intrusion on the democratic process, and that certain groups (mainly the elderly and poor) will be disenfranchised by having to show ID at the polling booth.

What a crock. If you want to know what disenfranchisement really is, check out this video of voting in Afghanistan in 2009. Also a great reminder of the type of people we are fighting against in the Taliban-

Globalwarmingcoolingclimatechange

2011-02-05T10:32:00.000-06:00

From Glen McCoy

Destroying your environment

2011-01-26T21:27:00.000-06:00

John Hinderaker at Powerline reminds everyone of the ridiculous consequences that come with CFL lightbulbs. But taking the EPA's instructions one step further, it is possible that CFL lightbulbs could destroy your house and put your very life in danger. Consider this from the EPA-

Before Cleanup
-Have people and pets leave the room, and avoid the breakage area on the way out.
-Open a window or door to the outdoors and leave the room for 5‐10 minutes.
-Shut off the central forced‐air heating/air conditioning (H&AC) system, if you have one.

Cleanup Steps for Hard Surfaces
-If vacuuming is needed to ensure removal of all broken glass, keep the following tips in mind:
-Keep a window or door to the outdoors open
-Continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the H&AC system shut off, as
practical, for several hours.

Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rugs: Air Out the Room During and After Vacuuming
-The next several times you vacuum the rug or carpet, shut off the H&AC system if you have one, close
the doors to other rooms, and open a window or door to the outside before vacuuming. Change the
vacuum bag after each use in this area.
-After vacuuming is completed, keep the H&AC system shut off and the window or door to the outside
open, as practical, for several hours.

Now consider the fact that last week in International Falls, MN it was 46 degrees below zero. Air temperature, not wind chill. All across Minnesota, the air temperature was -20 or colder for several hours. Now picture yourself trying to clean up a broken CFL bulb in -20 below weather.

Depending on the size of your house, opening a window and turning off the furnace could put the temperature in the house below zero within 5 minutes. According to the Weather Channel, water pipes can freeze in an air temperature of 20 degrees. That's outside the house temperature of 20 degrees.

At a temperature of 0 degrees and even with no wind, frostbite can occur in less than 30 minutes, which would likely not be long enough to clean up the toxic mercury in your environment saving lightbulb.

On the other hand, you can pick up a 24 pack of 100 watt bulbs at Lowes for about 10 bucks; less than 50 cents a bulb. But make sure you buy them up this year, because starting Jan 1st 2012, incandescent light bulbs will begin a phased in ban.

Or we could just get Congress to abolish the ban, and not have to risk frostbite, hypothermia or major home damage just to clean up a broken lightbulb.

SOTU

2011-01-25T20:55:00.000-06:00

"For example, over the years, a parade of lobbyists has rigged the tax code to benefit particular companies, and industries. Those with accountants or lawyers to work the system can end up paying no taxes at all, but all the rest are hit with one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, it makes no sense and it has to change."

Excuse me Mr President, but lobbyists do not write the US tax code, congressmen do. Considering your failed pledge to not allow lobbyists on your payroll, I don't think you have any right to complain.

More perspective

2011-01-20T15:14:00.000-06:00

Headline in today's Star Tribune- Bachmann trails Obama by 18 points.

The rumors of Rep Michelle Bachmann running for president were apparently enough for PPP to run a poll matching Bachmann against Obama in a mythical 2012 showdown.

Hello? It's 2011, and Bachmann hasn't even announced she is thinking of running, yet the headline is enough to titillate liberals and try to throw cold water on Bachmann just in case the rumors might be true. But ironically, 18 points is not a bad number when you consider another headline- Clinton Leads '08 Dems, No Bounce For Obama.

Polling done 4 years ago yesterday shows Clinton leading Obama for the Democrat nomination by 24 points in a 5 way matchup. And the poll was taken just days after Obama formally announced his desire to run, when he had plenty of media buzz going.

The real takeaway from this PPP poll is that 20 months out, without even officially (or unofficially) being in the race, and with a poll sample that under-samples Republicans, Michelle Bachmann is still doing better than Obama was at exactly the same number of days left until election.

And to think that just last week liberals were agonizing over what they thought of as a huge right ward tilt at the Strib.

Your tax dollars at work

2011-01-19T15:46:00.000-06:00

I don't get a lot of comments, because let's face it, I don't post very much. I don't really consider myself a 'blogger' but rather a guy who occasionally writes on a blog, and even less occasionally writes with something approaching eloquence. So on the rare circumstance that I get an interesting comment, I figure I should highlight it.

Yesterday I posted on the huge charade that was played in our state over the last year-the mythical billion dollar budget deficit. Kudos to the DFL-it was a clever ploy and likely helped mitigate their 'shellacking'. It might have been just enough to elect the first DFL governor in a couple decades. An anonymous commenter posted this-

Anonymous said...Thul how did you race go? Oh that is right Representative Kath won by 6% more in 2010 then he did in 2008. Ouch. Get a real job!

Now, I wont lie that losing sucks. Losing by over 20 points in a conservative year especially sucks. But given the circumstances of my getting in the race and my inexperience in retail politics, I still hold my head high. I explained it to an Army buddy thus-getting half way up Mt Everest and having to turn back would be a tough defeat, and you might be tempted to hang your head among the other groups of mountain climbers who made it all the way to the top and back. But when you get back to your hometown in America, you will probably be one of the few people in your town who ever attempted something that most people don't have the courage or ability to do.

So consider the irony then, of being sniped at for taking a shot at the state legislature by someone without even the courage to leave their name with their insult.

But actually, it gets much better than that. By tracking the IP address of the commenter, it turns out that the comment came from someone on a state of Minnesota run network in St Paul. Click to enlarge-

So a state employee spent 29 minutes reading my blog starting at 9:08 this morning, having been redirected there from the Morning Report at Politics in Minnesota, and showed great personal courage by leaving an anonymous insult.

Your tax dollars at work.

But it does remind me of my favorite bumper sticker.

New low for the White House

2011-01-18T22:08:00.000-06:00

Today, the Obama White House violated United States Code 36 USC 171, Use and Display of the Flag.

A very simple concept, it says that the US flag always flies highest when displayed in America, especially when displayed at a government building.

(c) No other flag or pennant should be placed above or, if on the same level, to the right of the flag of the United States of America, except during church services conducted by naval chaplains at sea, when the church pennant may be flown above the flag during church services for the personnel of the Navy. No person shall display the flag of the United Nations or any other national or international flag equal, above, or in a position of superior prominence or honor to, or in place of, the flag of the United States at any place within the United States or any Territory or possession thereof: Provided, That nothing in this section shall make unlawful the continuance of the practice heretofore followed of displaying the flag of the United Nations in a position of superior prominence or honor, and other national flags in positions of equal prominence or honor, with that of the flag of the United States at the headquarters of the United Nations.

Get that? Even the flag of the United Nations can only be displayed equal to Old Glory except at UN Headquarters.

H/T to Neptunus Lex

I realize I am a stickler for flag etiquette. I'm that guy that will stop by a bank or hotel just to tell them that they are flying their flags incorrectly-the US flag goes on the highest flag pole, then the state flag, then your company flag.

But this is the damn White House, where there are dozens of people whose sole job is to advise on protocol.

Last thought-maybe if we hadn't increased the debt by 40% over the last two years of sole Democrat rule, we wouldn't have to kiss the ass of the Chinese 'president' when he visits the country he increasingly owns, lock stock and barrel.

Perspective

2011-01-18T15:26:00.000-06:00

In order to put the Legacy Amendment into perspective for the sheer amount of money involved, consider this;

Almost $457 million in Legacy Amendment funding has been sent to Minnesota groups and agencies

Over the 2 years since the money has been flowing, that means about 225 million per year being collected in sales tax revenue. In comparison, the Vikings stadium, estimated to cost about $750 million for no roof or $900 million for a retractable, could be completely paid for with this amount of money in 3-4 years.

But ironically, after 'assuring our outdoor heritage in Minnesota', sportsmen will still have to fork over more money-hunting and fishing fees are expected to go up. So you may be able to catch a trophy fish in the future, but only if you can afford a license.

Was our state budget deficit a political ploy?

2011-01-17T10:11:00.001-06:00

Mitch runs down the false logic of claiming that Minnesota has a 6.2 billion dollar budget deficit, explaining that what we really have is a gap between revenue and the DFL's wish list for spending. This 6.2 billion figure was the constant theme and talking point of the 2010 election in Minnesota, and was a smart political play by the DFL legislature.

Conservatives at the national level have long suspected that President Obama and the Democrat party intend to ramp up spending on anything and everything to the point where massive tax increases are inevitable, kind of a reverse starve the beast. But the DFL in Minnesota went one further, manufacturing a deficit in order to make tax increases palatable.

Consider it from the opposite angle- the GOP legislature adjourns in 2012, having spent (for argument's sake) 34 billion for the general fund. The outgoing legislature (all up for re-election again in 2012 because of redistricting) sets the budget forecast or tail for 2013 and 2014 at a spending level of 30 billion each year. Using the same standards by which the DFL claimed a massive budget deficit this year, the GOP could go into election 2012 claiming an 8 billion dollar budget surplus.

Would that be intellectually honest? Probably not, unless the GOP hired a psychic. The problem with budget spending forecasts is that it is nearly impossible to accurately predict the needed level of funding for a department several years out. Here in Minnesota, the DFL simplifies that process by simply telling budget heads to take their current spending and decide how much it needs to increase. If the new GOP majority is successful, we could see zero based budgeting in Minnesota, forcing department heads to start from scratch every year on programs they run and justify every dollar of funding. But zero based budgeting will make budget funding forecasts even more difficult.

When you explain to your friends and neighbors this summer why Minnesota isn't actually slashing school funding by half, turning mentally ill patients out on the street, denying emergency medical care to the indigent, or any other of the dozens of doomsday scenarios that were predicted by liberals last year if we cut our way out of the massive budget deficit, perhaps the best way to explain it is that it was a clever political ploy by the DFL. They choose the battlefield for the debate over the budget, and tried to force conservatives to play defense. But it didn't work, and the GOP took over both chambers of the legislature, and came within half a percent of retaining the governor's mansion as well.

But the real boon for conservatives may yet be to come. Just as liberals in Minnesota were forced to eat crow over their dire predictions of Minnesota turning into the Wild West with the passage of the permit to carry law (light rail has been more deadly to Minnesotans that conceal carry), so too the DFL will have to explain why their dire predictions don't come true about the budget. Predictions like-

"our grandparents will have to move 100 miles from their grandchildren to the only available nursing home"

"slash funding so dramatically that it will force teacher layoffs, raise property taxes and harm education for students"

"balance the budget on the backs of the poor, the sick, the young, and the old"

"reduced spending on Local Government Aid (LGA) and County Aid will be part of the proposed Republican budget solution...(C)uts to this funding will result in either diminished services or higher property taxes"

"cutting the money that pays for our firefighters, police and first responders, and decreasing investments in roads to move goods make Minnesota less attractive for employers"

"limiting school busing or only holding school four days a week rather than five"

"There will be significant cuts to services for people with mental and physical disabilities"

"The reality is these are massive cuts. Pawlenty already forced the legislature to amputate limbs. I'm at a loss for analogies to describe what Emmer wants to do to the remnants of Minnesota ... selling organs, maybe?"

The media will likely try to help the DFL out of this prediction that wont come true-talking up the false logic of "smaller than expected increases are actually cuts", and how class sizes stayed where they were instead of getting smaller as they would have with a tax increase to those evil rich.

But in the end, even if Minnesota has to shut down government in the stare down between the GOP legislature and the DFL governor, life in Minnesota will go on without any huge tragedies. But rather than be content with our conservative victory, we need to remind our friends and neighbors of the dire predictions made by liberals this last year, and the fact that they didn't come true.

Logical gap

2011-01-11T08:18:00.000-06:00

Here's a question-

assuming Sheriff Dupnik is correct, and talk radio plus the immigration issue has created a dangerous atmosphere in Arizona, why would his department let a US Congressman hold an outdoor, public townhall meeting with no deputies present?

"When the rhetoric about hatred, about mistrust of government, about paranoia of how government operates, and to try to inflame the public on a daily basis, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it has impact on people especially who are unbalanced personalities," Dupnik said Saturday night.

For perspective, here in Steele county Minnesota, any public gathering where alcohol will be served must have a paid sheriff's deputy present. Wedding reception with beer? You need security. Street dance downtown? You need the law present.

Yet in Pima County Arizona, apparently you can gather hundreds of people in a Safeway parking lot, who are all there to discuss politics, and in the middle of this 'paranoia' and 'rhetoric about hatred', the top cop didn't feel the need to have even one officer present?

Federal government to lay off 70,000

2011-01-07T09:15:00.000-06:00

In an effort to reduce the deficit, the federal government will reduce its payroll by 70,000 over the next 5 years. Will there be thousands of IRS employees at the unemployment office? Are we getting rid of the Department of Education? Nope, we are downsizing the military during a war.

Defense officials will slash $78 billion in program spending and begin cutting up to 70,000 soldiers and Marines as federal budget officials tighten the purse strings on military spending.

