Minnesota Nice Tim Pawlenty

Is the governor of Minnesota too nice to run for president? I don't know, but I think we'll find out. Driving back from the GOP convention in St. Paul last fall I heard the governor and his wife host a show on WCCO radio. Unfailingly polite, pleasant and earnest, the two of them make a good team.

Pawlenty did outsmart the Dem legislature in his state this last legislative session and chalked up a win for taxpayers in an uncertain economy, so he has some conservative mettle. Mainstream liberal journalists like Al Hunt say nice things about him too, and even former tax and spend Dem presidential standard-bearer and fellow Minnesotan Walter Mondale can't help himself:

JimPethokoukisHow helpful. Walter Mondale says Tim Pawlenty loves cutting taxes too much. http://tiny.cc/uFy7w Was this a paid endorsement?

Bachmann a STAR!!!

Rep. Michele Bachmann to heckler: “I’ve given birth here probably more times than you, sir”. Video of her town meeting:

Morning Glories

Prairie Grass Roots

"You're a liar!" McCaskill health care forum turns rowdy. KC Prime Buzz. Hmm, the paper's blog shows a picture of a man in a Cardinal's shirt, the assumption being he was the one who called her a liar, but the story notes it was a woman. They don't tell us what the woman thought was a lie, nor what the man's impassioned question was. Poor reporting.

Gee, do you think the KC paper is trying to imply an angry white male stereotype? If you follow through another link with video the Cardinal fan was asking whether he would have to pay a fine if he did not want the public plan. In another question, McCaskill was asked about whether the plan would result in shortages of doctors. She was pretty vague. Betsy McCaughey is more specific, and she quotes Obama healthcare adviser Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel. Perhaps Sen. McCaskill should read him as well. And of course, there is no mention by McCaskill of tort reform, which would save billions.

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North Dakota Astroturfing Story Makes The New York Times. Say Anything. Cap and trade in coal country--a hard sell.

P.S. Fargo Forum covers California liberal Dem Rep. Pete Stark's intemperate outburst, where he called the moderate Blue Dog Dems he needs to pass his healthcare bill "brain dead". Big pull quote from the AP story in their print edition:

"They're for the most part, I hate to say brain dead, but they're just looking to raise money from insurance companies and promote a right-wing agenda that is not really very useful in this whole process,"

That article accompanied this front page story on older Americans' worries about these bills. And it looks like the AARP is reconsidering their implied support, given their significant loss of members recently.

P.P.S. And this is a great letter to the editor by Kay Syvrud, Hawley, MN. "Don’t be fooled by liberal spin on town hall protests"

GOP Tweets Compete

Interesting analysis from Smart Politics on the political cyber-war in Minnesota:

Nationwide, Democrats have historically been seen as the political party most effectively using new technologies on the Internet - crystallized by the remarkable campaign fundraising of 2004 Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean and the mobilization of support via online networks during Barack Obama's 2008 victorious presidential campaign.

In Minnesota, however, Democrats do not hold such an advantage in the land of Twitter. Despite having fewer members in each delegation, Republican lawmakers line up an equal number of Twitter users as DFLers in the U.S. House (2 each) and State Senate (3 each). In the State House, 17 percent of both the GOP (8 of 47) and DFL (15 of 87) caucuses have active Twitter accounts.

Who has the motivation and momentum to compete hard in this next election cycle?

The Pols vs. the People

Town meetings are still on, as the debate the Dems tried to deny us, and are still trying to pre-empt, continues. Rasmussen on the political divide:

As is often the case, the divide between the Political Class and Mainstream America is even wider than that between voters in the two political parties. While 71% of the Political Class say Democrats should go it alone, the identical number (7!%) of Mainstream Americans say they should try to get some Republicans on board to produce a bipartisan bill.

Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold's town meeting the other day in Iron County's town of Mercer elicited a good idea--let the states be the laboratories--no one size fits all. Lakeland Times. But when you look at the details it's not exactly preserving choice for Americans:

On July 24, 2006, at a press conference at the Martin Luther King Heritage Health Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Feingold announced that he had authored the State-Based Health Care Reform Act, a bill to create a pilot program for a system of universal health care under which each U.S. state would create a program to provide its citizenry with universal health insurance, and the federal government would provide the funding. The bill would create a non-partisan "Health Care Reform Task Force," which will provide five-year federal grants to two or three states. The program is expected to cost $32 billion over 10 years.^[53]

Another Trojan Horse for Big Med. Interestingly, Mercer's 7th congressional district has a strong GOP challenger for 2010, and Feingold himself is up for reelection, while Wisconsin's Dem Governor Doyle has a 34% approval rating, choosing not to run for a 3rd term.

