This past weekend, there were several articles addressing the marriage amendment up for a vote this coming fall.  Instead of dealing with it rationally, the Star Tribune printed two articles that merely defame conservatives without addressing the actual issue. The Democratic Party is creating a narrative that suggests if you are for the amendment, which merely memorializes the law as it stands, you are engaging in hateful vitriol and vile acts of bigotry.  However, if you are in favor of same-sex marriage rights, it is perfectly acceptable to allow the status quo to continue; marriage as between only one man and one woman.  The idiocy of this position and the negativity it propounds should be called out and a case should be made for resolving the issue.  First, let’s explore the bungled case against the marriage amendment.

From Marilyn Carlson Nelson, January 14, 2012, ‘The marriage amendment, from all angles;’

“Do we want to shackle our grandchildren, perhaps for decades, with the vitriolic debate and sometimes violence that have preceded the great human-rights victories of our nation?”  I am baffled by this characterization of the situation.  Nelson isn’t a firebrand liberal, yet she is engaging in the most divisive and obtuse argument the Democratic Party uses against conservatives.  Perhaps Nelson has been plagued by lawless gangs of homophobes wandering the state looking for gays to bash, but I haven’t.  AND I’M GAY.  Besides, this argument about whether or not to make the definition of marriage a part of the Minnesota constitution is academic at this point.  Same-sex marriage isn’t legal in this state now and Nelson doesn’t make an argument for any kind of accommodation.  Her case is entirely negative, but she goes even further afield.

“I see myself at the dock waving goodbye to a ship filled with friends, family and colleagues — all of whom happen to be gay. People who through a lifetime of ups and downs have laughed with me, supported me and enriched me”   I have searched high and low, and I haven’t found a single marriage amendment advocate who suggests shipping people like me out of the state.  If we want to find a group of people who enjoy shipping people off to places, it would be progressives who do that.  During World War I, it was progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson who gathered German-Americans into camps.  During World War II, it was progressive Democrat FDR who gathered German-Americans and Japanese-Americans into concentration camps.  We don’t find that kind of behavior among conservatives.  It’s always ‘us versus them’ collectivists who adore marginalizing, demonizing, and isolating groups based on identity.  Nelson’s argument is pure nonsense and it only obscures the issue and brings no light to the debate.

The local Democratic spokesmodels are also willing to add no substance and lots of hyperbole to the discussion.  Lori Sturdevant addresses another strange argument the Left has been making.   She suggests all Republicans must be considered ‘anti-gay’ through guilt by association.  Since Republicans passed the marriage amendment proposal, Republicans must now be perfect people or they are somehow ‘hypocrites.’

“I raise the Smith gossip not to dwell on the personal lives of state politicians, diverting though that topic has been of late.

Rather, my attention is drawn to how quickly a nexus developed between reported affairs of the heart and other body parts, and legislators’ votes for the anti-same-sex-marriage amendment last May.” ‘Lori Sturdevant: The marriage amendment vote,’ January 14, 2012

Let’s take this apart carefully.  Her first canard is absolutely ridiculous.  Rep. Steve Smith of Mound was the victim of a leftwing rumor involving a sexual relationship.  Smith is single.  There is no evidence of a dalliance.  But, Sturdevant, perhaps jealous of the scandalmongers at Politico, brings up an unsubstantiated bit of gossip to make a point that isn’t even a point.  Smith voted against the amendment, but somehow, in the rickety attic which is her mind, Sturdevant thinks this provides her a case against the amendment.  Huh?

She then states her attention is directed to how a legislator votes and their romantic lives.  Why?  Because she’s making political hay over the Koch affair and will continue to connect individual behavior of Republicans to the same-sex marriage argument, a truly wild stretch.  This argument is another case of intellectual dishonesty that obscures the issue.

I have yet to hear an argument for the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman because that will make people faithful.  No one believes a traditional definition will cause fidelity.  The inverse is also ridiculous.  No one I know has ever said if same-sex partners can get married, this will allow opposite sex couple to cheat on one another.  The argument is that marriage is a sacred union between two people of the opposite sex.  What they do within that union is between them.  This mingling of the concept of marriage and private behavior is illogical and borders on the insane.  There is no causal ‘nexus’ between the institution and the actions of individual couples.  Yet, charges of ‘hypocrisy’ never take into account this philosophical dilemma.

To make it even worse, neither so-called advocate, Nelson nor Sturdevant, make a positive case for same-sex unions.  They name-call and smear proponents of the definition as between a man and a woman, but never actually commit to the cause they argue.