While the federal government is still adding employees (up 20% from 2008 to 2010) the military is being forced to draw down its strength.

There is no doubt that there is money to be saved in the defense budget. Pork barrel spending is still rampant here, with congressmen voting for military programs and weapons systems that are unwanted but paid for because of the jobs saved or created in their districts. One of the more ridiculous examples of this was two years ago, when Rep Bart Stupak not only finagled $100 million more than the Navy requested for littoral combat ships, he publicly complained when they didn't spend the money fast enough-

Congressional approved funding for the United States Navy in Fiscal Year 2009 provides $1.02 billion – $100 million more than requested – for the procurement of two Littoral Combat Ships. With hundreds of jobs hinging on the acquisition of the contracts, we hope the Navy moves as soon as possible to award the contracts for the building of the LCS ships.

Congressional pork spending on military projects continues, such as this item from the 2011 defense budget for cargo planes-

C-17 cargo planes were conspicuously absent from the 2011 bill. Gates has said repeatedly he doesn’t want any more, but Congress has voted to buy them anyway. And that may happen again, Sharp said. Even though the Armed Services Committee has not added them to the budget, the House and Senate Appropriations committees probably will.

This is an area that the Tea Party, and those new members of Congress who ran as Tea Party candidates, need to focus on. Any Congressman who writes in funding for programs or weapons that the military doesn't want should be identified, highlighted, and ridiculed. The defense of this country is not a jobs program, and Congress needs to stop mandating that the Pentagon spend money on things it doesn't want.

Another area that the military can easily save significant amounts of money-pay and entitlements. Just like with unwanted weapons programs, Congress requires the military to pay some soldiers more than is justified. The biggest culprit-hostile fire zones. In theory, any area where there is a fair chance of getting shot at is designated as a combat zone. But you might be surprised to learn that the US is technically involved in three wars right now-Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo. Most people couldn't even find Kosovo on a map, and there hasn't been a death or injury of a US service member due to enemy action in over a decade. Yet the military still pays soldiers stationed in Kosovo as if they are at war, and they are still given the combat zone tax exclusion, the same benefits as troops on the front lines in Afghanistan.

So why are we still officially at war in Kosovo, 10 years after the fighting stopped? Free spending Congress. In 2003, the Army switched from stationing active duty troops in Kosovo to National Guard units. It was a common sense move, which sent better trained active duty units to combat in Iraq, and used Guard and Reserve units to run the US mission in Kosovo. But the change from active duty to Guard and Reserve meant that now individual congressmen had a vested interest in keeping the benefits high for soldiers in their districts.

Far from being a partisan issue, then Sen Norm Coleman, current Sen Amy Klobuchar, and current Rep Tim Walz all argued in favor of keeping Kosovo a combat zone in 2007. The real reason for their request? A large deployment of Guard soldiers from Minnesota.

Consider the headlines from a month ago, when North Korea fired artillery on South Korea, and the threat of war seemed to loom ever closer. Then consider the fact that the 30 plus thousand US military personnel are not paid hostile fire pay, nor do they receive any tax exclusion benefits.

There are plenty of areas to cut the defense budget. But the real question is whether we can trust our Congress to cut the actual pork, rather than the personnel that we may need just around the corner.

Pop quiz

2011-01-06T22:13:00.000-06:00

When taking the oath of enlistment, I swore to defend-

A) The United States
B) The President of the USA
C) The state of Minnesota
D) The Constitution

If you answered D, you are not only correct, you are probably not a liberal, judging by today's reaction to the reading of the Constitution on the House floor.

Just for refresher, here is the oath I took-

I, (David Thul), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the State of (Minnesota) against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the Governor of (Minnesota) and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to law and regulations. So help me God.

I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the State of Minnesota, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.

Only then does the oath talk about obeying the orders of the President and the Governor.

The Constitution is the instruction manual for our entire government. It is the blueprint for our democracy. Any one who objects to the reading of the Constitution has forgotten the premise on which our country is based.

Here is what conservatives mean...

2011-01-04T09:58:00.000-06:00

...when we say we want regulation reform in Minnesota. From the Owatonna People's Press-

Employees at Al-Corn Clean Fuel were still cleaning up on Monday, after a fermentation tank collapse Saturday spilled around 420,000 gallons of corn mash onto the plant floor.

Randall Doyal, CEO of Al-Corn Clean Fuel, said no one was injured in the incident, though a carbon steel tank with a capacity of about 250,000 gallons gave way in the early hours on New Year’s Day.

But that isn't the story. Al-Corn had already realized that the tank needed to be replaced, and applied for a permit from the MPCA to do so. They applied eight months ago.

“The ironic thing is we had identified this as an issue some time back and had applied for a permit for a new tank, and that had been held back,” said Doyal. “There’s actually a pair of tanks there that we have identified as needing to be replaced.”

Doyal said the plant had applied for a permit from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to get clearance to replace the 15- to 16-year-old carbon steel tank with a stainless steel tank, but that permit had not been granted until last Thursday — about eight months after Al-Corn had applied for the permit.

Eight months to decide to issue a permit to replace one tank with another? And a Minnesota company forced to wait for a government agency in order to do what they knew had to be done.

In fact, the company already had the footing in place for a new tank, in order to replace that tank that collapsed Saturday. Al-Corn had initially arranged for construction crews to begin work in June or July. Doyal said while he would have expected such a permit to be approved in one day in Iowa, the MPCA determined that there was a change in the permit request, slowing down the process.

Thank God that no one was hurt, because if they had the MPCA could have been liable.

“We honestly think we were very blessed in that no one was injured. You can fix equipment all day. We’re just thankful that no one was hurt,” he said.

Nonetheless, Al-Corn now has the cost of clean-up, the overtime incurred, and the repairs to the building and facility to pay for, likely to run in the tens of thousands. This accident never should have happened, and the company never should have been forced to wait so long for a simple permit.

This is exactly the type job-killing regulation that the new Legislature needs to be identifying and removing from Minnesota law.

Climate restoration

2010-12-29T13:54:00.002-06:00

Watching the latest remake of A Christmas Carol this last weekend, I noticed it was set in a snow covered city. So has every other version of the movie, because that is how Charles Dickens wrote it. Penned in 1843, Dickens set most of his books in the childhood conditions he grew up in-England of the 1820's.

London, England experienced a true white Christmas this year, with snow covering the ground. Snow is in fact so rare in England on Christmas, that the official definition of 'white Christmas' is 'a single flake of snow that falls in the 24 hour period of December 25th'. Here in the US, we define a white Christmas as at least 1 inch of snow on the ground.

How long has it been since London had a Charles Dickens style true white Christmas? According to the BBC, that last one was 1895.

Global warming my ass.

Some attitudes will never change

2010-12-27T14:37:00.000-06:00

Doug Grow, proud progressive and advocate for all things DFL, writes at MinnPost today about the political futures of several Minnesotans who came up short in the 2010 elections. Not surprisingly he concludes that Republicans (Molnau and Emmer) are effectively done in politics, while Democrats (Clark, Kelliher and Pogemiller) are just in recovery phase, and all have options to rehabilitate their political careers.

But Grow shows his disconnect from reality and the motivation of the majority of the voters in 2010 with his comments about Minnesota's 8th CD-

Suddenly, the sprawling northern district has become a "so what?'' region of the country. By unceremoniously tossing 36-year U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar out of office, the district went from being a major recipient of federal money to just another remote congressional district in the middle of the country.

'Unceremoniously"? Is there some formal ceremony needed to remove a career politician who spends more time in DC than in his district? A elitist who refused to even hold a single townhall meeting during the Obamacare debate? A sore loser who still refuses to offer congratulations to his opponent?

But what Grow really can't seem to understand is that 2010 was about ending the government spending spree, even if that means cutting yourself off from the gravy train-

But for the next few years, the major political news in the 8th won't be about the newest multimillion-dollar federal project (there won't be any), but about whom the Democrats will run in two years to try to unseat rookie Chip Cravaack.

Get that? Voters in the 8th will no longer benefit from Oberstar's legendary ability to bring home the pork! How silly of those voters.

The fact that voters in the 8th voted Oberstar off the island isn't a measure of their ignorance. It is a measure of their frustration with a Congress that thinks that spending tax dollars is the surest way to re-election.

But there is still hope for those poor slobs in the 8th, says Grow. They may have lost Oberstar, but their loyal votes for another big spending politician may be enough to keep them on the government trough-

The good news for the northern portions of the district is that the new governor is a man who appreciates loyalty. Mark Dayton owes his election victories in both the primary and the general election to the Iron Range and St. Louis County. He will do everything he can to help foster economic activity in northern Minnesota.

Doug Grow typifies in one throwaway paragraph the attitude that has pushed our country to the brink of bankruptcy, and our state to exploding budgets that simply can't be sustained.

Peace on Earth..

2010-12-24T08:53:00.000-06:00

...is still mostly provided by rough men ready to do violence on our behalf. From Blackfive-

A DIFFERENT CHRISTMAS POEM

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,

I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.

My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,

My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.

Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,

transforming the yard to a winter delight.

The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,

completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.

My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,

Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.

In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,

So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,

But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.

Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know,

Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.

My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,

And I crept to the door just to see who was near.

Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,

a lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.

A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,

Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.

Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,

standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,

"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!

Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,

You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"

For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,

Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..

To the window that danced with a warm fire's light.

Then he sighed and he said "Its really all right,

I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night."

"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,

That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,

I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.

My Gramps died at 'Pearl on a day in December,"

Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers."

My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam,'

And now it is my turn and so, here I am.

I've not seen my own son in more than a while,

But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.

Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,

The red, white, and blue... an American flag.

"I can live through the cold and the being alone,

Away from my family, my house and my home.

I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,

I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.

I can carry the weight of killing another,

Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..

Who stand at the front against any and all,

To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."

"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,

Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."

"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,

"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?"

It seems all too little for all that you've done,

For being away from your wife and your son."

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,

"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.

To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,

To stand your own watch, no matter how long.

For when we come home, either standing or dead,

To know you remember we fought and we bled.

Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,

That we mattered to you as you mattered to us.

It's easy to forget how many places US troops are stationed at around the world. The snapshot below is just the Army, and doesn't count the Marines, Air Force or Navy. Keep our men and women in your prayers tonight, and have a Merry Christmas!

What to expect from open service

2010-12-20T10:14:00.001-06:00

Now that Don't Ask has been repealed by Congress, the US military will begin the long process of figuring out how to implement it. Here's what you can expect to see.

In the short term, almost nothing will change. The bill passed this weekend will not become law until President Obama, the SecDef and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs all agree that the military is ready to implement the change, and after that there will be a 60 day waiting period. After the waiting period, the military will begin the process of transitioning to open service. How long this transition will take is up in the air, but I would expect to see a 12-18 month timeline at a minimum. Why so long?

This policy change will be the largest policy shift for the military since the desegregation of the military after WWII. Senior leaders in the military will have to set in place specific policy and protocol for how individual soldiers can serve openly. But more importantly, they will have to have specific guidelines for how military leaders can deal with a multitude of scenarios. The biggest issue will be evaluation reports, because military promotions revolve around the review and rating you get from your leadership. And because military evals are almost entirely subjective, they are open to all sorts of claims of bias and discrimination. You can expect to see a rash of stories in the media about soldiers who claim they didn't get promoted because they are openly gay, and the military will have to have specific policies in place to deal with these claims.

Another scenario that will have to looked at is cohabitation-whether or not openly gay soldiers will be allowed to share a room. It may seem like a simple issue, but the military generally prevents even married soldiers from living together in a combat zone because it can give the appearance of special treatment. But the flipside of cohabitation is this-can a straight soldier be forced to share a room with a gay soldier? One study group in the Pentagon says straight soldiers should be forced to share rooms and showers with gay soldiers, to speed integration. I would be surprised if the military follows this advice, but even if they don't, there will be problems. Take the issue of showers. Most military barracks can accommodate one shower point for males and one for females. But the military doesn't fight from barracks. Soldiers in the field, sailors on small ships or subs, and Marines in small combat outposts all face the situation of having one shower point. Since we don't allow men and women to shower together, a simple time sharing agreement usually comes into play-females can use the shower from this time to this time, and male soldiers the rest of the time. Simple enough, right? But if straight male soldiers cannot be forced to shower with gay male soldiers, will unit commanders now have to set up seperate times for each? If there are gay female soldiers in the unit, you could end up with four seperate groups that need to be accommodated at the shower point. These may seem like silly questions, and that common sense should prevail. But the military cannot rely on common sense on any issue when political correctness is concerned. The military is a rules based organization, which means there have to be specific rules to follow.

But even once the policy is set, the transition if far from done. Each level of command will need to be trained in the new policy, all the way down from general to private. Judging by the amount of time the Army spends training soldiers on sexual harassment and sexual assault prevention, I would guess that initial training on the new open service policy will take between 6-8 hours. This in itself represents a significant distraction for the military, just in terms of the logistics required to get everyone trained. Stateside active duty units may stand down an entire unit for a day to complete the training. Deployed units will have to pull troops of the front lines to train them. Even Reserve and Guard units will take a hit on this, as the average unit has 12 monthly drill weekends (24 days) plus one two week annual training (15 days) for a total of 39 training days in a year. Taking up one full day for initial training means cutting out one full day of mission specific training, which is no small thing for a military at war.

