Ono At Eighty

Servants to her family came into their presence on their knees. They exited the room backwards, still on their knees. Ono Yoko, as the Japanese would pronounce her name, was born into a world of wealth and privilege that mostly has not survived the modern age in that form and practically begs disbelief.

Daughter of an enormously privileged banking family, Ono went to school with the future Japanese Emperor Akihito after their school reopened after World War II. Her family could see the Imperial Palace from the windows of their home. During that terrible war, she and her brother were sent into the countryside by their mother to escape the bombing of Tokyo. There she was humiliated and taunted for her social status by those with whom she needed to bargain to stay alive. Her mother is said to have run supplies to her in the countryside with which Ono bartered for survival for herself and her brother.

After graduating in 1951, she was accepted into the philosophy program of Gakushuin, the first woman to be so accepted. 

She followed her family to America where she dismayed them by associating with people they thought were beneath her. She was undeterred.

She had two marriages before Lennon, something most people don't know.

She had a thriving art career (not to be confused with money) long before this mother-abandoned guy from Liverpool went to one of her art openings.

She was a signature member of the Fluxus movement. She performed with John Coltrane during the creation of free jazz, no small feat.

One of the few true things that Lennon said was, upon their marriage: "You'll always be Mrs. Lennon now. " Or words to that effect.

Long after his death, Mrs. Lennon has continued to create and thrive. She's had something like 9 consecutive dance hits (I had to look that one up; bored New Yorkers have to go to some clubs, no?).

She's had any number of art exhibits. She's still politically stupid: against fracking even though it is manifestly safe. The local protest movement will alway move her. Her tweets are rubbish and politically correct: they could be confused with those from the mayor of Minneapolis.

Yet what I find when I say I like her music is mostly horror. I understand that. The avant garde Ono always pushed the sonic button, usually leaving beauty and harmony behind. The shrieking stuff comes from post Hiroshima. "It's OK Kyoko, Mummy's Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow" is an actual song title of Ono's. Could you not scream? Still, a little bit goes a long way. Sean Ono Lennon is said to have said his mother is like Miles Davis. Uh, no.

But there is a large body of work in which, though her range is thin, is on key and manages harmony in addition to the melody she wrote. Her lyrics are arresting. ("Once I was in love. It nearly killed me.") Why this aspect of her music is not more widely known is a mystery to me.

The best I can recommend to readers is her album issued after John's death: "Season of Glass." If "Toyboat" doesn't move you, nothing will. Then again, it's hard to find now. Funny how that works.

There is no more widely misunderstood, often hated, artist in the world than Yoko Ono.

Happy Birthday.

Ron Paul & Minnesota Republicans' Shame

Got it, got it long before I received a standing ovation of boos at the MNGOP endorsing convention in May, 2012 for opposing the preeminent fraud, sick, twisted, Jew hating Ron Paul. The Weekly Standard called me "persona non grata" at that convention. Happy to take that to the grave.

Today this fraud, now retired with God knows how much of a public pension, tweeted one of the truly most disgraceful tweets of all time. If you are not on Twitter (and if you're not I'm not sure you exist), it's the Wild West. Almost anything goes; thin skinned reporters and other fake sensitive types need not participate. But they do, to their detriment.

Still, there was a collective gasp from the usually not dramatic Twitterverse today. It came in response to what was a wholly gratuitous tweet from L. Ron Paul. You'd have to be a low information voter, the type that reelected the most incompetent (but half black!) President in our history not to know of the death of Navy Seal Chris Kyle's death. Kyle was an exceptionally decorated hero who was a sniper specialist. Translation to the dope smokers in Mom's basement who totally are against the system: he killed the bad guys before they killed the good guys.

In the teeth of this man's death, at the hands of a very unwell veteran, Ron Paul tweeted:

"Chris Kyles' death seems to confirm that he who lives by the sword dies by the sword."

I tweeted the F bomb in response; those who know me on Twitter know I rarely swear. Better language is always available and at a premium at 140 characters. Still, upon reflection tonight, I would not take it back or do over. The online information reaching back decades about this charlatan was available to anyone with an internet connection.

This is the real Ron Paul. A lazy, stoner's Noam Chomsky, if they can even manage that quisling's name. Neo-hippies.

How then, did so much of the Minnesota Republican establishment either get co-opted or silenced by these ignorant forces?

Where was Keith Downey condemning these remarks? Marianne Stebbins, the Eva Braun of the movement? The faux republican Paulers who, it seems now, want to be seen as "builders" in contradistinction to "destroyers," were nowhere to be seen condemning Paul's slander against noble military service.