Just like President Obama and his so-called, ‘evolving’ opinion on same-sex marriage.  The Panderer-in-chief is against same-sex marriage, well maybe.  He rides the fence because he wants to cater to both sides of the issue.  Yet, no one calls into question the position of the national leader of the Democratic Party.  We don’t hear accusations of Obama being a hypocrite, which he blatantly is.

John Edwards, Democratic Party vice presidential nominee in 2004, gave us a more likely example of excusing infidelity within marriage than do supporters of the marriage amendment.  So did Democratic President Bill Clinton, known perjurer and serial adulterer.  They are certainly far more destructive to the institution of marriage, yet Nelson and Sturdevant never mention their perfidy.  In fact, the organization Moveon.org was established to excuse Clinton, signer of the Defense of Marriage Act, of his crimes.  The Democratic Party sits on the sideline and snarks, but doesn’t do a single thing about the issue. It’s almost like they don’t want to actually help gay people but want an issue to keep gays on their plantation.

As I’ve previously noted.

So, I will make a conservative case for partnership rights for same-sex couples. I will do so without calling anyone a name or casting aspersions at any group.  I will do so with sincerity and integrity.

Same-sex relationships exist and the law makes no accommodation to deal with them.  For example, my partner and I have ordered our lives as a unit.  We planned our retirement, living arrangements, and daily lives around one another.  Our relationship isn’t just a couple of roommates, but two people who have organized our behavior toward a shared end.  Lots of other gay people have done the same.  As a result, when there is a death, or a breakdown, or some other dilemma, the courts have no way of dealing with the situation.  While we are not a married couple, we are also not a casual partnership.

I’ve listened carefully to objections to same-sex marriage and several points make sense. While I don’t agree, I can respect the belief of marriage as an exclusively heterosexual relationship that is a union of two and spiritually ordained.  I can agree that our law’s treatment of marriage is to further the ends of childrearing and care for one another.  Two people are the optimal grouping for these ideals.

What I suggest is we continue to reserve marriage as a unique institution to those ends.  That doesn’t mean we cannot have other arrangements for people like me and my partner.  We can have a legal arrangement like a civil union that our courts and other civil officials can recognize as something different than just two ships which pass in the night.  This is actually a rather conservative idea because instead of using the law to shape human behavior, conservatives like the law to reflect reality.

Let’s consider business relationships as an example.   Formal “C” corporations were initially the first kind of partnership which gave an entity the independence and liability of its own being.  Shareholders were no longer on the hook for the debts or problems of this business relationship.  You could buy stock and earn dividends, but creditors couldn’t go after you personally for the actions of the entity.

This older form of corporation didn’t work well for some kinds of businesses.  Yet, these entities needed to insulate their personal lives from liability for the actions of their agents.  They also needed a kind of organization that would allow others to invest so they could grow, yet didn’t need the expense and formalities of a full blown corporation.  So, we created “S” corporations in 1982 and later LLC’s.  These were business forms that allowed groups of people to invest and operate more flexibly than with the traditional form.  They aren’t better or worse than historically defined corporations, but simply different.

I propose the same kind of arrangement to be created for same-sex couples.  This would allow courts and civil officials to deal with our relationships as we intend instead of simply acting as though we are strangers before the law.  It would allow us the ability to articulate our arrangement instead of pretending we are just roommates.  It’s as with corporate forms, it wouldn’t be better or worse, just different.  It would give same-sex couples standing in the law and yet preserve the traditional form of marriage as it has always been.

The state legislature could create such a form even should the marriage amendment pass.  The constitutional amendment only defines marriage as between one man and one woman.  It doesn’t exclude other forms of relationships having similar status.  It would be a reasonable accommodation that would alleviate an ongoing problem.  And, it wouldn’t change the traditional view of marriage.

See.  I managed to make a positive case for same-sex relationship legal status without recriminations or abuse of another.  I didn’t need to demonize or make spurious accusations toward another person.  I managed to present a position that could alleviate an issue, engage the debate, and make a positive contribution.

And I didn’t suggest shipping anyone anywhere, angry gangs of thugs, or the sex lives of political officials to do it.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com

You know it’s gotten bad when the Democratic spokesmodels at the reliably liberal Star Tribune are chiding President Obama.  In a commentary entitled, ‘Recess appointment flap — a sign of the rule-bending times,’ Strib editor D.J. Tice has some cautionary words for his friends on the left.  Using a comparison that is more akin to that of the Tea Party, Tice warns that if we let President Obama circumvent the Senate’s authority to advise and consent, we may find ourselves becoming Libya.  He suggests, quite rightly, that our political procedures encased within the Constitution are what keep us free and democratic.  Tice’s poking of the Democrats, while necessary, was rather weak tea, but it shows just how radical this (his) party has become.