The other big question is how the policy will be implemented over that 12-18 month timeline. Since there is no requirement for each service branch to change at the same time, it seems likely that the branches that indicated the least amount of likely disruption to the change will implement first. So expect to see the Air Force go first, followed by the Navy, the Army, and finally the Marines. Each service chief will have overall responsibility for the implementation, and the Marine commandant is on the record as being dead set against the change, which caused liberal groups to call for his dismissal. (God forbid we have the top Marine giving his honest assessment of the situation.)

But even inside each branch, the policy can be rolled out differently. For instance, stateside units, or those just back from deployments, would be the least likely to have serious problems implementing the new policy. Since the ultimate worst case scenario for the military is to have a death or serious injury because of problems between straight and gay soldiers, combat zones will logically be the last places to see the implementation. An openly gay soldier attacked by members of his unit at a US base would be bad, and bad for the military. But an openly gay soldier killed in a firefight in Afghanistan because his fellow soldiers didn't have his back would be a tragedy, as well as a PR nightmare.

The biggest unanswered question with the repeal of DADT, and one that may have critical impact on the American military, is how many men and women will get out of the service or decide not to enlist because of open service. Question #80 from the military survey is-if DADT is repealed, will it affect your willingness to recommend the military to a close friend or family member? 27.3% said it would have a negative effect. That is over 1/4 of the military that would be less inclined to tell their friends and family to join up. Question #81 asks how the repeal will affect career plans. 12.6% say they will leave sooner than planned, and another 11.1% say they will think about leaving sooner than planned. It remains to be seen whether or not these soldiers will actually get out, or if there will even be any realistic way of knowing whether or not large numbers of the military are leaving specifically because of the repeal. And because most soldiers enlist for several years at a time, there will be a delay before any impact can be seen. But the potential impact on the military in the long term is significant, and can't be ignored.

One upside to the repeal of DADT-the hundreds of colleges around the country that have refused to allow military recruiters on campus because of DADT. Also, the return of ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corp) to some of the elite schools will mean that some of the best and brightest college students will once again be able to work towards a military commission while studying. Of course it remains to be seen if every college will allow the military back on campus-Berkeley comes to mind, where the city council voted to ban Marine recruiters from the town itself a few years back. Any college that continues to ban the military will show themselves to be anti-military, rather than anti-discrimination.

For all the back slapping among liberal politicians about ending the ban on open service, the fact is that most of the politicians who voted to repeal the ban will be out of public service by the time the lasting effects are known. In fact, many of them will be out of public service next month. It will be the mid and senior level leaders in the military that will be left with the task of figuring out how to make this work, and I expect that task will still be underway the next time the Census workers are knocking on your door.

Behind the headlines of the DADT survey

2010-12-07T16:01:00.000-06:00

For the last few weeks now, the results of the intra-service survey on the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell have been bandied about in the news, with remarkably little reporting on anything other than the broad conclusions. But just like seeing the StarTribune poll predict Dayton winning by 12 points two days before the election, the devil is in the details.

The first problem area is how the survey was conducted. The military doesn't use polling services by phone, and only occasionally put paper surveys directly into service member's hands. Most soldiers received survey invitations by mail, which direct you to a specific website with a 12 digit login to use. Others were sent invites by email, with a similar login. But not mentioned by the headlines is the fact that little more than 1/4 of survey invitations were replied to. 27.5 % is below the 30-40 percent response rate that researchers predicted, and well below the 52% rate of a similar type of survey of federal civilian workers.

The second problem is closely related, in that the survey results were collected completely by way of the internet. While you and I may take the world wide web for granted, it is far from a sure thing for the military. Soldiers and Marines serving in remote locations may have no internet access at all, or it may be so limited that the prospect of spending 20 minutes of your weekly computer hour on a survey means choosing between chatting with family or filling out a survey. Sailors and Airmen often live under strict bandwidth limits for satellite internet, with military surveys again low on the priority list. Even stateside soldiers have no guarantee of having access to the internet. At least a fourth of the soldiers in my unit get on the internet only by way of the local library or their cell phone.

The third problem reminds me of a scene from the Matrix, in which the Agent looks at Neo and says 'that Mr Anderson, is the sound of inevitability'. Most soldiers believe that the end of DADT is simply a matter of time, no matter what their opinion. Combine that with the fact that the military is centered around a top down discipline-we are all used to being told what to do, and I think the actual interest of any service member to complete the survey was already very low before it was even sent out. Why waste 20 minutes of your life answering questions about an issue that sounds like it has already been decided by the politicians?

But the fourth problem is just like the Strib poll, in that going beyond the headlines there are some very interesting results. If you just read the headline that 70% say repealing DADT would have positive, mixed, or non-existent results, you would take that to mean 70% support or don't care about repeal. But if you read down to question #88, you would see that only 29% would have no issue with using an open bay shower with a gay service member, while 25% would use the shower at a different time, 18% would talk to a first line leader to see if they had other options, 7% would do 'something else', and 8% don't know what they would do. That makes for 58% of those polled who would have enough of a problem with sharing a shower to do something about it.

And although it has been mentioned by conservative pundits, the most important part of the entire survey is this-

Nearly 60% of respondents in the Marine Corps and in Army combat arms said they believed there would be a negative impact on their unit’s effectiveness in this context; among Marine combat arms the number was 67%.

These are the very men (and some women) doing the heavy lifting in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are more likely to live and operate in austere environments, have less privacy than the rest of the services, and be more dependent on their fellow unit members for their very lives. The entire military is centered around the combat arms units. To disregard the impact on these units that bear a disproportionate burden of the actual combat is akin to saying that filling your car with milk instead of gasoline will only hurt 30% of the car, the engine, and thus wont really be too bad. But the reality is that the engine IS the car-power windows, radios and leather seats are just things that make the ride more comfortable.

In the end, the truth is that DADT works. Gay and lesbian service members can serve in the military, they just can't do so openly. And the results of the survey sure seem to indicate that DADT works, since 69% of respondents say they have worked with a person they believed to be gay. If accurate, that means there are far more gay and lesbian members of the military than commonly thought, and that gay service members who can do their duty without violating DADT is much higher than commonly thought.

My personal opinion on DADT is that it will likely be repealed or modified in the next decade. There is simply too much momentum against it, and acceptance of gays and lesbians in society at large is expanding. But I don't think the simple repeal of DADT will be the end of the story. The Army is fanatical about enforcing equal opportunity, and the end of DADT will be just the beginning of the struggle to integrate sexual orientation into the military at large. Think about it for a moment-how can the Army lift DADT and officially condone gays and lesbians without also accepting gay marriage? This isn't just a social question; married soldiers make more money in housing allowance than do single soldiers. If gay marriage is legal in a particular state, how can the military possibly tell a Sailor that his marriage doesn't count for the Family Separation Allowance, which compensates service members who must be away from their families?

If the military ends DADT, it will be forced to confront full integration of the gay and lesbian lifestyle into military traditions. If you thought racial integration of the services was tough, or that allowing women in combat roles was a thorny issue, just you wait.

Neccesary Roughness

2010-12-07T09:33:00.000-06:00

I wasn't able to attend the Republican Central Committee meeting on Saturday, but had I been there I would have voted enthusiastically in favor of the motion to ban 18 former conservatives from party functions. I use the phrase 'former conservatives' intentionally, because that is what the debate is truly about.

For all the media buzz, this debate is nothing new. This is the same debate that Federalists and Republicans had after the formation of our country and of political parties, and the same debate that our grandkids will be having. Here in Steele County, where there is a strong libertarian streak in the local Republican party, this is a debate we have had dozens of times in the last two years.

President Reagan famously said that the person who agrees with you 80% of the time is a friend and an ally, not a 20% traitor. Using that as the yard stick, Arne Carlson (most prominent of the 18 and therefore the most likely to be quoted by the media) is no longer a Republican, nor has he been for quite some time. No one who voted for President Obama two years ago and stands by their decision can seriously claim that they believe in Republican principles. Supporting Tom Horner may have been a trendy, feel good thing to do, but it ignores the basic truth that Tom Horner is not representative of today's GOP. Liberals and the media (pardon the redundancy, as Mitch Berg might say) will rant about today's GOP moving towards extremism. But as a newer member of the party, I see the party moving back to its fundamental conservative principles of limited government and fiscal sanity in the budget. And in the face of a looming financial catastrophe caused by runaway government spending and near criminal levels of debt, we can return to the conservative principles as a country, or we can whither and fade, following the long decline of the Roman Empire.

A commentary piece in today's StarTrib even goes so far as to claim that the vote was a violation of state law and violates the GOP constitution. It is a perfect illustration of the fact that the GOP does have a big tent in Minnesota. Bob Carney Jr calls himself a 'progressive Republican', despite the fact that those two words are ideologically opposite of each other. The law that Carney cites is in the area of party caucuses-

Minnesota law allows persons to vote at a political party's precinct caucuses if they are "in agreement with the principles of the party as stated in the party's constitution, and ... either voted or affiliated with the party at the last state general election or intend to vote or affiliate with the party at the next state general election." A person's eligibility can be challenged at the caucus and is then decided by majority vote.

Does anyone reasonably believe that former Governor Carlson is either A) in agreement with the principles of the party as stated in the party's constitution, or B)intends to vote or affiliate with the party in the next state general election? By his own admission, Carlson did not vote for the Republican at the top of the ticket in 2008 or 2010, so that choice can be clearly ruled out. Horner's platform included tax increases as an integral part of his budget solution, tolerance (if not open support) for abortion, and he would not have defended the institution of marriage. Those three issues alone clearly put Horner at odds with the GOP platform, and by extension put Carlson and the other 17 at odds with the party as well.

You can't go around calling yourself a Republican if you in fact don't believe at least the majority of what the GOP party as a whole believes in.

All of this of course ignores the very basic fact that if Carlson and his fellow former conservatives want to have a say in who the party chooses as its gubernatorial candidate, or what the party platform will be, they have only to show up and be heard. That is the main benefit of being involved, of going to caucus night, and county and state conventions. Try to influence fellow delegates towards your preferred candidate, or plank, or other idea. But in the end, you need to support the will of the majority of the party.

Who you vote for is your business, and if it were just their 18 votes that had gone to Horner, that would be a non-issue. But they didn't just vote for Horner, they publicly supported him, drawing attention to the fact that they were once Republicans and using that to their advantage. Not only did these former conservatives fail to support the candidate of the party that they claim to belong to, but they wasted their support on a candidate who never had a serious chance to win. The end result was to (likely) tip the scales just enough in favor of a governor who is to the left of Nancy Pelosi, will make Jesse Ventura look like a statesman, and will make Alan Grayson look like calm and rational.

The Republican party has lost its way before, putting political expediency above principle, and not surprisingly it began on former Governor Carlson's watch. Until he and the rest of the wayward 18 see the damage done to the principles they claim to espouse, I don't want any of them anywhere near my Republican party. The guy who disagrees with me 80% of the time is neither my friend nor my ally, no matter what he calls himself.

Historic honor

2010-11-16T12:06:00.000-06:00

Something historic is happening today in Washington DC, something that should be celebrated and something that everyone needs to know about. For only the second time in my lifetime, a living soldier is being awarded the Medal of Honor.

In October of 2007, in the Korengal province of Afghanistan, SSG Sal Giunta risked his life against overwhelming odds to rescue a wounded soldier that was in danger of being captured by Taliban soldier. Although doctors were unable to save the wounded soldier, SSG Giunta's bravery saved the soldier from a fate worse than death--being tortured and used as a propaganda victory by the Taliban.

The last Medal of Honor was awarded to a living recipient in 1976, for actions during the Vietnam War in 1972. Since then, every MOH has been awarded posthumously.

Some quick facts about the Medal of Honor-

- First established during the Civil War in 1861, there have been 3448 awarded

-Only 1 woman has ever been awarded the Medal of Honor, for actions during the Battle of Bull Run

-There have been 19 double recipients of the Medal of Honor

-The first African American Medal of Honor recipient was a Union Soldier in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, loosely recreated in the movie Glory

-Military tradition dictates that living Medal of Honor recipients are saluted, regardless of their rank.

-46 Minnesotans have been awarded the Medal of Honor, including 2 from the 1st Minnesota at the Battle of Gettysburg

10 years ago today

2010-10-22T06:34:00.000-05:00

Michael David stepped into the clearing at the end of the path. Godspeed, Mike, and rest assured that you haven't been forgotten.

VFW PAC scandal shows the power of younger veterans

2010-10-18T22:26:00.000-05:00

You might have missed it, but a major earthquake occurred in one of the largest veterans groups in America over the last two weeks.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars established a Political Action Committee 31 years ago, in order to support Congressional candidates that supported the interests of our nation's combat veterans. Over the years it has supported candidates with endorsements and occasionally donations. But today the VFW-PAC became a victim of the wave of anger in this county over politics as usual.