Their silence, collective and individual, constitutes an enormous black mark, shame, on the Republican Party of Minnesota.

Not as dark, of course, as Keith Ellison traveling on the taxpayers' dime to barbaric, hellish Saudi Arabia, which beheads female Sri Lankan maids without a lawyer or due process after being in the country for a week or two on the trumped up accusation of killing her infant charge. Wouldn't patchouli Susan Hogan usually be outraged on behalf of such women (now murdered), even those who don't dismember their unborn in the name of the oh so happy lives so exactingly showcased on HBO's "Girls?"

That would take a real local media which we do not, yet, possess. They can't report on themselves. (Tell me you've noticed)

In the meantime, I tire of my own role as the Ron Paul Cassandra.

With L. Ron Paul's shameful tweet today, you either have figured it out or you have not.

And if you're the latter, I'm with my friend Andy Parrish: get your own party.

Roasted Edamame: Fifty Shades Of Crazy

Last Wednesday night a self selected group of far right types, some masquerading as republicans, gathered unto themselves at a hideous suburb (redundant, I know) watering hole called The Blue Fox in Arden Hills. The name and location alone should have been enough to put off right thinking conservatives. But no, because this wasn't a gathering called for by republicans or, mostly, attended by them.

It happened nonetheless and it happened for the worse to the extent the public saw this as being under the imprimatur of the Minnesota Republican Party. Nothing, of course, could have been further from the truth. It just looked that way. There is something to be said for absenting oneself, from politics or love. Self preservation is always a worthy goal. To an extent.

The photo above constitutes the panelists, the moderators and the single organizer: left to right, Dan Severson, Steve Hensley (the organizer), Erin Haust, Walter Hudson, Jeff "Get Over it" Johnson, Sarah "Follow The Gambling Money" Janacek, Mitch Berg, Andy Parrish, Marianne Stebbins.

This is not the face of the republican party in Minnesota but one would be hard pressed to disprove it by the advance publicity, the attendance and the subsequent reportage. As one who (almost singularly at times) has called Minnesota media to task, I cringed as I attended this fiasco to think of their stories: hopefully words would fail them to describe just how awful it was. I could probably out write most of them but never, ever Bill Salisbury of the Pioneer Press. I'm late to the game, know enough to make me dangerous, but Salisbury reminds me of my coming of age: the press you could trust. Long gone, those days. But there he was, at the end of the bar, taking notes in longhand. Meanwhile on Twitter, an exceptionally thin skinned, ferociously untalented "reporter" wondered if the panel liked her. I checked my impulse to throw up. Some of my peers sucked up to her. Get me rewrite.

Throwing up was a good thing because what I heard could warrant it. I sat far away, made certain not to run into that tapeworm known as Keith Downey (seriously? I have to set my leadership standards *this* low? No thanks) and sat far from the maddn crowd. Mad it remained, though.

I sat next to my friend Jeff Kolb, who despite his Twitter brilliance, never struck me as a reader: Borges: Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

Thanks for that.

Everything that was wrong with the republican party was on excruciating display that night.

I'm expected to provide the autopsy.

Pass.

Katherine Kersten Derangement Syndrome

As a conservative on Twitter, I'm always amused by the unhinged, reflexive vilification of Katherine Kersten when she publishes an opinion piece in a local newspaper. Kersten is a senior fellow at the Center for the American Experiment and is, to my mind, the best thing the Center has to offer. I'm glad it made room for her. The Center is largely a non-force in shaping the political landscape of the state and this is a genuine pity. The Center never fulfilled its promise of generating genuinely conservative ideas and programs for Minnesota. Instead, it became insular and marginal, regarding itself highly, occasionally peeking out into the real world of politics. When David Strom is a senior fellow, the bar isn't low, it's non-existent. I'm glad the Center exists, to be sure, but at a time when conservatives could use real muscle it provides almost none.

It raises money to pay itself by, among other things, hosting an annual dinner whose speaker is usually high profile and the result of Mitch Pearlstein's (the Center's founder & president) connections. Many people attend the dinner, mistakenly thinking they're driving the politics of the state in a conservative direction by so doing. If only that were so. And I say this wholly apart from some atrocious choices the Center has made, worst among them having David Brooks as its yearly dinner speaker. Readers may recall Brooks called Sarah Palin "a cancer" on the republican party. One doesn't have to be in the tank for Palin to realize this was profoundly foolish but it's of a piece with him being smitten by then Sen. Obama's pants crease. This is someone the Center holds up to honor as a conservative? Thank you but no. If I recall, for a mere $25,000 donation one could ride with the mediocre Brooks from the airport to his hotel. It's hard not to hold such obsequiousness in contempt.