The situation isn’t very complex.  In the Clinton administration, they figured out just how long an absent Congress must be before making recess appointments, legally.  The magic number was three.  Clinton could safely appoint high officials without the consent of the Senate if they weren’t in session for over three days.  This number came in handy because when George W. Bush became president, Democrats kept Congress going with pro forma sessions to prevent Bush from appointing people to vacancies.

Constitutional Professor Obama, never one to cater to something as pathetic as the law, decided to appoint some officials even though Congress wasn’t in recess.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat Nevada, endorsed the procedure, even though it means the blunting of one of the Senate’s most important duties; deciding whether appointees are trustworthy and acceptable to administer the laws Congress has enacted.  Obama basically took the constitutional powers of the Senate into his own hands.  Democrats are mostly silent over this blatant exercise of unlawful authority.

For the most part, Democrats realize if they relinquish this powerful tool, when a Republican president is elected, they will be without the ability to stop his or her appointees, no matter how much they disagree or doubt the candidate.  But, Professor of Constitutional Law Obama is becoming desperate both politically and policy-wise.  He continues to get kicked in the teeth by his most radical leftwing allies for being too soft.  This act would prove Obama could be a cowboy too, albeit a lawless outlaw.

So, the editors of the Star Tribune knew they needed to publish their protests to this blatant, flagrant abuse of presidential power, no matter how muffled.  In order to retain even a modicum of credibility, they had to get this on the record.  Tice did three things in his article.  First, he pretended the paper cared about the warp and weave of the Constitution, though Democrats only really bother with the ‘general welfare’ and ‘commerce clause.’  Second, he had to warn rank and file progressives and socialists that this could easily bite them in the derriere once The Party loses power.  The final, and most important thing Tice wanted to achieve, was to twist the president and the Democratic Party’s feckless behavior into something to blame Republicans with.

So Tice mischaracterized the situation like this:

“So, let’s review: 1) Obama has called the Senate’s bluff on its fake sessions, 2) in order to make recess appointments that really aren’t justified by a prolonged Senate absence, 3) while all the while Republicans are blocking confirmation votes they couldn’t win to paralyze agencies that they can’t abolish or restrain via legislation.

It’s shenanigans all the way down.”  January 10, 2012.

Pro forma sessions aren’t fake sessions.  In fact, it was during a pro forma session just a couple of weeks ago the Senate passed the two month extension of the payroll tax rebate Obama and his fellow prevaricators in the Senate had wanted.  From the United States Senate Democrat website:

“During today’s pro forma, the Senate entered an agreement to pass a bill providing for a 2 month extension of the reduced payroll tax, unemployment insurance, TANF, and the Medicare payment fix; agree to the request for a conference with respect to HR 3630; and authorize the Chair to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate, all occurring if the House sends us a bill to extend reduced payroll tax and other provisions for a period of 2 months.”

http://democrats.senate.gov/2011/12/23/agreement-on-2-month-extension-of-payroll-tax/

If pro forma sessions are fake sessions, the payroll tax cut, passed by Reid in a pro forma session, is in fact null and void.  I wonder if Tice is bothered by that idea.

Tice then characterized Obama’s abuse of power concerning the appointments, “really aren’t justified by a prolonged Senate absence.”  What mealy mouthed drivel is this?  Tice specifically picked words that neither condemn nor admonish, but instead suggest the president was being a little too assertive.  He should have called Obama’s act criminal in that he stole the powers of the Senate to judge appointed officials and actually bypassed the representatives of the people.

Tice ends with the idiotic narrative that Republicans are obstructionists.  This in spite the fact the Democratic controlled Senate hasn’t passed a budget in almost 1000 days and there are fifteen jobs bills passed by the House and ignored by the Democrats.  Tice also pretends the House didn’t pass a YEAR LONG payroll tax rebate while the Senate only passed a two month extension because Minnesota’s Sen. Amy Klobuchar had to get home and hang the mistletoe and cut the fruitcake for her union thug bosses and enviro-fascist allies.