By way of explanation, there is a difference between the two largest veterans organizations. The American Legion, chartered by Congress in 1919, is open to all military personnel who served in uniform during specified periods of US History. The Veterans of Foreign Wars was established in 1899 by veterans of the Spanish American War, and was chartered by Congress in 1936. Membership is limited to US citizens who served honorably in the US military and received specific campaign medals associated with combat zones.

Both the American Legion and the VFW are going through a period of upheaval. The older members who have formed the backbone of both groups over the last two decades are slowly passing away, and membership has been declining. Enter the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, and both vet organizations are being infused with new blood and new ideas. Legion and VFW posts that used to center around smoke filled bars are now becoming community centers with high speed wi-fi.

So when the VFW's political action committee started handing out endorsements this month, a new generation of veterans was suddenly and intensely interested in who their veterans organization was asking them to vote for. John McCain is a respected VFW member, and his endorsement fits with what many vets expect, regardless of political leaning. Tim Walz is a little bit controversial, because many veterans (myself included) take issue with his inflated military resume. Barbara Boxer caused a stir, because although she votes to fund veteran programs, she infamously rebuked a Brigadier General for calling her 'mam' instead of Senator, despite the fact that she didn't have the common courtesy to call him 'General' or even 'sir'.

But for many vets, the last straw was the snub of combat veteran LTC Allen West, in favor of a civilian who has never served in uniform. This was the real reason that younger veterans responded en masse. The military blogs went viral with their condemnation of the VFW PAC, and veterans across the country were encouraged to raise the issue at their local post. For the record, the Minnesota VFW has never supported or recognized the VFW PAC.

The board members of the VFW PAC, who are appointed to the job by the national leadership of the VFW itself, doubled down on stupid by insulting its supporters. "The VFW-PAC disagrees with those who claim the endorsement process is skewed, flawed, or unfair."

From there, the end was near for politics as usual. The VFW Ladies Auxiliary, one of the main funding sources of the VFW PAC, launched a broadside that left deep scars- "the Ladies Auxiliary to the Veterans of Foreign Wars is suspending all fundraising and promotion of VFW-PAC for the remainder of the year."

In a normal year, the controversy might have subsided. The VFW national commander promised to raise the issue at the next national convention, which unfortunately is not until August 2011. But 2010, the year of the Tea Party and the first year of the rise of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in the political scene, is anything but a normal year. Today, the National VFW Commander stepped up to the plate and did what was needed-he called for the dissolution of the VFW PAC, and rescinded all VFW endorsements. So effective today, no politician can claim to have been endorsed by the VFW for 2010.

The outrage over this issue was mainly driven by the internet and military bloggers, and was centered on the younger generation of veterans. While WWII and Korea vets have always been wary of political action committees, it was not until the new vets became outraged that the issue was forced. This new generation of veterans will only expand their involvement in politics, as they transition from the battlefield to the battle of politics. In Minnesota alone, we have three Iraq vets running for the legislature (sorry, shameless plug). Nationally, there are 10 conservative Iraq and Afghan vets running for Congress with excellent chances of winning.

After every major war in US history, combat veterans have come back from serving their country to go on serving in politics. 2010 may be overshadowed by the Tea Party, but still among the major stories is the wave of veterans stepping up to run on conservative principles.

Great investment opportunity

2010-09-29T09:04:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not the president of a bank in Sudan who needs your help transferring money back to the US, and I don't have a hot tip on the third race at Canterbury Downs.

A single radio ad on one station in Owatonna costs $20, an ad on all four stations is about $60. A week long ad in the local paper is $270, and a direct mail postcard is about $3000 in postage alone.

A donation on your part now can help us win on November 2nd. Winning on November 2nd will mean one less vote in the legislature for higher taxes and bigger government. And lower taxes and smaller government is a win for all of us.

Does my generation have a role in America's future?

2010-09-29T08:20:00.000-05:00

That is the question posed by this year's Veterans of Foreign Wars 'Voice of Democracy' contest. Since 1947, the VFW has been giving high school students a chance to express their thoughts in the subject of patriotism. Not just a written essay, the Voice of Democracy is an audio essay, where contestants first craft their message and then record it in their own voice.

Entries are submitted to your local VFW post, where they will compete for over 3 million dollars in scholarships and prize money. Most smaller posts like Owatonna offer between $50 and $150 to winners, and winners then go on to compete at the district and state level, with increasing prizes at each level. Top prize is a $30,000 college scholarship to the winner's choice of school, and a trip to Washington DC to accept the prize.

There is also a contest for junior high students, called the Patriot's Pen, on the topic 'Does Patriotism Still matter?' with a top prize of $10,000.

But the real winner will be the next generation of American leaders, who have a chance to creatively express their patriotism while earning money for college.

More information on the Voice of Democracy and Patriot's Pen contests can be found at the links, and you can find your local Veterans of Foreign Wars post here.

Obamacare is mild compared to what the state DFL has in mind for Minnesota

2010-08-09T11:15:00.000-05:00

Last week, a Rasmussen poll of likely voters in Minnesota found that 54% favor repealing the health care reform legislation that barely passed Congress earlier this year. While those numbers are in line with the rest of the country on the subject of Obamacare, many in Minnesota are unaware that we have a much more immediate threat to our health care system brewing in the state legislature-the very real prospect of a state run universal health care program.

Last month I listened to Sen. John Marti pitch the Minnesota Health Plan, which would go far beyond Obamacare and move Minnesota into a mandatory universal health care plan. Your current health care insurance would likely disappear, replaced by a health care plan run by the state of Minnesota. Like most progressive visions, the plan is long on rosy scenarios and short on details.

The rosy scenario? Every Minnesotan would be covered by the state for health care. No insurance companies, no billing departments at hospitals, no co-pays and no deductibles. True universal coverage. What a utopia Minnesota would be. But as with every rosy scenario, the devil is in the details. In this case, I’m not sure which is worse-the details that the plan’s proponents know, or the ones that they don’t.

Detail number 1, the cost; just a mere eight percent of your income. Higher than the highest state tax bracket currently in Minnesota, eight percent would more than double the amount of money that the state takes from your paycheck. As a resident of Minnesota, you would have no choice in paying this new tax even if you have your own healthcare insurance already. That also means that Minnesotans would pay twice for health care-once for the new taxes created to fund the federal health care program, and once to pay for a universal health care system in Minnesota. Interestingly, you won’t find this 8% tax rate specified anywhere on the website for the plan-but it was listed in very small print on the handout given by Sen. Marti.

Detail number 2, how it will be paid for. According to the website, funds will be collected by the Department of Revenue, but then be directed straight to the MN Health Fund. This would be done to ensure that the legislature would have no chance to take money out of the account for other projects. While this seems like a reasonable idea, the real problem wouldn’t be keeping the legislature from raiding the Health Fund—the problem would be keeping the Health Fund from raiding the general fund via the legislature. Since the health care plan would be funded by one source and one source only (the 8% income tax), the problem comes when the health plan needs more money to operate than is generated by the special income tax. When income tax revenues fall (as in the current recession) the plan will have less money to spend on patients. With only a fixed amount of money available, if costs go up then services will have to go down. Or the legislature will have to authorize taking money out of the general fund to cover the shortfall.

Detail number 3; how much the plan will pay to doctors. Anyone who uses Medicare and any doctor who accepts Medicare knows the ugly little secret of Medicare payments, which is that they are far below actual costs. Doctors and hospitals have struggled for years with the fact that Medicare pays what the government says a procedure should cost, despite what the actual cost is. Not only do doctors not make any money on some patients, they can actually lose money by treating them. The American Medical Association says that right now, one third of all primary care physicians restrict the number of Medicare patients they see. And 83% of them said the low reimbursement rate was the reason. This same problem would apply to the Minnesota Health Plan. With the state of Minnesota determining how much doctors will be paid for each service, the only way for a doctor or hospital to make more money will be to see more patients and spend less time treating each one.

Detail number 4; what is and is not covered. According to Sen. Marti, everything ‘medically necessary’ would be paid for by the plan. But what is medically necessary, and who decides? These trivial little unimportant details would be worked out at ‘a later date’. But these details are at the heart of the problem with universal health care. Would a hip replacement for your 90 year old grandmother really be necessary, or can she get by without it? Will your personal doctor be able to decide what is necessary, or will he have to follow the rules set by a statewide commission? If these questions seem radical, then remember that nothing is off the table when the state is in charge of your health care. In a state that bans smoking in most public buildings, will smoking related problems be covered by the state run insurance program? Since the state provides you with thousands of miles of bike and walking trails, will the state run insurance cover health problems related to obesity? Some insurance companies have started to offer discounts for healthy behavior, such as joining a gym. But a state run insurance program wouldn’t need to offer incentives when it can simply mandate healthy behavior. If this line of thinking seems paranoid, then remember that the main argument in favor of the state smoking ban was not the evils of second hand smoke-it was the medical costs to the state of Minnesota associated with second hand smoke.

Detail number 5; who will benefit most from this plan? The perennial friend of the DFL, the unions. In the recent labor dispute between metro area hospitals and the nurses union, one of the critical demands by the nurses was to have more nurses on duty to ensure ‘adequate nurse to patient ratios’. This issue was dropped in the final agreement, but the unions said publicly that it was still important to them, and the president of the MN Nursing Association said “We’ll keep working at the Legislature” for a state law requiring nurse-patient ratios. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the MN Health Plan would mandate that ‘the plan ensure that there are an adequate number of health care professionals’. This is proposed as a remedy to the long lines that would inevitably result from universal coverage. Basic economics teaches that demand increases for anything that is subsidized, and that would be true of health care as well. If it doesn’t cost you anything different to go to the doctor once a year or once a week, then doctor’s offices will quickly be flooded with people who see the doctor at the first sign of a cold or flu. Increased demand for medical care will mean thousands of more doctors and nurses will be needed (and mandated by law)-a bonanza for union membership. More members mean more dues, and more money means more influence at the capitol. The Minnesota Nurses Association alone has spent more than $90,000 this year on behalf of DFL candidates and PAC’s that support DFL candidates.

Despite the attempt to label Republicans as the ‘party of no’ when it comes to health care, the GOP has offered plenty of solutions to the problems in our health insurance industry. The difference is that we think the answer is less regulation and government involvement, not more. Purchasing health insurance across state lines, reducing state mandates on what must be covered by insurance plans, and unplugging health insurance from employment would all serve to reduce insurance costs and increase the number of people covered. And the first two of these ideas can be accomplished at the state level.

If you have never heard of the MN Health Plan and think the odds of it passing must be small, think again. The plan has 29 co-authors in the Senate, and 43 in the House, including Margret Anderson Kelliher, the DFL endorsed gubernatorial candidate. Those aren’t just potential yes votes; they are legislators who support the idea enough to put their names on the bill. Just like Obamacare, the MN Health Plan is touted as a cost savings to the state, by cutting waste from the health care industry and making it more efficient. Next year the legislature will be tasked with closing a nearly 6 billion dollar budget gap, which means that any and every idea for saving money will come forward. Obamacare was sold in part as a way to cut the federal budget, and the very same argument will likely be made for the MN Health Plan.

As conservatives focus on stopping and then repealing Obamacare before it destroys our economy and health care system, we can’t forget that Democrats here in Minnesota are looking at a far more radical plan. This election we can’t forget about the importance of taking back at least the House in the Minnesota legislature, as well as holding on to the governor’s office.

Putting it in context-how much money the stimulus cost

2010-08-05T09:25:00.000-05:00

This morning on the Today Show, there was a story highlighting a new philanthropic effort by some of America's wealthiest individuals, called The Giving Pledge. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are challenging 80 top billionaires to give half of their fortunes away to charity, instead of to their kids. Very impressive, but here is the statistic that caught my attention-

NBC noted the 2009 net worth of the Forbes 400 to be around $1.2 trillion. So if those 400 were to give 50% of that net worth away during their lifetimes, that would be $600 billion.

Half of the total wealth of the 400 richest individuals in America is still 1/3 less than the amount of money we blew on the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

$862,000,000,000 is how much money our children and grandchildren will have to pay back to the government for one of the biggest boondoggles in US history, about $2400 per person.

On a seperate note, liberals have to be terribly conflicted on this charitable challenge. Not only does large philanthropic giving undermine the argument that only the government can handle large social issues, but if Gates and Buffet succeeded in getting all of the Fortune 400 club in giving away over 600 billion dollars to charity, that is $600,000,000,000 not available to be taxed via the death tax, which will be resurected.

If paying taxes is patriotic, than giving your money away before it can be taxed is clearly un-American!

When I say no experience is required...

2010-07-02T18:22:00.000-05:00

to help our your local candidates, I really mean it. No experience. None. As demonstrated by this photo-

That would be Dave Thul for 26A on the left, and Dan Kaiser for 26B on the right, from the Freedom and Prosperity Tour in Owatonna on Wednesday.

