Although in a substantial minority, Kurt Zellers and the House Republicans have come out with an aggressive pro-growth platform in the first days of the 2010 legislative session. In stark contrast to the same old spending advocated by the DFL majority, the message is clear—we want more jobs and a more business friendly environment—now. This release from MNGOP today points to a fighting minority that is on the side of business and the will of the people.
House Republicans this afternoon on the House floor jumped out in front of DFLers who are fast-tracking a nearly $1 billion capital projects bill.
House Republicans, who hold a 47-vote minority to the DFLer’s 87-vote majority, tried to suspend the rules of the House in order to take up a bill that would phase-out the state’s corporate income tax over a period of 10 years. The bill is sponsored by Minority Leader Kurt Zellers, R-Maple Grove.
Rep. Laura Brod, R-New Prague, said lowering businesses’ costs would help get people back to work faster than the proposed bonding bill that borrows money to pay for construction projects.
“We don’t need to wait for government spending, we can [create jobs] today,” Brod said.
House Majority Leader Tony Sertich, DFL-Chisholm, asked how the GOP would make up for the loss of revenue from the corporate income tax. He said the bill would cost the state’s general fund $2 billion.
“Rep. Zellers and those who spoke [on the floor] are not serious about balancing the state budget. …This is irresponsible” Sertich said.
Sertich likened the bill to President George W. Bush’s tax cuts. He said those cuts led to the ballooning federal budget deficit.
“That’s what this bill would do,” Sertich said.
Zellers said businesses will “reinvest” the money they save from lowered taxes.
The motion failed 81-46.
Three DFLers voted across party lines. They were: Julie Bunn, of Lake Elmo, Mary Ellen Otremba of Long Prairie and Paul Rosenthal of Edina. Bunn and Rosenthal have two of the most distinguished resumes in the Legislature on matters of economics and finance. Bunn holds a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford and Rosenthal is a currency trader.
That last graph is telling. I don't know the other two as well, but Bunn knows she's in a very vulnerable seat. Keep the pressure on MNGOP, and not becasue it's politically advantageous guys. Keep the pressure on because it's the right thing to do.
The Republican race for governor crossed a substantial milestone this Tuesday at the statewide caucus and confirmed very clearly that it is now a two-man race between Marty Seifert and Tom Emmer. Marty who had a bigger machine and much more money came away with having a sizeable lead, but it would be wrong to rule Tom Emmer unable to make up the distance. Anyone else who chooses to hang around is doing so without a serious chance at the endorsement.
It's a mistake to say Marty's team is X and Tom's team is Y by categorizing them as different breeds due to a wrong vote on this bill and that bill. I know great conservative people across the state who are behind both men, and see it largely as who has won them over in the credibility and victory odds categories. Both are strong conservatives who can be found making votes on a few bills here and there that conservatives will have issues with, but on the whole, both are rock solid candidates.
So what's next? Will the gloves come off? Will we see more hit pieces from Marty, Will Emmer be able to raise some real cash? One thing's for sure, Emmer will have to strategy to win over more of the insiders. Also the field is now wide open with plenty of fresh faced delegates who were just elected at the caucus who prior to now have not been courted.
Up to now debates been a bit of a circus with 7 or more candidates. It should get interesting now as Tom and Marty will have to start taking some body and head shots in the next few one on one match-ups. Coming up in about a month, and about a month before the convention is the SD45 Gubernatorial Debate on Thursday, March 18th. With it's central location and timing, it should be a winner. Here's the details.
Senate District 45 is proud to announce that we will be hosting a Gubernatorial Debate on Thursday, March 18th at the Armstrong High School Auditorium in Plymouth. Doors open at 6:00 for a meet and greet with candidates for all statewide races. The debate program will begin promptly at 7:00 pm and will feature Representatives Tom Emmer and Marty Seifert. Senator David Hann is also scheduled to appear.
We are now accepting questions to be included in the program through our website www.sd45-republicans.org. The deadline for electronic question submission is Tuesday March 8, 2010. We will also be collecting questions from the audience during the debate to be included as time permits.
Education Minnesota will begin a 10-week television ad campaign on Super Bowl Sunday. According to their press release, "...the ads urge the governor and lawmakers to make education the top priority..." I think they are absolutely right, with one stipulation. I believe Education Minnesota should go and do likewise, and make education THEIR top priority, rather than simply throwing more money at the current failing (in too many ways and places) public school system. They also should not be spending teachers' taxpayer-paid union dues on expensive TV ads, and then demanding higher teacher pay.
"Minnesotans get that you can't cut your way to excellence," says the press release. Hopefully, Minnesotans will also get that you can't buy excellence just by throwing more money at the status quo. When Education Minnesota starts agreeing to a certain level of improvement in results for a given increase in funding, when THEY agree that education is their top priority, rather than simply ever-increasing funding for themselves, then they will be right all around.