Tice ends with the dismissive “shenanigans all around” when it clearly one-sided.  The only shenanigans going on are in and amongst the Democratic Party and their tyrant-in-chief, Professor Obama.  The Republicans are doing their job by stopping the installation of a lackey by the name of Richard Cordray.  Republicans insisted the job he was getting had too much power and was too broad.  They contended, quite reasonably, other regulatory agencies had boards to oversee financial institutions, yet the Consumer Protection Safety Bureau was a fiefdom that would ruled by one person.  This certainly seems like a fair reason to object to an overreaching executive branch hellbent on singular control of the economy out of the White House.

Tice doesn’t mention that.  He and his cohorts at the official DFL newsletter whitewash that in order to excuse the dictates of an authoritarian president and his toady followers in the Senate.  But, at least we have to give Tice credit.  He spoke out against the president’s actions, unlike our two cowardly Senators, Klobuchar and Franken.  They wanted the president to recess appoint communist Elizabeth Warren to head this totalitarian bureau.  I’m sure they think Obama’s appointment of Cordray was the safe way out, even if it was at the expense of their own constitutional authority and responsibility.

Tice may use a rhetorical device like the Tea Party, but he twists and contorts the facts like a progressive.  We should all demand our elected officials protest this unlawful act by the president, or at least get them on the record of where they stand.  Someday, people like Sen. Franken will be whining and crying because he can’t stop President Mitt or President Ron’s appointments.  It will be because of unlawful President Obama and his unabashed theft of power.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com as “D.J. Tice’s “Weak Tea” Party Protest

This is a little summing up of the Great Minnesota Shutdown of 2011.  It was a contrived experiment by the progressive/socialist wing of the Democratic Party to embarrass the productive class and shame them into voting for Democrats again.  Instead the whole thing just blew back in their faces and they ended up looking like fools.  What finally took them down as a bureaucratic mix-up that exposed them for the inept frauds they truly are.   This is the story of how beer took down the vaunted leftwing political experiment in a giant crashing wave.

It looked so good on paper.  The political hit squad of the Democratic/Progressive-Socialist Party met following the 2010 election and had it all figured out.  They had lost the state house and senate, which they couldn’t really accept, and had barely eked out the governorship.  They had to do something to smear the Republicans in the legislature so they could regain power.  Their future as the ruling class was at stake.  So they concocted a scheme to defraud and trick the people of Minnesota.  They’d make the productive class pay for their betrayal of their rulers, the Democrats.  So, they hatched a plot that would make all hard-working, free market Minnesotans as uncomfortable as possible while still handing out patronage to their government class stooges.  It was going to be a beautiful thing.

First the Democrats looked back at the last shutdown and saw that in 2005, Governor Pawlenty had played them like a fiddle.  This was a limited shutdown that didn’t affect many people and he was able to skate by with a few ‘fee’ increases and some serious limitations to their pork barrel plans.  Any limit on their social experiments is seen as ‘foolish’ and ‘mean’ so they were determined to use Pawlenty’s tactics. They could then engage their own propaganda wing, the newspapers and local media, to sell it to the public even more effectively than Pawlenty had.

They had Dayton veto all the budget bills, except the ag bill, and basically just make pronouncements from time to time about how terrible the GOP was.  Meanwhile, their union thug buddies would agitate their minions to write and call and generally make a big nuisance of themselves to drum up discontent.  The media would publish tale after tale of woe.  Businesses would be shackled because of the shutdown and the ‘people’ would rise up and go after Republican legislators with pitchforks and banana cream pies.

But, as usual, progressive social experiments don’t actually work most of the time.

First of all, Republicans kept negotiating and talking.  They weren’t supposed to do that.  They were supposed to get mad and storm out, like they were President Obama.  They were supposed to pout, and scowl, and in general act like petulant children, once again like President Obama.  Republicans instead engaged the press, the public, and Governor Dayton.  People saw Dayton’s erratic announcements and bizarrely inappropriate facial expressions and scratched their heads.  Instead of looking statesman-like, Dayton looked like a forlorn child lost in a mall and didn’t know where his mommy is.

Next, the press dutifully reported on all the tales of heartache and woe that came with a state shutdown.  Unfortunately for the press, they didn’t have much to work with.  Most of the stories bordered on the absurd.  They were especially discomfited by the work of bloggers, social media organizers and the Tea Party activists who pointed out the flaws in their arguments and kept telling the truth.  The Democratic Party-run media wasn’t too happy with that.  No one is supposed to correct them especially when they’re weaving narratives that simply don’t reflect reality.