The importance of pre-combat inspections

2010-06-28T06:48:00.001-05:00

Old saying in the Army-you don't get what you expect, but you will get what you inspect. We checked our soldier's gear and had our gear checked on mission number 73 just the same as we did on mission number one. Because if you don't constantly check to make sure things are done right, stuff like this happens-

Half way

2010-06-06T20:22:00.001-05:00

I got my final grade report for Web Design today, which caps the last year and a half of college courses at AMU. I is a college graduate, as the old Army saying goes. Associates Degree in General Studies with an Emphasis in History, final GPA of 3.1. Considering that I haven't done any formal studying since 1992, that is not too shabby.

Next up, a Bachelor's Degree in History, probably American History. I am fond of the saying that you can't know where you are headed until you know where you have been. That saying hits me daily as we consider how charged the political atmosphere seems today in relation to how much more charged it was in the past.

For any Gen X'ers out there trying to figure out how to pay for college, I have to tell you that there is no better way I have seen than joining the National Guard. 100% tuition reimbursement means I don't pay for school itself, and the GI Bill pays me a monthly stipend for living expenses. In short, college is paid for with enough extra to pay the mortgage. Can't beat that.

Whirlwind

2010-05-25T17:13:00.000-05:00

That is what the last three weeks have been.
Three weeks ago, I was a county co-chair with endorsed candidates for senate and two house districts.

Two weeks ago I was a co-chair looking to replace a house candidate who had to withdraw for family reasons.

One week ago I was a candidate for endorsement, tendering my resignation as co-chair.

Last night I became the endorsed candidate for HD 26A, and this morning I stood alongside dozens of other excited GOP candidates, filing with the Secretary of State and then being part of a press conference.

If it is true, what the Democrats spent last year saying, that 'elections have consequences', then maybe they are right. It was the election of President Obama that got me off the independent fence and into the Republican Party. I joined on Jan 20th, 2009. Inauguration day.

Ironically, I joined the party in order to have a say in picking the candidates that the GOP puts forward. I didn't think I would be this involved!

More to follow...

It's official

2010-05-24T22:30:00.000-05:00

Tonight I had the honor of becoming the Republican Party endorsed candidate for HD 26A. The other candidate for endorsement, Nate Dotson, is a great guy and friend of mine. We actually spent last Saturday morning cleaning the ditches along I-35 for the BPOU's Adopt a Highway program. How is that for party unity!

After the first ballot, I was two votes shy of 60%, and Nate graciously asked for a unanimous endorsement for me. I am humbled and honored, and I look forward to the next 161 days until election day.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the number of people who knew what the ribbons are, so clearly military service is still held in high esteem. I will be setting up a campaign website in the next few days, and tomorrow I will head up to St Paul to file the paperwork with the Secretary of State.

Exaggerating military service for political gain

2010-05-18T16:02:00.002-05:00

Around the milblogs, the scorn has been free flowing for Connecticut AG and Senate candidate Dick Blumenthal. Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive says this is a terminal screw up,John at This Ain't Hell points out that 5 deferments would be enough to sink any Republican candidate regardless of whether or not he lied about serving in Vietnam, and Greyhawk at the Mudville Gazette points out the irony of a man who lied about serving overseas held his defense press conference at a VFW post, that being Veterans of Foreign Wars.

But the most interesting piece I read today was from someone who is neither a conservative nor a veteran. Marc Ambinder in The Atlantic says this-

Blumenthal is correct that no one can control the articles that are printed about him. But surely this is a misdirection. Ambitious politicians have teams of communications professionals devoted to shaping, manipulating and repairing their public images. It is undoubtedly clear that Blumenthal sought out the identity of a Vietnam veteran, wrapped himself in that cloak, and used it to perpetuate his power. Even if he did not intend to mislead voters about his service, it is incumbent upon him to make sure that he did not use his position to perpetuate a myth that enhanced said power. To me, that DOES make him responsible for being accurate about his service record and going out of his way to correct the perceptional.

My question then is when will anyone take Rep Tim Walz to task for his own exaggeration of his military record? Just like Blumenthal, Walz did serve, and even deployed overseas. But Walz never served in a combat zone, nor did he ever get close. To this day Walz still uses misleading language on his website to give readers the perception that he served in Afghanistan.

And Walz never made an effort to correct the media assertion that he is a combat vet, which is exactly what Ambinder is critical of Blumenthal for.

From MPR on election day 2006-

Walz was a high school teacher and football coach. He is also a command sergeant major in the Army National Guard. He served in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. Like many Democrats, Walz latched onto the call for change in government. He paired that with a grassroots campaign by a political outsider.

From Sourcewatch-

"Walz was born in West Point, Nebraska in 1964. When he was 17 he joined the Army National Guard and served for the next 24 years including in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan." Sourcewatch article dated March 12, 2009.

From VoteVets, a group dedicated to electing liberal vets to Congress-

Last year, with your help, VoteVets.org made history. Because of your support, four candidates who served during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were elected to Congress with high hopes, and they have not disappointed. Congressmen Patrick Murphy, Joe Sestak, Tim Walz, and Chris Carney have become strong leaders in the House of Representatives, and are giving a heavy dose of reality about what is, and what is not, supporting the troops.
Imagine, for a moment, if we had more like them. Think about how the debate would change if more Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were able to take to the floor, and the credibility that would add to criticisms of the president's failed policy in Iraq.

From the Wall Street Journal in 2006-

"Tim Walz (D) represents the 1st Congressional District of Minnesota, MN-01. A military veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom, he is one of the Fighting Dems. The March 30, 2006 issue of the Wall Street Journal (p. A4) called Walz THE Republican nightmare in the 1st. The authors of the piece go on to state that, "Here in the First District, Tim Walz, the high-school teacher and coach and ringer for Speaker Hastert, has the Democratic field to himself. A retired master sergeant in the Army National Guard, he served overseas during the early war in Afghanistan.

Walz also failed to correct Chris Matthews on Hardball when Matthews called him a combat veteran-

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Walz still has the misleading line on his website, 'served in support of Operation Enduring Freedom'.

And after 2 1/2 years of asking, neither Rep Walz, his staff, or any liberal blogger have been able to explain to me why Walz claimed to be an 'Enduring Freedom Veteran" back in 2004 in this picture-

When will Tim Walz's time in the national spotlight come for his exaggerations of his military record?

Taking back Minnesota

2010-05-13T08:50:00.000-05:00

CONTACT: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Dave Thul

803 Truman Avenue, Owatonna MN 55060

612-396-6389

davethul@gmail.com

Dave Thul, 38, of Owatonna, has announced that he will be seeking the Republican Party endorsement for the House District 26A seat. Thul is currently the co-chair of the Steele County Republican Party, a position he has held since May of 2009.

“Owatonna and Waseca need a representative in the state house who understands and represents the average constituent,” Thul said. “We need to elect a leader who will help put Minnesota back on the path to fiscal sanity and financial prosperity.”

Thul has served in the 2^nd Battalion, 135^th Infantry of the Minnesota National Guard for 18 years. He was deployed to Kosovo in 2003-2004 and to Iraq with the 1^st BCT of the Red Bulls in 2005-2007. He was awarded a commendation for his leadership while in Iraq, and received the coveted Combat Infantry Badge after his vehicle was hit by an IED in 2006.

Thul has been attending college through the GI Bill and will be receiving his Associates Degree from American Military University next month, and will be continuing his education by pursuing a Bachelors Degree in American history. He currently serves as the Junior Vice-Commander for the Owatonna Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 3723, and is the chairman of the Owatonna Yellow Ribbon City group.

“Our state is at a crossroads. Two decades of double digit budget increases have led us to the current mess of budget deficits year after year. The Army taught me that common sense is one of the fundamentals of leadership, and both common sense and leadership are sorely lacking in St. Paul right now,” said Thul.

Dave and his wife Heather will be celebrating their 14^th wedding anniversary this year, and their two children attend Lincoln Elementary.

Breaking News

2010-05-09T07:42:00.001-05:00

This story just developing-DFL legislators in St Paul are drowning in the kool aid.

Not content to just drink the kool aid of tax increases and bigger government, the state DFL has actually filled a swimming pool full of kool aid and are preparing to jump in.

If legislators and the governor don't come to a budget agreement and the state runs out of money to pay its bills, DFLers believe the state constitution requires a last-resort statewide property tax increase to pay debts.
Should such a doomsday scenario were to occur, property taxes would soar an average of 37.5 percent to cover $3 billion, according to Senate researchers.

So the governor using un-allottment to balance the budget when the legislature was wrong, but a 37% property tax increase during a recession is fine?

The DFL has been assisting in the court case that challenged the governor's un-alottment over the last year, but it appears now that they had no plan of action in case they won the case. That is the epitome of sloppy planning, and now Minnesota may suffer for it.

Even short of a massive Armageddon property tax increase, the DFL Senate is actively promoting a 400 million dollar tax increase. During a recession. Why, even President Obama knows that is a bad idea. From 2009-

"You don't raise taxes in a recession,'' President Barack Obama said today, maintaining that none of the new taxes that he proposes for higher-income Americans will take effect until the recession has passed.

White House Budget Directer Peter Orszag knows that you shouldn't raise taxes in a recession-

The bottom line is that despite what some people are saying, no tax increases would take effect during the recession. And even after the recession ends, 95 percent of working families would continue to enjoy tax cuts.

President Obama also knew that tax hikes in a recession are bad when he was a candidate in 2008-

Democrat Barack Obama says he would delay rescinding President Bush’s tax cuts on wealthy Americans if he becomes the next president and the economy is in a recession, suggesting such an increase would further hurt the economy.

Why is it that Republicans and Democrats can agree at the national level that tax hikes during a recession are bad for the economy, but in Minnesota, tax hikes during a recession are simply par for the course?

The only silver lining in this mess is that the more the DFL talks about tax increases now, the better the GOP will do in this year's elections. Suddenly, a GOP controlled state house doesn't seem like such a far fetched idea anymore.

Getting old

2010-05-08T20:01:00.000-05:00

My long awaited knee surgery at the VA on Thursday has had mixed results. I am up and walking without a crutch two days later, which is a good thing. But the doctors had been operating under the assumption that I had a torn meniscus, which is a fixable condition. Instead, they found significant arthritis in my knee.

So instead of a fixable condition, I am now facing along term medical issue that will be with me the rest of my life. Considering I just had my 38th birthday 2 weeks ago, I can't help but feel that I have passed out of that magical group known as 'young' and straight into the well known group called 'old'.

From now on, I will have to pay attention to things I took for granted before, such as cholesterol, high blood pressure, dentures and something called erectile dysfunction. I always preferred to think of that last category as a Jeff Dunham bit-a kickstand joke.

More immediately, I am left to wonder what the Army will do with me. I have been semi-useful over the last year, trying to help wherever I can. But there is only so much a staff sergeant with a bum knee can do in an infantry unit. So will the Army medically retire me, due to arthritis? Or will they let me serve my last two years (out of 20) in some useful capacity, maybe training young soldiers. I guess time will tell.

Even when Pawlenty loses, he still wins

2010-05-05T14:22:00.001-05:00

Breaking news! Court rules against un-allottment! Pandemonium ensues, DFL celebrates, dogs and cats live peacefully together! OK, the part about dogs and cats was made up. But seriously, what changed today?

Did the court rule that un-allottment was unconstitutional? Nope. They ruled that it was wrong to use it prior to the budget biennium being targeted.

Will the state now be obligated to spend the $2.7 billion that Pawlenty cut from the budget? Well, maybe if we had a few spare billion laying around, we could have that conversation. But the DFL led legislature can't even figure out how to cut half a billion from this year's budget, let alone trying to figure out how to cut more than $3 billion.

Will Pawlenty suffer politically for this? Not with his conservative base. The court ruled that he stretched his authority, but most conservatives understand that he did what needed to be done. The DFL led legislature could find no way to solve the budget dilemma without massive tax increases, and when the session came down to the wire, they punted the whole issue to the governor's office and dared him to veto the tax increases. Pawlenty found a loophole that allowed for the only sane alternative-cut the state's massive and bloated budget.

Will the DFL benefit from this ruling? It is hard to see how. The DFL legislature now has four basic choices. 1) Ratify Pawlenty's cuts retroactively, 2) Make their own set of $2.7 billion in budget cuts, 3) Raise taxes across the state by $2.7 billion to fund the programs that were cut, or 4) Some combination of the first three choices. Any of these choices will have consequences for the DFL, but choice number 1 will be the easiest to sweep under the rug and forget about. Throw some money at some of the more high profile programs and cut here or there to make up for it. Remember, state agencies have already spent almost a year planning for these cuts. So it will be easier to stick with what is already done.

A massive tax raise right now will catapult the Minnesota Tea Party movement through the roof, and will mean a good chance of the GOP taking control of both the House and Senate and keeping the governor's office. (That it by the way, Mr Joe Bodell, what Tom Emmer means when he says we will take back the state.) It would also play in Republican favor for the US Congressional races, and Rep Tim Walz for one is already stooping under the weight of the federal deficit albatross hanging around his neck.