It'll be interesting to discover if schools in Minnesota are recruiting for OFA like this Ohio school (via an Atlas Shrugged exclusive):
An Atlas reader, Chuck, has a student in the eleventh grade in an Ohio High School. Her government class passed out this propaganda recruiting paper so students could sign up as interns for Obama's Organizing for America (OFA is the former mybarackobama.com site.)
Obama is using our public school system to recruit for his Alinsky-inspired private army. Organizing for America is (and I quote) recruiting in our high schools to "build on the movement that elected President Obama by empowering students across the country to help us bring about our agenda" ............of national socialism.
Pamela Geller shows copies of the documents, and wants to spread the word:
Once again academic learning and achievement is hopelessly abandoned, and supplanted by radical leftist activism from the leftwing Alinsky indoctrinators in the perversepublic school system.
Children must be advised to expose this ugly propaganda. Children must tell their parents how they are being used and manipulated. Parents, warn your kids. Better yet, home school.
Check out the recommended reading list page 4:
Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky
The New Organizers, Zack Exley
Stir It Up: Lessons from Community Organizing and Advocacy, Rinku Sen
Obama Field Organizers Plot a Miracle, Zack Exley, Huffington Post
Dreams of My Father Chicago Chapters, Barack Hussein Obama
This internship program is geared towards the 2010 elections. Using our kids as their goons. Can you imagine if the Republicans attempted such a fascist stunt?
Keep an eye out, parents and students. If I were a student, I'd sign up as an agent provocateur. Hint hint. Or better yet, prevent this insidious program from even coming in to your school.
The Governor's race is coming to a very important stage this Tuesday night across the state with a straw poll at caucuses in every Senate District. On the Republican side it has essentially shaped up to be a two man race in Tom Emmer and Marty Seifert who are both popular candidates with excellent conservative records and well run campaigns. Senator David Hann is also excellent in those respects but has not gained the same level of support. I believe it will be a fairly evenly split contest between the 2 leaders with Emmer getting a slight edge on Seifert. Figure Hann getting a respectable 20% or so.
In interest of full disclosure, I support Tom Emmer in the contest for Governor and am a member of his steering committee. I also want to say that it was not an easy choice and I will fully support whoever wins the endorsement. My mindset early on was that this would come down to one of several people all of whom I would gladly support: Emmer, Seifert, Anderson, Hann, or... Brod. Laura Brod was in fact my first pick, and I was all set to design her website back in the early weeks after the Pawlenty announcement.
When Norm Coleman became the talk of the week and Pat Anderson made the move to the Auditor's race, Sara Janacek posted that Brod might be in the Coleman camp for Lt. Gov. It seemed unlikely to me and it was confirmed last week when I spoke to Laura at the Elephant Club lunch. I kept it under my hat, even though it had been rumbling in the Twitter world. Yesterday I was very happy that she endorsed Tom Emmer.
What does this mean? Why is Laura so important? Why didn't I post about Molnau or the many other women, or men, that have endorsed Emmer? For me and for many other conservatives I know Laura was their #1 pick for Governor, which makes this a VERY likely Emmer/Brod ticket, not just an endorsement. And even if she doesn't want that position and is happy to stay as representative Brod, she adds a lot of clout as this is announced just days before the straw poll at the caucuses. Laura Brod is the one endorsement that Marty or David would have loved to have gotten.
Taking Saul Alinksky's Rules for Radicals theory that the left has adopted succesfully, Joe Dan Media produced this captivating video on tools radicals use:
Inspired by Saul Alinsky's book, "Rules for Radicals" and how it has become the 'liberal primer' for the now flaming socialist Democrat Party.
Yes, another copped post. What can I say, I'm on a roll, why break it with actually writing something of merit. And it's all geally good stuff—this one especially. If you missed Rush Limbaugh's open letter to the President yesterday, it's a damned good one. Time for some tough love. Havea listen.
In case you missed the State of the Union rebuttal from Virginia Republican Governor Bob McDonald, here it is. And here's a story by Nick Gillespie of Reason TV illustrating McDonald already planning to institute his constitutional and free market rooted philosophical approach to the Virginia liquor sales statutes. Liquor stores have been messed up and controlled by government since the progressive inspired abolition movement.
Econstories.tv is a place to learn about the economic way of thinking through the eyes of creative director John Papola and creative economist Russ Roberts.
At the CD3 Exec meeting on Monday Janet Beihoffer presented the Republican party's important push to increase their number of election judges—and fast! She wrote me today with this draft to spread. I have been handing out the cards to people I know this week, and will be pitching it at the precinct caucus I'll convene on Feb 2nd.
I appreciate the specific wording they chose: Protecting the Voting Rights of CITIZENS. It is a critical distinction. One might add the descriptive words Minnesota and Living, but I understand we need to keep things simple.