Finally, the worst part of this whole mess was the productive class wasn’t getting mad.  The union thugs couldn’t rile up their members.  The government class remained docile.  In fact, most people were actually questioning the entire point of the shutdown.

Democrats had contrived to apply the most direct pain to the productive business class.  They continued to dole out the bennies to their base, but they shut down the parks, during 4^th of July.  They shut down historical sites, during summer vacations.  They shut down rest stops, used by weary travelers and truckers.  They shut down licensing bureaus and state inspection boards and everything that annoys us.

They shut down everything that actually collected money while they continued to hand out patronage to every needful person in the state.

It needled people.  Liberals, progressives, Democrats, and socialists were embarrassed by this upside down philosophy.  Why stop collecting licensing fees, which don’t do anything to aid a business, and yet continue to send welfare checks?  Why shut down the Canterbury horse track which MAKES the state money and yet continue to fund refugee services?  In a particularly bizarre decision, the state would continue to send unemployment checks but shut down the lottery.

Regardless, people were perplexed by the entire theater of the whole thing.  It made no real sense, especially given the governor’s cook and housekeeper would continue to be paid through the shutdown.

Dayton went on a speaking tour to galvanize his base.  He went to St. Cloud and Rochester and it just didn’t catch fire, in spite of his doubling up on his meds.

Then came the decision to take Miller off the shelves.  The reaction was both enormous and obviously unexpected to the Dems.  Rachel Stassen-Berger whined in a tweet on July 13, 2011, “”What do MNs care about? Beer. @ stribroper’s post about a Miller-free MN has 300 comments, 300 RTs and 4k#fb shares.”  You could practically hear the professional jealousy Stassen-Berger was feeling in her comment about her fellow Party-run pamphleteer at the Star Tribune.  That night the local television coverage about Miller products getting pulled from the stores was huge.  Once the whole story was told, people were livid.

Eric Roper’s story, “MillerCoors kicked off state shelves,” Star Tribune, July 13, 2011 reports the story.

“The problem stems from brand label registrations that brewers must renew with the state every three years, showing the label on each brand of beer. MillerCoors attempted to renew in mid-June, but, according to company officials, sent the state a check for more than the required amount. Green said the company followed up with a new check, which the state received June 27.

But on June 30, one day before the government shutdown, the company received a letter from the state that its brand licenses had expired. State employees who would typically renew those licenses have been deemed noncritical during the shutdown and laid off.”

Stassen-Berger, being a progressive/socialist, was shocked.  Since prog/soc’s only drink $80 bottles of wine (and then verbally assault conservative congressmen like Rep. Paul Ryan) or handcrafted microbrewery beers aged in LEED certified bamboo barrels blessed by an acolyte of Al Gore, she was stunned that regular, ordinary Minnesotans drink Miller or Coors.  Since the productive class has to earn their living through hard work and thrift, they drink ordinary, inexpensive beers.  They don’t get grants from the government or George Soros so they drink something affordable.

Anyway, the people were now riled, but not in a way that benefited the Democrats.  Their little ‘screw the productive class’ experiment blew up right in their faces.  The absurdity that Miller products would have to be pulled from the shelves because of some idiotic licensing snafu simply confirmed what they already suspected.  This was a contrived farce from the get-go.  They would continue to subsidize food stamps for unwed mothers but refused to cash a simple check and return the overages to Miller.  This kind of madness typified exactly what is going wrong with this country.  Its impact simply washed away Dayton’s, and his Democratic handlers’, arguments.  This utter mess was not caused by Republican intransigence but by governmental enormity and pettiness.

And so the next day Governor Dayton buckled like a Minnesota highway on a 102 degree day under a tsunami of frothy, thrifty beer.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com

Minnesota Democrats and Governor Mark Dayton are in a pickle.  Dayton believed if he just stood up to the newly elected Republican legislature and made them appear extreme, public opinion would flood to his side.  Dayton was elected by 43% of the vote due to a RINO third party candidate and now he thinks he has a firm mandate to shutdown the state to rob the productive class.  Unfortunately for the Democrats, the state has mostly yawned and/or sided with Republican legislators.  The Minnesota press has been trying to rile the general population against the ‘no new taxes’ mandate of the state legislature and that hasn’t stuck.  So, Governor Dayton decided to go on a little tour to give his propaganda wing some visuals.