The biggest loser in this court ruling? Margaret Anderson Kelliher. She now faces a no-win scenario, the ultimate Kobyashi Maru. She can either preside over a legislative session that cuts $2.7 billion from the budget (whether they stick with the cuts already made or come up with their own is mostly a moot point) or she can preside over a session that sees a massive tax increase so large that those evil rich people in Minnesota can't pay the whole thing. So she either angers her base (who she still needs for the August primary) or she angers the average Minnesotan, who she needs in November.

While I do feel sorry for our legislators in St Paul who will no doubt be burning the midnight oil for a while (as well as burning through plenty of Maalox), it will be an interesting few weeks for political activists in Minnesota.

You say car bomb, I say VBIED

2010-05-02T10:10:00.000-05:00

Interesting how distance changes the way we talk. The explosive device found in Times Square last night is called in the US media a 'car bomb' in a sport utility vehicle. In Iraq those are called Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices, and they were one of the insurgent's favorite weapons.

Fill a car or truck with an explosive (mortar rounds, C-4 or even simple gasoline) and initiation device (blasting cap, firecracker or a grenade) and power (usually the vehicle battery) and you have a mobile IED. You can drive it and park it where you want it, get out and detonate from a distance, or put a shaheed inside and you have a modern day Kamikaze.

Although the media seems to be keeping this calm, think for a minute about how bad it could have been. The ATF puts out this handy VBIED blast radius chart to show how big the bang might be-

While it is hard to tell from the information released so far about the composition of the device (3 propane tanks, 10 gallons of gasoline and fireworks for the initiation) it would probably fall somewhere inbetween the full size sedan and the passenger van. So a blast range of 150 feet (anyone inside this range would be hit by the overpressure wave, which blows out ear drums and causes TBI), a shrapnel range of probably 2000 feet (anyone inside that range would be subject to small bits of glass and metal moving as fast as a bullet).

Of course, the blast would have been limited by all of the buildings in Times Square, but that means that many of the buildings would have sustained heavy damage. As much as New Yorkers are fearful at this failed attack, a successful attack in the heart of New York wouldn't just kill and injure people, it would make them afraid to go out in public.

Many Americans cringed in fear on 9/11, and it took months for the country to stop looking for terrorists around every corner. But the sad truth is that Bin Laden doesn't need big shock and awe attacks. He just needs lots of little ones that make people afraid to go about their daily lives. Remember the DC sniper? Parents keeping their kids home from school, people afraid to go to work. Imagine that on a larger scale, regional or even national, and you have the potential to cripple the already ailing US economy.

For all of President Obama's talk of understanding with the Muslim world, this is a time to find the perpetrators and crush them ruthlessly. Send a signal that this wont be tolerated, otherwise we will be inviting more attacks. This minor incident (as far as the media seems concerned) could be a pivotal event in the Obama administration.

Vote early, vote often

2010-04-29T09:43:00.000-05:00

Here's a little secret-I get to vote for two people at tomorrow's GOP gubernatorial endorsement. No, this isn't Chicago, I wont be voting twice on each ballot. But because I am in the National Guard, each vote I cast will be for two jobs; the civilian governor and the military leader of the Guard. But in my mind, both of these positions come down to the same thing-leadership. And it is the need for leadership that made my choice clear.

Being a leader isn't about listening sessions, political correctness, or saying what people want to hear. Being a leader is about knowing what is the right course of action, and convincing others to follow you. While many think of military leadership as the general talking about grand strategy in the bunker at the rear of the battle, true leadership is most often seen in the young lieutenants and sergeants who lead from the front into the battle. The leader who leads by example and from the front are the most effective.

When I met Tom Emmer and every time I have talked with him since, I have recognized in him the type of leader that people inherently want to follow. Self assured yet not egotistical, and happy to make a joke at his own expense. Tom exudes the quality that the Army has been unable to quantify or qualify in any manual;that of the natural born leader. The best the Army can do in defining leadership is this-

Leadership is influencing people by providing purpose, motivation, and direction while operating to accomplish the mission and improve the organization.

Purpose, motivation, and direction. Those three words need to be looked at in light of what we are trying to accomplish in November.

Purpose-our goal as conservatives is not to keep the governor's office in conservative hands. Our goal is to keep the governor's office and move the legislature at least to a point of parity with the DFL, if not taking back at least one house. Conservatives have been playing on defense for far too long in Minnesota (we even used our special teams in the unallottement fight), and it is time to get the offense on the field. Instead of simply slowing down the inevitable tide of progressivism, we need to be moving the state back towards conservative principles. We need to play to win, rather than playing not to lose.

Motivation- We need to go on offense, but in order to do that we need to not only keep the governor's seat, we need to have majorities (or at least slim minorities) in the legislature. Emmer is the man who can not only win his race, but can help get voters fired up for House and Senate candidates around the state. Because of the election politics sweeping the country in 2010, this will be our best chance in decades to seat a conservative majority in the legislature. The GOP governor candidate will have a big part to play in that. Yesterday was a perfect example. Most ordinary Minnesotans agree with the Arizona immigration law that actually tries to (gasp!) enforce the current federal immigration law. Emmer's unequivocal approval of Arizona enforcing the law is playing to win, rather than hedging your bets or playing not to lose.

Direction-the Tea Party wave has been sweeping across the country over this last year, and it is critically important to note that it is not a Republican wave. Rather, it is a wave in search of candidates who agree with tea party principles. Emmer is that candidate that can connect with the anger and frustration that so many Americans are feeling right now, and channel that emotion into helping his campaign. Emmer doesn't just agree with tea party principles, he lives them, and I suspect that if he were not involved in politics already, he would be a leader in the Tea Party movement.

Direction also means explaining your ideals and your plan for the state, rather than attacking others. There are two ways to win a race-you can faster and farther than anyone else, or you can make sure everyone else runs slower than you do. Negative campaigning and personal attacks are not what most Minnesotans want, and they are likely to backfire. Emmer's campaign has run a consistently positive race, and the only time they talk about the opponents is to defend Emmer against unprovoked attacks. That is the kind of direction that we need to chart for ourselves as a party in order to get to a victory in November.

Tom Emmer is the man we need to endorse tomorrow to help bring about a conservative victory for Minnesota in November.

USS Cold Blooded Murder

2010-04-28T13:52:00.002-05:00

So the Navy is going to grovel to the king of pork barrel spending and name a ship after the one and (I think) only actual ex-Marine.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who technically is the only person in the government with the power to name U.S. warships, also praised Murtha’s history of service. He unveiled an official illustration showing an amphibious transport dock marked with the hull number “26” named John P. Murtha. It will be the first in the San Antonio class not named for an American city.

The question is, what will the sailors and Marines that are stationed on the ship actually call it? The USS Kitty Hawk was Battle Cat, The USS Abraham Lincoln is called the Abe, and the USS John Stennis was called the Fighting Reb. So what will the Murtha be?

Earth Day

2010-04-22T13:55:00.000-05:00

Quick note to all of the kids cartoon channels (Disney, Nickelodeon and Toon)-

My daughter loves your cartoons. But after Handy Manny lectured about using too much energy, the Imagination Movers decided to fight against global warming, and the very last straw of Phineas and Ferb giving up conspicuous consumption for a day to 'think about the Earth', I decided to take your advice.

I told my daughter to turn the TV off. Happy earth day!

Emmer vs Seifert

2010-04-22T11:37:00.000-05:00

In this year of expected Republican gains at the state and national level, I keep telling people not to get too cocky. In the general sense, the GOP is riding high only because the Democrats are doing so much to piss people off. The analogy I use is two magnets on a table with a marble in the middle. The Dems have flipped their magnet over and are actively pushing voters away from their message of big government, big spending and (coming soon) big taxes. The GOP needs to make sure that we are actively attracting the voters in the middle, rather than just being less repulsive than the other side.

In that vein, I was extremely disappointed to see Marty Seifert's latest attack on Tom Emmer. Full disclosure-I am an Emmer supporter, but I decided to support Emmer partly out of the fear that the party might endorse Norm Coleman. I found Emmer and Seifert to be pretty evenly matched, and I went with Emmer because he is a natural leader.

But over the last two months, the Seifert campaign has reinforced my choice by repeatedly attacked Emmer, rather than talk positively about Seifert. If you are a delegate or alternate to the state convention, you know what I mean. Every day or two I get an email from someone 'on behalf of the Seifert campaign' telling me something I should know about Tom Emmer. Most of these emails (and many of the ones I get from the Emmer camp as well) get deleted quickly, because there is only so much time in a day. But they do make an impression, and it is not a positive one.

While there is no problem with pointing out your opponents record and then explaining how your opinion or voting record differs, there is little tolerance in America for negative attack ads. And there should be even less tolerance inside a group of conservatives for personal attacks that do more to elect liberal candidates than anything else.

While we can all sympathize with Sandra Berg, who writes in her letter that she questions Emmer's judgment because of two past DWI arrests in light of a drunk driver seriously injuring her son and husband, I can't sympathize with her timing. Emmer's past has been public knowledge for over a year, yet Mrs Berg decided to mail this letter just a week before the convention? Am I supposed to reasonably believe that the straw poll results of the various congressional district conventions has nothing to do with this?

And aside from timing, the convoluted manner in which the letter arrived was disappointing as well. "From the desk of Sandra Berg", yet paid for by Seifert for Governor. Well which is it? If your message is that we need to be wary of Emmer's record, then make that your message-not the Seifert camp's message. There may have been perfectly valid reasons for doing the mailing as it was, but I can't help but be left with a feeling of politics as usual.

Marty, if you are reading this, please keep in mind that whoever wins, we need to be united next Saturday night. If your attacks on Emmer put you over the top for the endorsement but divide the party so much that we lose the governorship, then we all lose. If you win the endorsement, then I will be on board with helping you get elected from the first moment. But these personal attacks will make it harder for me to get excited about your candidacy.

Good week for the US military

2010-04-22T10:36:00.001-05:00

Three seperate things happened this week that bear positively on the US military and brought smiles to my face.

First, the US trained Iraqi Army stepped up and took down the two top leaders of AQI, Al Masri and Al Baghdadi, along with a third one who was a regional AQI leader. Although the Iraqis no doubt relied on US military help in these operations (Al Masri and Al Baghdadi were killed by an airstrike, and we still own the skies in Iraq) it is significant that the Iraqi Army was in the lead for both operations. While VP Biden may be trying to take credit for the situation in Iraq, it was President Bush who laid out this course nearly five years ago-"as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down". Taking out the leadership of AQI shows that the Iraqi Army is able to stand on its own, and validates the surge concept that has gotten us to this point.

Second, the first of three Navy SEALs has been found not guilty of covering up detainee abuse in Iraq. Despite the fact that claiming abuse is part of the Al Qaeda playbook, too many people are far too willing to instantly believe a terrorist over some of our country's most elite warriors. I think this stems from a general dislike for the military on the liberal side of the aisle, but in any case, the courts martial against the three SEALs revolves around the testimony of the (alleged) terrorist, so if the jury found one SEAL not guilty they are likely to find the same for the others.

Third, and most surprising of the three, is a liberal pundit admitting the folly of banning the US military from college campuses. Peter Beinart, writing in the Daily Beast about possible Supreme Court pick Elena Kagen, is very critical of her support for banning the military. Beinart writes-

The United States military is not Procter and Gamble. It is not just another employer. It is the institution whose members risk their lives to protect the country. You can disagree with the policies of the American military; you can even hate them, but you can’t alienate yourself from the institution without in a certain sense alienating yourself from the country. Barring the military from campus is a bit like barring the president or even the flag. It’s more than a statement of criticism; it’s a statement of national estrangement.

Whatever your view of DADT, the thought that college in America are barring recruiters from campus because they disagree with a policy that the military itself has no control over is not just poor logic, but rather un-American. Congress and the President have the sole authority for setting military policy on gays in uniform, but the military is the group being persecuted and punished. Kudos to Beinart for being able to seperate the policy he disagrees with from the military that has no control over it.

Judge, Jury, and Executioner

2010-04-13T11:31:00.001-05:00

The release of a video by Wikileaks that they allege shows US troops murdering civilians and members of the media in Iraq was an attempt to show the US military as sadistic murderers, which has been the standard fare from the left since 2003 and the invasion of Iraq. Claims of war crimes by The New Republic, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Winter Soldier 2, Pvt Jessie MacBeth, and the late Congressman (traitorJack) Murtha have been hurled over and over, and many have them have been later found to be complete or partial fabrications. But still, the number of far left ideologues who firmly believe that the military systematically murders civilians on the battlefield was at an all time high during the Bush White House, and became a substantial voice in the anti-war community.

But where is that outrage when Obama White House signals from the very top that battlefield executions are not only justified, but official policy?

Last month the Attorney General of the United States ruled out the possibility that Bin Laden could ever be taken alive. He didn't cast doubt, or give the odds, he said it would never happen. That sent a signal through the military that capturing terrorists was not the priority-killing them is.

Today, it was confirmed that Pres Obama has ordered the assassination of an American citizen, the radical cleric Anwar al Awlaki, who counseled the Fort Hood shooter, Maj Hassan, that his cause was just.