At any rate, Kersten's recent missive dealt with an unfolding anti-bullying campaign, the blueprint of which calls for stripping parents of local control in the matter and replacing it with a centralized, top-down regimen administered from St. Paul. Progressives get quite angry when the details of what they want to enact are widely known, especially before the fact.

Worse, Kersten went on to cite Department of Justice data that shows the ostensible target of these anti-bullying do-gooders--gay, lesbian, bi & transexual children--have actually had fewer incidents of such rightly condemned conduct from 2007 to 2009, the last period of time for which such data exist. She went on to suggest, plausibly, that the majority of bullying is directed at other students. Cue the progressive echo chamber outrage. Because of the potential gross overreach of the cure, she doesn't care about the problem. Not all liberals think or say such, to be sure, but vocal progressives on Twitter are an amusing parody of themselves.

When she writes "The campaign for antibullying legislation is driven not by a dramatic escalation in bullying but by a crusade to use the power of the state to shape your 10-year-old's attitudes and beliefs about sexuality and family structure" the rawest of progressive nerves is struck. This is usually the case when the truth about their agenda is laid bare.

Kersten's op-ed pieces generate convulsions on the left like no one else in Minnesota. I'm almost jealous. But she doesn't publish particularly frequently, is fairly brilliant in selecting topics on which to opine and is clinical in her use of well substantiated facts enroute to profoundly common sense conclusions. After one column which contained not a single factual error, liberal fascist (former) Rep. Mindy Greiling called for Kersten to be fired by the newspaper that employed her simply because she disagreed with her opinion. This met with no condemnation on the left of which I'm aware. It's distressing that all too often the left's response to speech it disagrees with is not more speech but complete and outright censorship. Stop Rush. Stop Katherine. How did too many of our friends on the left lose a foundational principle like free speech?

Can anyone blame Kersten, then, for concluding her most recent thought-provoking piece by noting that: "[y]esterday's champions of tolerance, it seems, are becoming the bullies of today."

Read her entire column by clicking here. 

Minnesota Republicans: The Golnik Diagnosis

A week or so ago my friend Ben Golnik wrote an opinion column for the Star Tribune titled "End an error before it begins." His piece was, in part, a response to one written by Steve Shier whose premise, with caveats, was that the DFL was in a position to dominate Minnesota politics for the foreseeable future. The lack of comment about Golnik's piece was telling to me, especially on my side of the aisle.  Let's just say the local equivalent of Opie & Anthony, Davis & Emmer, wouldn't have him on to explicate. The mutual bitch slapping would have been amazing radio. But, no.

Golnik's piece is both boilerplate politico consultant positioning for his next gig and genius. His detractors (some of whom I share so there's that) focus on the former to the exclusion of the latter. They tend to be the ones who have brought us to our current predicament. Oddly, they can't see that so they blame Ben. Right. They must not possess mirrors.

Buried deep in Golnik's piece was this essential sentence: "It is imperative that a group emerges on the right that will operate year-round to hold elected officials accountable and drive the conservative message of responsible government."

A group? Thanks Ben but recovering in Minnesota will take more than "a group." We can't monetize everything you think of, especially after some of us already thought of it.

We still have to fight off the cancerous Ron Paulers, a fight from which you were noticeably absent (where's the money in that?). To be fair, you didn't enable Jeff Johnson & Pat Anderson. Pat Shortridge. Kelly Fenton. Keith Downey. Except you did, by silence, purchased or otherwise.

Golnik's op-ed is the definition of self-serving. Good. Or is that too sophisticated an analysis for my fellow republicans to understand?

Settle The Michael Brodkorb Lawsuit Now

I'm a close friend of Michael Brodkorb's so let's get that out of the way at the start. This hasn't stopped me from criticizing him in this space previously when I thought he was coming back politically (especially on television) a bit too soon. In fact, my friends show up here often enough they probably wish we weren't. Ask Pete Hegseth or Tom Freeman. But I try to be true, not personal, focused, not gratuitous. I don't claim always to be right: who would? Who could?