From ‘Shifting tactics, Dayton takes tax plan to the people,’ by Rachel Stassen-Berger and Mike Kaszuba, “For the first time since Minnesota’s government shutdown began, Gov. Mark Dayton hit the road on Tuesday to promote his point of view, appearing before parents and teachers at a high school in St. Cloud.”  Let’s be perfectly clear about this.  Dayton wasn’t appearing before a random group that just happened to wander into the St. Cloud Apollo High School.  He appeared before parents, who are almost all government union members, and teachers, who are ALL government union members.  This isn’t a genuine listening tour or townhall discussion.  This was a spectacle dreamed up by his Democratic Politburo bosses for the easy use and consumption by his leftwing pamphleteers at local television stations and newspapers.  There is nothing real about this.  It’s theater and theater not unlike that used by Catherine the Great two hundred and thirty years ago.

You see, Catherine had an image problem.  Her lover, Grigory Potemkin, a prince of the realm had defeated the Khanate in southern Russia and chased these Muslims from their homeland.  As a result, there was a vast land that lay open and empty.  Russia and the Ottoman Empire were fighting over control of the Black Sea and each hoped to get France, England, and the German princes and Austrian Empire to side with them.  Russia had a terrible reputation because they’d basically caused a diaspora of many of these Tatars from their lands.  Furthermore, many western leaders doubted they had real dominion over it.

Potemkin came up with a great solution.  He recruited a bunch of people to settle this area.  He ran around creating villages and towns and put these settlers in those areas.  However, he just didn’t have enough people and so when Catherine invited an entourage of Western leaders to tour the newly conquered territory, they wanted to show how Russia conquered and peopled these lands. Problem was there just weren’t enough people but ever the crafty one, Potemkin cheated.

From Jay Winik’s book, ‘The Great Upheaval,’ he explains the Potemkin village of infamy.

“But were these towns real?  Or was this all some quixotic fantasy?  To this day, the very phrase, ‘Potemkin village’ evokes the myth, not of docks, towns, and palaces, but phony constructions made of pasteboard; it is further believed that Catherine saw the same peasants and the same flocks over and over again, who were simply moved down the River Dnieper each night ahead of the empress’s entourage.”

Fast forward to King Marx Dayton and his Potemkin Village Tour.  At each spot, the busy little Potemkin prog/soc’s are gathering up their union astroturf to politely listen and applaud at the right times.  These aren’t just gatherings to get information on the shutdown or voice their concerns.  This is stagecraft.  This is government by artifice.  Why are they going to all this trouble?  Well, as it turns out, even the Party shills at the Star Tribune are getting blue.

Continuing from Stassen-Berger and Kaszuba’s article they opine:

“Dayton has weathered some criticism in DFL quarters for making several concessions in recent weeks, even offering to drop his call for higher income taxes on the wealthy. Over the weekend, in the absence of budget talks, he went silent. At the same time, the GOP put out an unwavering message — the state spends enough — cycled ceaselessly through social media, news conferences and partisan bloggers.”

Now this is just overripe bilge.  Dayton didn’t drop his call for higher taxes, he made one little proposal to tax everything else except the rich but the GOP didn’t bite.  When the people of the state told the Republicans” no new taxes,” it wasn’t just on the rich, the poor, or the dead, but for everyone.  They have more than enough money as it is.

But, their second comment is quite interesting.  They are saying that “social media, news conferences and partisan bloggers” are making a difference.  This is quite the departure from the usual DFL chanting points.  First of all, Kevin Diaz informed us last fall that the Tea Party movement didn’t have a following in Minnesota.  Since Diaz is a member of the Democratic Party propaganda elite, it must be true.  So who are all these social media types who are pressing the Republican narrative?

Second, there were certainly news conferences but the local media treated the GOP with as much disdain and distortions of their remarks as ever.  But, the writers also named partisan bloggers.  Now, that’s interesting because we are just a bunch of kooks that no one reads.  How could we have influenced anyone?  All truth flows from the pens of the Star Tribune and the camera lenses of ‘oh we Kare Eleven, so much.’   It appears we may have struck a nerve.

What’s happening is the Democrats have overplayed their weak hand.  They are burdened with a governor who sounds like he’s about ready to either burst into tears or explode with Tourette’s.  They have a bunch of union thugs running around telling people where to stand and when to clap.  They have a message of ‘eat the rich’ and then when we’re done with them, climb into the pot, you’re next.  They are trying desperately to get their government sector to browbeat the productive sector.

But, it’s just not working.  Maybe this whole Potemkin village thing will work out for them.  Or, maybe we’ll see right through their Wizard of Oz curtain.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com