While I certainly don't disagree with either action-the killing of terrorists on the battlefield or hitting a target like al Awlaki, the silence from the left on these issues is deafening. It puts all of the last nearly 10 years of anti war protests and drama in perspective, and shows how much of it was ideologically motivated. How much of this angst was fueled by partisan hatred of George W Bush will probably never be known, but one thing is clear. If the Republicans regain the Congress in 2010, or the White House in 2012 and the level of anti war fervor suddenly increases, there will be little if any reason to pay attention to much of it. The true pacifists and anti war groups harnessed the energy of all those that simply hated conservatives, and now they are showing that their real motivation was simple politics.

Tim Walz in the Strib today

2010-04-05T14:08:00.000-05:00

The Strib ran an article about Rep Walz today and his prospects for keeping his job. While the article plays up the difficulty the GOP will have at replacing him, the comments section was interesting in the amount of people passionately opposed to Walz. Not that the Strib comment section is representative of anything, but it is unusual to see more than a handful of conservatives leaving comments. Some of the better ones-

And I will help vote him out. I think all of you 'city folk' have a hard time comprehending what the feelings of the people of this district are. And they ARE AGAINST Tim Walz! They are very ANGRY that he voted party lines and did not listen to the people in his district. Come election time..."ooh, we're gonna getcha." You can count on it. GOP - PLEASE do us all a favor and DO NOT put Quist on the ballot!! Randy Demmer is much more in tune with the needs of our district.

It goes without saying that incumbent Democrats are toast and no others need apply. However, we ain't interest in any mamby pamby moderate middle of the road Republicans either. We will only elect principled conservative candidates who understand what the people want done. We want this health care thing jerked back and we want it fixed with people's input. We expect them to work tirelessly for the people who sent them to Washington to represent them. We expect a return to strict Constitutional dealings and real American values. No less is expected nor will it be tolerated. Just so you know!

Thank you Tim for being a treacherous, treasonous, traitor to your nation. What was your payoff? Nice vacation, money slipped under the table, money for some more decrepid airports like Stupak got, any chance of you telling us the truth??? I think not.

You just had a hand in bankrupting our country...and you had to know what you were doing. Your parties budget says we will be 20 trillion in the hole by 2020 and the interest on the national debt will eat up the income of ours and the next generation. These kids that pushed Obama and You into office didn't know any better but you didn't have to go along with this scheme...the polls made it clear.
I've spent many a day in his district, and have gotten to know quite a few. While they repect his military service, that isn't a guarantee to a lifelong congressional career, especially if it means kissing obama's BUTT time and time again. I predict that he will lose his seat if the GOP puts up a decent candidate. I'm not sure that Quist is the best choice, however. He may be a fair, moral, and just man, but he has not been very good at projecting that image over the years. Nevertheless, I hope that Walz loses his bid, and I am a VETERAN.

I have worked in Rochester and lived in the area for decades. At least amongst the group I hang out with he is highly politically unpopular and viewed as part of the problem in Washington. He says one thing in MN and consistently votes with Pelosi in Washington.

Vote with the socialists you are asocialist, He is done,we woke up and we are mad really mad.This not my mom and dads dfl

I have learned (and so have many 1st District voters) that Walz will say almost anything for publication that will make him appear moderate, but vote with the far left on the critical, far reaching issues.

I, DO, live in Walz' district and WILL do anything financially and time wise, that I can to see him defeated in November!!!!! As an Independant, I voted for him twice thinking, (wrongfully so) that he was the best candidate to represent my district. All's he has proven to me is that he follows what Nancy , Harry or Obie wants and to heck with his constituents. Now when it looks like he has dug himself a hole he comes out trying to appear middle of the road. As far as I'm concerned he has continually put his party ahead of his constituents and he needs to find another job.......

Fact: Tim Walz ran as an "independent voice," yet votes 98 percent for the most extremist faction of the Democrat party.
Fact: Tim Walz lied.
Dump Walz. Help restore American values.

Voting 90% of the time with Nancy Pelosi's Democrats is not a centrist. The only Bipartisan vote on the health care bill was the vote against it. A article in the Mankato Free Press his home town paper put him left of center. A place Walz was happy being.

Walz said during his endorsement speech that he wouldn't lose any sleep if he were voted out of office for his vote on healthcare, and I will be happy to help him make that promise a reality.

Children as campaign props

2010-04-01T09:19:00.000-05:00

I understand that politicians like to show pictures of themselves with their families, to show what normal people they are. And being involved in politics myself, I can understand taking your kids to a political function because they are too young to be home alone. But what I will never understand is making your daughter stand on stage with you while you give a speech.

That is what Rep Tim Walz did at the CD1 DFL convention, video at the People's Press website here. Walz spoke for 16 minutes by my watch, with his daughter standing awkwardly at his side.

I feel bad enough taking my kids to meetings and conventions, even though they bring books and games to keep them entertained. I would never use my kids as a prop onstage. This was embarrassing.

Final writing assignment

2010-03-29T08:42:00.000-05:00

The last essay for Effectiveness in Writing was to pick a specific public policy proposal and argue for or against. I went with health care since it is in the news, and did some research on options to Obamacare. Eliminating the employer based health care tax advantages would be a very simple way to solve some of the major issues in health care today. Too bad this didn't get more attention-

The United States has the ability to solve many of the current problems with health care insurance not by massive and complex new legislation, but with a simple change to the tax code. Many of today’s most serious concerns with health care revolve around the fact that the US is one of the only countries in the world that ties most health care options to employment. Eliminating this system would solve two critical issues; it would eliminate the health care gap that comes when workers change or lose their jobs, and it would allow individuals an exponential increase in the number of choices for coverage. Solving these two areas would then result in a significant drop in costs.

The current system that ties health care insurance to your employer was created quite unintentionally in the 1940’s and then later reinforced in the 1960’s. Wage controls instituted by President Roosevelt in 1942 during WWII to help stabilize the domestic economy had an unintended effect; in order to attract skilled workers, employers offered health care as a paid benefit. (Tumulty) This allowed them to raise compensation without raising wages, which was illegal. Employer based health care became a mark of high quality employers, and workers began to expect it. Congress formalized this system in the 1960’s, with a series of changes to the tax code that allowed businesses to treat health care costs for employees as a business expense, meaning they could deduct the cost for tax purposes. (Helms) A similar change allowed employees to accept health care as a fringe benefit, one which was not subject to taxation. Reversing these two changes to the tax code could have dramatic positive results.

Without a tax incentive to offer health care benefits, most employers would simply drop their health care plans and then offer higher pay in lieu of the premiums they now pay on behalf of their employees. Without the advantage of a tax exemption for medical benefits, most employees would accept higher wages because they could use those wages as they see fit. Higher wages would allow individuals to purchase medical insurance directly from an insurer, much as auto insurance is purchased in the US currently. Employers would lose the ability to claim a major tax deduction for premiums paid, but would save money by not having to implement and oversee complex health care plans. (Eibner) Employees would lose the tax benefit of not having benefits taxed, but would save money by being able to purchase a policy tailored to their needs and join large insurance pools not currently available to them.

Additionally, the federal government would benefit by this change by the closing of this tax loophole. In 2007, this loophole cost the federal government an estimated 250 billion dollars, and for 2010 that number may be as high as 297 billion dollars. (Greenstein) This additional yearly revenue coming into the government would likely be more than enough to cover the cost of adding the estimated 32 million uninsured individuals (Gould) to the Medicare program. Although it is very likely that with the dramatic reduction in the cost of monthly premiums, a significant portion of those uninsured individuals could now possibly afford to purchase their own insurance.

Currently in the United States, losing your job usually also means losing your health care insurance. Although provisions have been made by Congress for temporary extensions, these are complex provisions and usually involve a large increase in premiums for the individual. And most employees are reluctant to leave one job without having another job already secured to avoid having a temporary gap in health care coverage. If health care were purchased independent of employment, individuals would have more freedom to switch to a better job if one becomes available. Additionally, individuals who are laid off and spend time among the unemployed would still have the option of continuing their medical coverage at the usual rates, rather than the dramatic increase under current provisions. This would mean a huge increase in flexibility for temporarily or even long term unemployed workers, while at the same time offering a measure of stability at a time when stability is sorely needed.

Eliminating the employer based health care provision would also mean an exponential increase in the choices available for individual health care. Under the current system, most employees usually have one or two choices among different health care plans. Some larger employers (notably the federal government) offer more than a dozen plan choices that include premium and coverage levels. But a system where individuals choose their coverage directly would allow insurance companies to market to the individual, and would result in insurers offering a wide array, possibly hundreds, of choices. Again using the auto insurance comparison, there are 32 national automotive insurers in the US and nearly a hundred regional insurers as well. With each company offering dozens of different insurance plans marketed to groups and sub-groups of individuals, individuals in the US have more choices than they could likely ever need. In fact, several companies now specialize in browsing multiple insurers and selecting an insurance policy that best suits the individual, because of the large number of choices available to auto insurance customers.

Using the auto insurance industry as a model for medical insurance, it is easy to see the benefits that individuals would realize by eliminating the employer link. Individuals could choose from dozens of options the health care plan that best suits their needs, both medical and financial needs. For instance, younger individuals in good health and at low risk of disease or accident could choose a plan that covers less and costs less. Older Americans or those with a history of a specific disease in their family history could choose a plan that tailors their coverage to their specific needs. Those with chronic but manageable diseases such as diabetes or asthma could purchase medical coverage that reflected not only their current situation, but also include likely associated conditions, such as obesity for diabetes patients and severe allergies for asthma patients. This type of tailored coverage could also include educational efforts, such as treatment and prevention options.

The current US system of employer based health care was created not by design, but by a fluke of circumstance during WWII. Eliminating this health care dependency on employment would not only solve the critical problem of individuals losing health care when they lose their job, but it would also dramatically increase the number coverage options available to each individual. It would also reduce costs for employers and employees alike, while increasing tax revenue to the federal government that could be used to mitigate the problem of uninsured individuals. Best of all, this change could be made with a minimum of effort by the federal government. A few deleted lines in the federal tax code versus the current proposed 2000 plus page behemoth makes elimination of the employer based health care system an easy choice.

Works Cited

Eibner, Christine. Snapshot: Employer Health Insurance Costs in the United States. Policy analysis. Oakland: California Health Care Foundation, 2007.

Gould, Elise. "The erosion of employment-based insurance: More working families left uninsured." 31 Oct 2007. Economic Policy Institute. 24 Mar 2010 .

Greenstein, Robert. Statement to Senate Committee on Finance. Report to Congress. Washington, DC: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2009.

Helms, Robert. Tax Policy and the History of the Health Insurance Industry. Policy Analysis. Washington DC: American Enterprise Institute, 2008.

Reinhardt, Uwe. Is Employer-Based Health Insurance Worth Saving? 29 Mar 2009. 23 Mar 2010 .

Tumulty, Karen. "Two Dems Want To Scrap Employer Based Health Care." 16 Mar 2009. Time.com. 23 Mar 2010 .

The Army officially recognizes the success of the surge

2010-03-27T21:53:00.000-05:00

Three years after Democrats said it couldn't be done, wouldn't be done, and was failing on all fronts, the Iraq surge has been officially recognized by the US military as a successful phase of the Iraq War, and thousands of Minnesota Red Bulls just qualified for a bronze campaign star. According to the Army Times-

Bronze campaign stars recognizing the 2007-08 surge of U.S. troops into Iraq, as well as current stabilization efforts, have been authorized for wear on the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Pentagon announced Thursday.
The surge campaign phase has been established as running from Jan. 1, 2007, to Dec. 31, 2008; the second campaign star, for the phase identified as “Iraqi Sovereignty,” began Jan. 1, 2009, and will continue through a date to be determined.
Although all who have served in “direct support” in the Iraq war on or after March 13, 2003, are authorized to wear the medal, the stars recognize designated campaigns during the war.
Four previous phases had been identified, and service members who have qualified for the Iraq Campaign Medal can display a bronze campaign star on their medal for each designated campaign phase in which they took part.
The other four phases, announced previously, are: ·
• Liberation of Iraq — March 19, 2003, to May 1, 2003.
• Transition of Iraq — May 2, 2003, to June 28, 2004.
• Iraqi Governance — June 29, 2004, to Dec. 15, 2005.·
• The “National Resolution” phase — Dec. 16, 2005, to Jan. 9, 2007.

All of the Red Bulls who served the still record holding longest continuous deployment in Iraq now qualify to wear a bronze campaign star on their Iraq Campaign Medal. Small comfort for the 16 plus months in country, but nice to see the military recognize the specific sacrifice of the troops involved in the surge.

1st District DFL Convention

2010-03-27T15:34:00.000-05:00

I attended the 1st CD DFL convention this morning in Owatonna. It was interesting, to say the least. My comments in italics.

First up, Sen Amy Klobuchar congratulated herself on passing healthcare, and said that the GOP was just the party of no, which doesn't inspire anyone. She said we need to move away from being a 'consuming, importing, debt ridden nation', and that the Democrats have a plan to double the American economy in the next five years. Consumption is capitalism, and it drives most of our economy, so why would we move away from it? And we could import a lot less oil if we could drill in ANWR and off the continental shelf of our own country.