Still, it's been a year, now, since Brodkorb was fired. Earlier this year he filed a lawsuit in state court against the Minnesota Senate for, essentially, gender discrimination, coupled with some other claims. This action was removed to federal court where the matter is now pending. Half of his ten original claims have been dropped and three may be dismissed if motions by the Senate currently pending are successful. Brodkorb has, then, anywhere from two to five claims remaining with which to go forward.

Although an attorney, I have not given Brodkorb any legal advice per se and he has an extremely competent set of lawyers to advise and guide him. The point of this post is to advance an opinion solely of my own and without any advance notice to Brodkorb. It's how I work. Chatting recently with Susan Closmore at Ben & Dr. Alison Golnik's Christmas party I was invited to confer with her prior to blogging. Her point was well taken but nothing of the kind will happen. I was glad to hear her asking, though; this is an improvement over prior media management by the House Republican caucus, even if, weirdly, they're starting with their own. And trust me: conservative bloggers are not their media problem.

Any lawyer surely understands a client's thunderous yelp of "thousands for defense, not a dime for settlement." Sometimes it's actually true, warranted. Most times, just so much bravado the client needs to tell himself or her board of directors or whomever. Real life and economics eventually intrude into this high minded, self-regarding attitude toward litigation. At some point, continued litigation is not worth the candle.

That point has been reached and passed in the Brodkorb litigation. Spare me your dislike of the man personally or your ersatz repulsion over the nature of his claims (so genteel), as if knowledge of the inner-workings, so to speak, of the Minnesota legislature on either side of the aisle was news to you. As if Michael Brodkorb & Amy Koch were the first. As if.

Before his lawsuit was filed the attorney hired by Cal Ludeman, moron extraordinaire & Secretary of the Senate at the time, and without any consultation with GOP Senate leadership, billed approximately $86,000. Nice work if you can get it: lots of research, telephone calls, churning. That sort of thing. It didn't move any needle because nothing was in place against which to measure needle movement. I don't believe any bill has been examined, let alone in detail, let alone challenged to be reduced. Carte blanche comes to mind (does that credit card still exist or am I showing my age?). Such is GOP senatorial leadership post Brodkorb, post Koch. Next month they're in the minority for four years. Can that be blamed on these two as well? In my opinion, the opposite.

Fast forward to December 14th, where the Senate Rules Committee, still governed by a majority of republican senators, approved yet another bill for their mindless position of no settlement under any circumstances. Lawyers dream of such hapless clients. Not wanting to interrupt the sorrow, pace Joni Mitchell, Senate democrats went along with a hang dog expression, not having the votes to deny payment. Even if they had them, why would they?

Brodkorb has demanded $500,000 in his legal filing. No one expects him to hold out for so much. Legal bills for the Senate to date amount to slightly less than $200,000.

DFL Sen. Jim Metzen expressed concern at the Rules Committee hearing that those fees could reach half a million dollars. Or, surprise, what Brodkorb had initially demanded.

Thought experiment: between the currently paid $190,000 (or $180,000 depending on which local newspaper you read, or Ted Baxter (Pat Kessler) who reported $200,000) and the fear of half a million dollars for legal fees, what amount could be used to offer a settlement?

I don't know. You don't know. Pathetic GOP senate leadership doesn't know.

Actually I do know: between 200k and 500k is three hundred k. Why spend that on file churning lawyers at the end of which remains a federal lawsuit? How does that ignorant grand-standing help the taxpayer? It doesn't. For the slow witted, I'm not suggesting Brodkorb should be paid 300K. I'm suggesting there is room for movement, for settlement. I tried once, valiantly. Contact Sen. Juliane Ortmann for further details.

One actually has to read it in print: Sen. Dave Senjem said that if more legal fees weren't paid this matter might appear to be a cover up. Where does one go to become this stupid? Does he have a certificate hanging on his wall?

He told MPR's Tim Pugmire that: "A decision like this is precedent setting, and if we don't stand on our heels and put some cement around them on this, we're going to set a precedent that's going to be with this Senate for decades to come."

Senator, one is knocked back on their heels; they don't stand on them. Cement? Are you former union or what? And what precedent would be set by settling? Keeping your friends' affairs secret, except they're not, really? And "for decades to come?"

Ridiculous yesterday man former Sen. Geoff Michel told the Pioneer Press's Megan Boldt that: "If more than half the claims have been dropped and dismissed, I call that winning." A loser would but be careful of discovery, just the same. Being under oath is no one's idea of winning. He would not be alone, of course. Prisoner's dilemma.

If Brodkorb pulls the deposition trigger, look for these gutless wonders to fashion a deal. Local media will report process but probably would be squeamish to report substance. I would share that feeling.