Dem Culture of Corruption: Missouri

St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Missouri state Sen. Jeff Smith and Rep. Steve Brown just pleaded guilty to felony charges related to Smith's 2004 campaign for the U.S. Congress, according to testimony in U.S. District Court in St. Louis.

One of the key players is a convicted felon name "Skip" Ohlsen, who got his start fixing things for the Dems with the UAW. How not a surprise. The KC Star is also covering the story.

Who knows, with time Ohlsen could have evolved to the Tony Rezko level.

Indie Backlash in Colorado

Coloradan Barry Fagin has a good question:

Why is the idea of national religion so repugnant to liberals, but national health care is just fine?

Well, what do you know, Colorado is in turmoil, the Dem success of the Colorado model is teetering. It's the morning after their Denver convention and they don't know how to govern. So much for the faux Greek columns. GOP revival?

Fargo Air Show

Blue Skies, Blue Angels.

Gone Fishing

Not really, but taking a break. Back next week.

Conservative Nation

New Gallup poll results, via Powerline. We need to vote folks. And we claim green, as opposed to paler liberal colors verging on yellow.

Lowering the White (House) Flag?

Buzzing about this. The rat on your neighbor White House email address is bouncing back. Info on "fishy" claims no longer being accepted. At least not officially. Do they admit the mistake? Not yet. Can they blame Canada?

Oh, wait, they just changed the name, hoping we wouldn't notice. It's called reality check now. Hahaha. Who is out of touch?

Meanwhile the White House has some fishy problems of its own. As for most of America? August is the month for vacation. Gone fishin' figuratively at least.

Should I make chokecherry jelly?

Paglia on the Death Panel

As a libertarian and refugee from the authoritarian Roman Catholic church of my youth, I simply do not understand the drift of my party toward a soulless collectivism. This is in fact what Sarah Palin hit on in her shocking image of a "death panel" under Obamacare that would make irrevocable decisions about the disabled and elderly. When I first saw that phrase, headlined on the Drudge Report, I burst out laughing. It seemed so over the top! But on reflection, I realized that Palin's shrewdly timed metaphor spoke directly to the electorate's unease with the prospect of shadowy, unelected government figures controlling our lives. A death panel not only has the power of life and death but is itself a symptom of a Kafkaesque brave new world where authority has become remote, arbitrary and spectral. And as in the Spanish Inquisition, dissidence is heresy, persecuted and punished.

--crossposted at BackyardConservative

P.S. I also recommend to the editors of the Fargo Forum this, this and this. Fargo Tea Party today. And Legal Insurrection.

Grand Forks Tea Party

Some local media predictably claim astroturf, Say Anything refutes. Grand Forks Herald here.

In related news, Minnesota Democrat Rep. Collin Peterson gathers his courage to hold a town hall meeting or two, to present the Dems' 4 pending healthcare bills--even the Dems can't agree on reform that works.

UPDATE: More schooling of the MSM here, Say Anything with news and video of the event. Fargo AM 1100 Radio talkshow host Scott Hennen with more here.

Pigs at the public trough

This is what makes people mad:

Missouri retirement system to pay bonuses,despite having lost money. KC Star.

House Pencils in Millions for Jets the Air Force Did Not Request. Paying more than the sticker price. Air Congress. (Retreat after public outcry?)

More: DOT inspector general challenges O’s stimulus spending. Michelle Malkin.

P.S. Let me just add I have no objection to private planes per se, they are often the most cost-effective way to get around to areas not served by commercial jets, and provide jobs to people in Kansas and around the country. But I fail to see why Congress needs them at such a price, at such a time.

We are all public enemies

Dems are targeting Michele Bachmann now. They think they have a winning style. The Politico on August 8th:

Democrats will have plenty of ammunition in their effort to cast Bachmann as an out-of-control ideologue.

In June, during a diatribe in a House floor speech on the size of the federal government, Bachmann derided what she called Obama's "gangster government."

Well, let's see, what are we looking at now? She sounds prescient to me.

P.S. ObamaCare dragging down Dem Senators, including Minnesota's and Wisconsin's? HotAir.