Janet is a trooper doing a lot of leg work getting this message around the state, but we need your help. Please sign upand spread the word.
The Republican Party of MN wants YOU to be an election judge, an essential element of our representative democracy and a necessity to protect citizens’ right to vote.
MN has over 4000 precincts staffed by 30,000+ judges on Election Day. Each major political party is to provide people for these positions. Election judges receive compensation from their respective counties, and employers are required under law to allow time off from work to serve as an election judge without penalty.
Requirements to be a judge are:
- Be eligible to vote
- Be a U.S. citizen and a Minnesota resident
- Read, write and speak English
- Attend a 2-3 hour training session
- Handle stressful situations and work a long day
Nice-to-have traits include:
- Good communication skills
- Knowledge of a second language
- Good math skills and pay attention to detail
Go here: http://www2.mngop.com/electionjudge/ to register with MNGOP to be an election judge. Complete the registration. You will then get a link to your respective county. Complete the county form and then send or hand-deliver it to your county as well as MNGOP. The MNGOP also will submit all election judge registration data to the respective counties and follow-up to see that submitted names are placed as election judges.
It seems like longer, but according ot their site, about a year ago Minnesota based Intellectual Takeout launched their site of college level content for the intellectually curious student looking for fair resources. With a mission statement like Educating and Mobilizing for Freedom, how could you go wrong. I spoke with an associate this morning who said that they have done a great job of finding researchers, interns and have built up a large resource library, but are still looking for funding. They've overhauled their look with more appeal to a younger demo. They have much more content to add including a blog. Here's the link and a brief description.
Roughly one year ago, Intellectual Takeout spun off from Center of the American Experiment, a conservative, free market think tank in Minnesota. After doing a lot of the intitial work to get the site built, we began recruiting student researchers from around the country to help us build content for the site. By September 2009 thirty researchers worked for Intellectual Takeout in ten different states. Because of their hard work, Intellectual Takeout ended up with nearly 4,000 pages of internally generated content, much of which is visible on the site now.
With all of that content came the realization that before we had even officially launched the site we had outgrown it. So starting in early October, we set about building a more robust website capable of handling a lot more content while providing our site visitors with a dynamic, user-friendly experience.
What you see now is the fruit of our passion and labor: an online one-stop-shop of conservative, libertarian, and classically liberal resources. We hope you like it.
My kids should be in the market for this site in about 10 years, it should be fantastic by then.
I'll take the Free-market pad thai, extra spicy please, and keep up the great work.
Coleen Rowley, hailed FBI whistleblower and failed candidate for John Kline's congressional seat, is finding a more comfortable position as a direct-action Code Pink activist. Her article in the Huffington Post Sunday reveals her latest creative way to send a non-violent message: "throwing shoes" at the President a la al-Zaidi:
Twenty-five "Minnesotans for Peace" (including myself) are setting off today for Washington D.C. where we plan to exercise our First Amendment right to "Peaceable Assembly" (before the Supreme Court and the corporations take that right away). We will also exercise our throwing arms a little, too, as we deliver our message in less conventional ways along with other Creative Voices for Non-Violence. We may even take a cue from Muntazer al-Zaidi and throw our peace shoes at the White House!
Rowley seems to enjoy discovering her inner street theater thespian and craft artist:
Of course we'll also be busy with more conventional meetings with our elected congresspersons and Minnesota Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, pleading with them to take more active roles. (It does not appear that Congress has even declared war, as the Constitution requires.) We'll each be carrying tombstones with the names of Minnesotans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. We've dripped red paint to look like blood and hand-stenciled our group t-shirts.
And to think this Time magazine Person of the Year might have been a lawmaker in the U.S. Congress. She ran as an "Agent for Change" in 2006 and voters in John Klines' 2nd District saw her behavior and dubbed her "Agent for Strange."
Goodbye Cindy Sheahan, hello Coleen Rowley - the latest tool of the anti-war left.
I attended the MNGOP Elephant Club lunch yesterday where Norm Coleman and chairman Tony Sutton spoke. The positive energy was palpable with everyone I met at the meet and greet. This was very simply a great week to be a conservative in America. Charles Krauthammer sums it up quite well in just 30 seconds.
It is stunning to see these two Rasmussen charts that span one year from the day of inauguration through his first year in office. President Obama has managed to almost perfectly and in a smooth graduation flip his ratings upside down. Anyone want to make a bet on whether he can now switch it back just as smoothly by January 2011?
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At the CD3 Exec meeting on Monday Janet Beihoffer presented the Republican party's important push to increase their number of election judges—and fast! She wrote me today with this draft to spread. I have been handing out the cards to people I know this week, and will be pitching it at the precinct caucus I'll convene on Feb 2nd.
Coleen Rowley, hailed FBI whistleblower and failed candidate for John Kline's congressional seat, is finding a more comfortable position as a direct-action Code Pink activist. Her article in the 
