The nonpartisan Democrats on the left have been allowed to play havoc with our political system for too long. When they can’t win at the ballot box, they use the courts to abuse honest, forthright political engagement. Groups like Common Cause accuse others of dishonesty but are themselves far worse. They are now in a battle to destroy the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Common Cause Minnesota, the state organization, has accused ALEC of violating the IRS criteria for their tax-free status. All the while, Common Cause Minnesota, which is also an affiliate of both the Common Cause Education Fund and Common Cause, does the exact same things only for Democrats. Their hypocrisy must be exposed.
James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal has a recurring theme in his Best of the Web column. It’s called “Life Imitates the Onion” and it pairs Onion fake stories with actual articles in the news. I thought this was one of those Onion parodies. It was not.
From Senator Amy Klobuchar’s website:
“Become a Carbon Buster!
Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network – America’s first grass-roots talkradio show – brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism, as the Twin Cities media’s sole source of honesty!
Being as I am, of small-town Scandinavian extraction, I am not one to feel…
…well, optimistic. I garnish all of life’s observations with a little sprig of protective pessimism. It’s sort of a Pascal’s Wager for the mundane; if you expect the worst and get the worst, you’re not disappointed; if you expect the worst and get the best, it’s a wonderful day.
So I’ve always looked at the Wisconsin recall election as a likely loss, and have kept that point of view throughout the runup to the election this coming Tuesday.
One of the most difficult jobs in politics is running for office as a Republican in Saint Paul. You’re in a city that might, in a good cycle, be 30% Republican, and where a fair chunk of the city depends on government for a living, one way or another – university faculty, government workers, teachers, and of course many,. many clients.
It’s an uphill road.
The ACLU of Minnesota, the League of Women Voters-Minnesota, Common Cause MN and Jewish Community Action filed suit yesterday to keep the Photo ID constitutional amendment off of November’s ballot:
The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, the League of Women Voters Minnesota, Jewish Community Action and Common Cause Minnesota are petitioning the state Supreme Court to strike down the voter ID ballot question, because they claim it would create one of the most restrictive election laws in the country.
The citation for the Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded to Jan Karski reads: “He worked as a courier, entering the Warsaw ghetto and the Nazi Izbica transit camp, where he saw first-hand the atrocities occurring under Nazi occupation.” Izbica was indeed a transit camp; it was a transit camp for Jews to be shipped to Belzec, which was a death camp. (Lucy Dawidowicz called it an “annihilation camp.”) In his remarks at the White House ceremony President Obama caused great offense to our Polish friends with his reference to the “Polish death camp” (which must have been a reference to Belzec) at which Karski had witnessed the atrocities that he subsequently reported to Western leaders in 1942 and 1943.
Less than two weeks ago, Minnesota Republicans endorsed Kurt Bills to run for U.S. Senate. Last night, Mitt Romney crossed the magic number of 1,144 delegates to clinch the Republican Nomination for president.
Now should be the time for unity for Republicans, but some activists' call for unity behind one candidate comes with a hypocritical attack of the other candidate.
Get behind Bills, but I won't vote for Romney.
You must support Romney, but Bills is a grave mistake.
Both kinds of activists are wrong. You support BOTH Bills and Romney. If you don't like it, you shouldn't have joined the Republican party in the first place.
Jim Pethokoukis called this a “huge miss” on Twitter, and he’s right. Analysts expected the US economy to add 150,000 jobs in May. Instead, we saw only a net gain of 69,000 jobs, and the jobless rate went up slightly to 8.2%:
Nonfarm payroll employment changed little in May (+69,000), and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 8.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased in health care, transportation and warehousing, and wholesale trade but declined in construction. Employment was little changed in most other major industries.
The long-term unemployed jumped up by 300,000 as well, while participation ratios rose:
Let’s go back in time ten years.
Back then, as the plucky underdogs of “Concealed Carry Reform Now” worked away at the biggest grassroots political coup in Minnesota pre-Tea-Party history, the orcs of the anti-gun movement sawed gamely away at a series of memes to try to scare people out of voting for the measure:
As Jim Treacher notes in The Daily Caller, “It’s appalling and undemocratic to raise more money than the Obama campaign” .
Or something. David Axelrod is purporting to be alarmed by a Politico story on how Republican super PACs are planning to spend $1 billion on the election.
The latest polling from Marquette University shows Gov. Walker’s lead holding steady:
Milwaukee, Wis. – A new Marquette Law School poll finds Governor Scott Walker with 52 percent to Mayor Tom Barrett with 45 percent among 600 likely voters in next week’s recall election. That lead falls slightly short of statistical significance. The poll was taken May 23-26, with most interviews completed before last Friday’s first gubernatorial debate, and has a margin of error of +/- 4.1 percentage points. Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch had 46 percent and Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin president Mahlon Mitchell had 41 percent, with 11 percent not expressing a preference. The margin in the Lt. Governor’s race is not statistically significant.
Can’t wait to see how this plays in November, along with Barack Obama’s flip-flop on gay marriage:
An appeals court ruled Thursday that a law that denies a host of federal benefits to gay married couples is unconstitutional.
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston said the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, discriminates against gay couples.
Why are they afraid of allowing Minnesotans to Vote?
A coalition of organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, the League of Women Voters Minnesota, Jewish Community Action and Common Cause Minnesota announced today that they had filed a lawsuit with the Minnesota Supreme Court challenging the Voter ID Amendment. The Voter ID Amendment was passed by the state legislature earlier this year and is scheduled to appear on this November’s ballot. The plaintiffs’ claim that the amendment language is misleading and inaccurate.
Backers of the Voter ID Amendment responded by saying the lawsuit comes as no surprise and that the petitioners’ claims are without merit. “The opponents have been talking about a lawsuit from nearly the time that the Voter ID bill was introduced in the legislature,” said Jeff Davis, president of Minnesota Majority. “What are these folks so afraid that they feel the need to file a lawsuit trying to block Minnesotans from voting on this issue?”
So … “Forward” apparently has flopped. Earlier this week, The Hill explained that Barack Obama and his campaign still haven’t found a theme on which to run for a second term. “Forward” turned out to be all about the past, and now Team O is back to spitballing:
Obama formally launched his campaign this month with the message of “Forward,” but one senior Democratic Party official told The Hill that people who thought that would be the campaign’s lasting official slogan should “stay tuned.”