Midsummer Fields

Good for Democracy

Resistance is not futile. The public is resisting. We've seen the polling tracking a steady rise in opposition to Fannie Med ObamaCare. We have the generic Congressional ballot flipping over to favor the GOP.

Despite the Democrats' latest attempt to smear concerned Americans at townhalls as a mob, the truth will out. It's not just ObamaCare, it's a culmination of the failed stimulus, the nearly TRILLION dollar budget, and the mother of all tax bills, Waxman-Markey. Congressmen in the heartland and in blue states (tho no news flash NY Times still delusional) alike are at risk of being voted out of office--and that's good for democracy.

So stand up at town meetings--ask your questions. And if your congressman isn't holding one, call them up and ask them why not. That's what Americans do.

P.S. Don't let coops become a Trojan Horse on healthcare. Heritage.

And in case you missed this, a report from Pennsylvania--where robocalls went out to presumably Dem voters for a Blue Dog townhall meeting. This is real outrage folks. We know it. We've never seen this before, we've never done this before. Silent majority no more.

Leftie Conspiracies

Whoops: Kent Conrad, Liberal Activist Manufacture Phony Conspiracy Theory About Fake Letters. Say Anything

Should Jesse the Body get on the case? Ventura to sniff out conspiracies on TV show. Fargo Forum.

And then there's the left's birther obsession. James Kirchick, NY Daily News:

Hysteria over the concocted magnitude of birtherism reached an almost comical fever pitch last week when Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) requested that a vote on a resolution honoring the 50th anniversary of Hawaiian statehood be delayed. The decree cited Hawaii as Obama's birthplace, causing liberals to jump on the episode as evidence of the GOP's embrace of birthers. Yet the reason for Bachmann's motion, as anyone remotely familiar with congressional procedure would know, was nothing more scandalous than the absence of a quorum. The resolution passed unanimously several days later.

Hmm--and the origin? NRO:

The birth-certificate business is not a uniquely conservative phenomenon; the allegation that Obama was born in Kenya seems to have originated with a Hillary Clinton supporter at a blog called The Blue State. Either way, this fantasy is not particularly widespread within the conservative movement, but it has attracted enough interest that it needs to be addressed.

Nuff said--but if you lefties are hanging your tinfoil hats on the hope that these distractions will save you from Americans taking a hard look at Obama's ruinous Big Brother policies, go ahead, make it up, try to shut us up, make my day.

P.S. Tea Party Bashers Gone Wild. Michelle Malkin.

And this. Jim Geraghty, NRO: When More Than Half Dislike Your Ideas, It's More Than 'The Right-Wing Base'

Dumping Terrorists in the Midwest

Michigan's UP or Kansas? How'd you like to be on the jury in a small town, or around if and when these guys escape (or are let go)?:

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, vowed to oppose any attempt to bring Guantanamo prisoners to Michigan.
"They are some of the most dangerous people in the world who pose a major threat to U.S. national security," Hoekstra said in a statement issued Monday. "We need to preserve jobs in Michigan, but turning our state into a terrorist penal colony is not how to attract new families and business investment."

Leave them in Gitmo--why spend millions to ensure sleepless nights in our communities?

American Liberty Alliance

Your source for Tea Party action nationwide--a guide to what you can do in your state! American Liberty Alliance.

Pawlenty on the Minnesota Plan

Op-Ed in the Washington Post--a GOP healthcare alternative. And Americans take to town meetings to express their concerns--including liberal Dem Keith Ellison's Minnesota District. Watch:
Also in a Blue Dog district in Texas. Powerline.

P.S. Pawlenty approval at peak of 2009.

Minnesota Dem Misfire

Obscene link in anti-Pawlenty attack. And liberal gasbag (tho I used to like his show) Garrison Keillor's bookstore is robbed. The name? Common Good Books. Taking the name seriously--helping themselves to other people's money. Pioneer Press:

The burglars got in by smashing a window in the store's front door.

The duo headed straight for the registers and thousands in cash, bypassing the store's best-sellers, "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" and "The Turtle Catcher."

Well, I can understand that, they're not your usual summer reading. Nor did they help themselves to any of Keillor's autographed books, an interesting detail that was in the liberal Minneapolis Tribune print edition for the hinterlands but somehow was skipped online.

P.S. Resurging Republicans in blue state Minnesota. HotAir. And I don't imagine things will improve for the Dems soon with this guy--maybe it's already had an effect.

--crossposted at BackyardConservative