Franni Franken spoke next, and she started out by complimenting the sergeant at arms for stopping her at the door and asking why she wasn't wearing an ID. She responded by pulling out her official Capitol Police ID, and said having a card that says US Senator wife is the best photo she has ever had. She says the bill Al helped pass mandates that 85 cents on every dollar paid in health care premiums will by law be spent on health services. Are you serious? Go into a room full of people wearing name tags and then brag about how you don't have to wear one because you are married to a senator? But then Franni launches into an interesting story. "When we lost Ted Kennedy's seat, things looked grim." She went on to say that it was Al Franken's idea to get the House to vote on the Senate bill, and then make changes later. When he called up Rep Walz about his idea, she says Walz said 'hell yeah'. Best line of the day-she says that Walz then said if 'I go down for giving 32 million people health insurance, I wont lose any sleep over it.' With a little luck, Walz will be out of office and watching the health care bill be repealed.

Between speeches, much of the administrative agenda was rudely ignored by the delegates. Although some level of chatter is likely at a convention, I had a hard time hearing the speaker on the microphone at times because people were so loud.

RT Rybak called Tim Walz the best Congressman in Congress! He said that the DFL needs to support the endorsed gubernatorial candidate and that he is pledging his support right now for whoever is endorsed. I think this was a pretty transparent shot at Mark Dayton, who was the only candidate who did not appear and had no signage.

Paul Thissen said Governor Pawlenty has been using a slash and burn strategy for 8 years, and we need to replace him. Obamacare was the deal we had to settle for, and every Minnesota child has a right to health care insurance. He said that the problem with the DFL in terms of the governor's race the last 20 years is that the DFL has been playing to not lose, rather than to win, and nominating the establishment candidates over those who have ideas and can win. Just like in 2008 when Democrats ran against Bush, the DFL seems intent on running against Pawlenty who will not be on the ballot.

John Marty talks about his accomplishments over his 23 years in state government, and says he will use Obamacare as a starting point for single payer in Minnesota, and that you don't win elections by being a centrist. Kind of redundant to say you will make Minnesota a socialist state and then talk about not being a centrist.

Matt Entenza spoke about losing his dad, house, and his insurance when he was 15, but that Minnesota was such a wonderful state back then that he could overcome it all. He says he is the only person in the room who ever rolled Tim Pawlenty, when he forced him to not cut the budget in (2004?). Says we need to put solar reflectors and wind turbines on every school in Minnesota to help schools with their energy costs. Hard to understand how you can claim to have rolled T-Paw when you lost to him in the last election. And what the hell is a solar 'reflector'? Maybe he meant solar panel, but still, how much will it cost to put all of this equipment on Minnesota schools? Will the state or the schools pay for it?

Mark Ritchie says he has accomplished a lot so far, but since more remains to be done he has decided to run for re-election. He notes that his opponent served honorably in the military for 20 years and he wants to run a positive and honorable campaign against him. He also says that the whole country was proud of the way Minnesota ran the recount. Considering who funded Ritchie's first campaign, positive and honor are two words they might have trouble understanding. And the only ones proud of the recount were the lawyers paid handsomely for representing Franken.

DFL Party Chair Brian Melendez says that he is working to make sure that every DFL candidate at federal, state and local levels are all working together and in the same page. I guess this means we will see the same talking points all across the state, with the DFL walking in lock step with each other.

Final credentials report-106 full vote delegates, 56 half vote delegates. I counted a total of about 230 people in the room at 10:25, which was the point where the most people were there. At least were staff for the gubernatorial candidates, and they left soon after their individual candidate spoke. The DFL could only muster 230 people out of 615,000 in the congressional district, and nearly a fourth of those were campaign staff.

After being nominated, Rep Walz's wife Gwen comes up to introduce him. Mrs Walz says that things in this country are getting better day by day because of 'Obama in the White House, a Democratically controlled House and Senate'. She says 'that rocket scientist Sarah Palin says drill, baby, drill' and it is a terrible oversimplification of a complex issue. She asks the convention to 'come walk with us in search of justice and equality'. She says her husband helped pass the largest middle class tax cut in the history of this country, and that the health care bill gives 'every family in America the same health care my family has'. I would not normally say anything about a candidate's wife, but Gwen speaks for 12 minutes, attacking the GOP and giving a rousing campaign speech. Taking a personal shot at Palin and implying that she is stupid has become the norm from the left, but from a woman who is not a politician it is incredibly ironic. All sympathy I had for her as a politician's wife just disappeared. And it her comment about the biggest middle class tax cut in history (if it is even true) was ironic considering her husband's comments on tax cuts. And having been a federal employee, I am well aware of the options for health care plans-Obamacare gives people nothing close to that.

Tim Walz finally speaks, with his daughter standing next to him. Again, I don't like to talk about politicians families, but his daughter stood next to him for the entire 19 minutes of the speech as a campaign prop. I found that to be pathetic. He says this country was founded on compassion, empathy and helping others, and that he doesn't take ideology to DC, he takes ideas. I don't think empathy or compassion are mentioned in the Constitution, the Declaration or the Federalist Papers. The GOP is not the party of no, it is 'the party of hell no!' He says every time the budget has been balanced it has been under a Democrat president, and he absolutely stands by Pay Go. He stands by Pay Go until we actually have to pay for something, and then we will pay for it later. Walz voted in favor of raising the federal debt ceiling. Those who are now critical of the federal debt should have been talking when the GOP passed medicare part d, and passed the Bush tax cuts that went only to the wealthiest 3 percent, and also the two trillion dollar wars. Walz does not account for the fact that we paid for all of those things in 8 years and still never broke 500 billion in a deficit, while Obama has quadrupled the deficit in one year. He says Obamacare will reduce the deficit by 1.5 trillion over the next 2 decades. He says if he had called the president a liar on the floor of the Congress, he would have seen his contributions dry up and the folks at this convention would have been saying 'you should be ashamed'. 'Doing something about carbon is morally right, it is ethically right, and it will be great for our economy'. If by great for our economy you mean great for destroying it, then he would be correct. If every company in America were energy efficient, he says, we could break our dependence on foreign oil 'overnight' and we could create 20 million jobs in the next 2 decades. We will never be energy independent until we use the resources we already have in ANWR and off the continental shelf, not to mention the shale formations across the Dakotas and Colorado.

This war is NOT lost

2010-03-22T11:24:00.001-05:00

Update-
Less than 16 hours after Obamacare was passed, and I have had three seperate phone calls from people around Steele County asking how they can help get Republicans elected this fall.

While Democrats are reveling in their apparent victory this morning, the rest of the country is doing battle damage assessment. How bad will Obamacare be for me and my family? For myself, I along with million of other veterans are left to wonder if the VA and/or TriCare will be considered suitable medical coverage under Obamacare. The VFW doesn't think so.

But before you despair, keep in mind that this battle is not over. Three things stand out as positives. First, the legal battles are just beginning. A federal mandate to purchase something is clearly unconstitutional, and this is a concept that anyone who is not a socialist can easily understand. Second, the Tea Party movement just got a huge shot in the arm. 'Taxed Enough Already' will be seen hand in hand with 'Kill the Bill' at tea party rallies. Make your plans now, because the 2nd round of Tax Day Tea Parties is 3 weeks away. Third, the Republican Party's wave heading into the mid-term elections just became a tsunami. 'He/she voted for socialized healthcare' will be the damning soundbite against every Democrat incumbent.

Sen Harry Reid famously declared in April of 2007 that the Iraq 'war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything'. Anyone who thinks this healthcare battle is over today would be as wrong as Reid was 3 years ago.

This war is not lost.

David v. Goliath

2010-03-15T10:48:00.000-05:00

One of the most interesting things of the SD 26 special election in January was seeing the process from the inside, from the delegates to the candidates to the endorsement, the debates and finally the actual election. One of the most disappointing things was the level of vitriol expended by the other side, from a smear campaign by local bloggers to an attack mailer that arrived the day before the election. While I couldn't do much about the smear attempt, I decided that I couldn't let a clear violation of the law about false campaign materiel go without a response.

Next month, the Office of Administrative Hearings will hear the case of David Thul vs the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Laborer Party. After reviewing my complaint, the OAH 'determined that it set forth a prima facie violation of Minn Stat 211B.06". I had to grab a dictionary to make sure I understood the Latin correctly. The 5 page explanation of the decision of the law judge on my complaint set my head spinning, and the number of words and phrases I had to look up on Law.com was very intimidating. I have to assume that the DFL will send a lawyer or two, so it will be interesting to see if a non-lawyer can compete.

You may remember the mailer, which I posted on previously. Then candidate Mike Parry called for an across the board cut to the state budget of 15%. It sounds like an ambitious cut until you realize that the general fund increased by 14.1% in 2000-01, 10.2% in 2002-03, and 11.9% in 2006-07. But the DFL responded by claiming that a 15% cut to the Minnesota budget would mean a 15% cut to state funding for Medicare. Since the cost of Medicare is split by the state and federal government, the DFL alleged that a state cut would automatically mean a matching federal cut, which would result in a 30% cut to Medicare. To underscore their point, they used pictures of two elderly people looking as vulnerable as possible-

Unfortunately for the DFL, they cite a report from the state as evidence of their claim but ignored the fact that the very report they cite lists two recent occasions where funding for Medicare was cut at the state level with no corresponding federal reduction.

The maximum penalty that can be imposed if the DFL is found to be at fault is $5,000, and while that is a lot of money to an individual, I would have to guess that it is petty cash to an organization the size of the Minnesota DFL. In fact, a lot of people told me not to bother with the whole thing. But the principle is what is important, and if you let someone get away with breaking the law, than you will be getting what you deserve when they break the law in the future.

Bonding bill or stimuless bill

2010-03-09T10:21:00.001-06:00

Shar Knutson, the president of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, tries to make the case in the StarTrib today that we should pass a billion dollar bonding bill to create jobs. She lays the groundwork with some questionable facts, such as "While numbers from St Paul and Washington show that the worst is likely over, we still have a long way to go", referring to the economy. She apparently agrees with Sen Harry Reid that losing only 36,000 jobs last month was a good thing. She also asserts that "Help from the federal government in the form of the Recovery Act and other jobs packages has saved and created many jobs". If by many you mean more than two, then I guess that statement could be correct.

But then she goes off into fantasy land with a quote from the chief economist at the Associated General Contractors of America, who says that a 1 billion dollar bonding bill will create 27,000 jobs. Setting aside for the moment the fact that the AGCA is a trade group that conducts lobbying efforts on behalf of construction spending, lets look at those number for a minute. 1 billion dollars for 27,000 jobs.

If all of the 1 billion dollars went to wages, that would be about $37,000 per job. That is roughly $18 an hour, and not a bad number to put on your tax return at the end of the year. But the minimum wage for a union highway construction worker in Minnesota (which the state will have to pay by law) is $19.41 an hour. The minimum for a union carpenter is $28 an hour, $25 an hour for ironworkers, and $28 an hour for cement masons. Ironically, these wage rates are taken straight off the AGCA website.

So out of that $1 billion, even if all of it went to wages, you still couldn't create 27,000 jobs at prevailing union wage rates that last one full year. Presumably some of the bonding bill money would be used for supplies and materials, right?

And if you accept the 27,000 jobs for $1 billion dollars theory, then we really got screwed on the federal stimuless bill. At the rate of 27,000 jobs per billion dollars spent, the federal recovery act should have created 21,249,000 jobs. Although the numbers from the White House change daily (even by the hours some days), the highest number of jobs created that the White House has claimed is 4 million jobs, according to President Obama last month.

So even if you take the President's claim as true, (4 million jobs created for the 787 billion in cost), then the job creation rate for the state bonding bill would have to be 5 1/4 times higher than the federal rate. Does anyone honestly believe that Minnesota lawmakers can create jobs with stimuless spending at a rate of over 5 times that of Vice President (nobody messes with) Joe Biden?

I mentioned it earlier, but it is worthwhile to note that the Association of General Contractors of America is a trade group that includes lobbying efforts to get government to spend money on construction. They are hardly an unbiased source, and there is no mention of how they arrived at the 27,000 jobs figure.

The bonding bill is not intended to create jobs. It is supposed to be reserved for capitol improvements around the state. The state budget website says this-

The State of Minnesota sells General Obligation Tax Exempt and Taxable Bonds, and Revenue Bonds. The proceeds from the sale of General Obligation bonds are used to pay the cost of building the capital projects that are approved by the Legislature. Certain tax-exempt bonds must receive an allocation from the state prior to the issuance. This process is administered by the Treasury Division.

Making the bonding bill into a jobs bill is nothing more than a transparent attempt to get people to support tax dollars for pet projects around the state that we can't afford.

What will be the nickname for the USS John P Murtha?
	USS Cold Blooded Murder
	USS Haditha
	USS Abscam
	USS Our Dear Jack (as Speaker Pelosi called him)
	USS Former Marine
	USS Looking For Another Ship Assingment

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