Settle with Brodkorb to make him go away, at least on the litigation front. This matter needs to be put behind the Minnesota republican party, the Minnesota senate, behind every Minnesotan. Sen. Senjem has made whatever small point he wanted. Spending more taxpayer money on lawyers in order to continue to do so is misguided at best, a self-indulgence to mask lack of leadership at worst.


Photo credit: Terry Gydesen of MinnPost.

MN Campaign Finance Board Protects Lawmakers

It's gotten so bad that reporters, so called, now no longer realize when they have a story on their hands. This is to be expected, one imagines, when reporting now is really only so much dictation with standard liberal bromides thrown in as though somehow constituting original thought or analysis. Of course, what Minnesota media does not cover constitutes its real scandal, its real abdication of responsibility.

MPR's Catharine Richert had a remarkable story concerning that antiquated, sclerotic beast from the hay day of squish "campaign reform" circa mid to late 1970's (with all the horrors that implies), the Minnesota Campaign Finance &  Public Disclosure Board: its real name! How does such a thing continue to exist but for the fact it's in Minnesota?

Richert's ostensible subject in her piece was the Board's broader contribution and disclosure proposals because these are your legislatively appointed mandarins who will parcel out political speech freedom to you earnest Scandahoovians of Minnesota. Thank the man. Don't color outside the lines. The CFB should barely exist but that for another time.

No, what really shocked any reader (or, apparently not?) was her blithe reporting in the fourth to the last paragraph concerning Gov. Dayton appointed Board member Andy Lugar. Wrote Richert:

"But Lugar said asking a lawmaker's spouse to say more about their financial interests, for instance, would be 'a bit of an imposition.'"

I know liberals are credulous, except when they're not, still, did nothing strike Richert as amiss in this statement? Really, "a bit?" Lugar should have gone all out Brit and said: "it's a terrible spot of bother" upon which one presumes Richert would have fainted until brought round again by hearing, then watching, angst-filled, another episode of Downton Abbey run during pledge week.

Realize what is happening: the CFB is deflecting, or being true to its nature, one is never really sure because it isn't, to imagined problems arising from out of state spending in Minnesota races (the most xenophobic state in the nation, Minnesota).

These are Board invented problems trotted out in the hope of more funding from a legislature that now more demonstrably exhibits their own barely concealed political preferences.

There is absolutely no empirical evidence this out of state money argument is true but don't look for that question to be asked. Dutifully, as if in an interview appointment, the Board's entire world view of money in politics, money in Minnesota politics and, indeed insufferably, politics in general is recorded by Richert. You won't find a single question, let alone penetrating, in the piece. Welcome to MPR. At least as it reports on its own team.

I'm going to make this brief in the hopes of getting a jump on my New Year's resolution to write more frequently (if I can) but more briefly, which is to say briefly. I have my doubts.

Here we go:

The CFB is making a number of proposals to the legislature. I'm not sure that's their job and if I can't find statutory authority for it expect a complaint at the Office Of Administrative Hearings. Hey, Mike Dean, formerly of Common Cause Minnesota, are you with me so far? Because I know they have the interwebs in Wisconsin plus half of Minnesota would move there if they could.

We're told process items in Richert's piece but not substance.

Most conservatives would not agree that money per se is the or a problem in politics. Still, if you have to move forward on that tangent would not the immediacy of a lawmaker's family make some sense to you with respect to corruption?

Is it true you liberals have read almost no history? It would be of a piece with your profound misunderstanding of human nature, which is mostly horrid. Progressives think government can perfect us. Surely some of you must be smarter than that?

At any rate, I would require more financial disclosure of lawmakers' spouses than the CFB is willing to request. Any corruption would show up there first. A priori.

But the Board will not recommend that. Why is that?

Because the Board stands as its own indictment as to the foolishness of its mission. It is seeking more money from those who control its purse strings in the hope of pursing those things it regulates which will not hurt those who give it money.

Behold ultimate corruption.

MN Republican Legislators: Paralysis As Policy?

The shock of losing our majorities in both chambers of the Minnesota legislature, together with the rejection of both amendments to Minnesota's constitution (traditional marriage & voter photo id) has slowly started to fade, allowing surviving republican legislators as well as the activist base to contemplate the coming two years of unrestrained one-party far left governance. Initial reactions are not reassuring; indeed, they spell continued marginalization if left unchecked and uncorrected.

Yesterday's reporting by Cyndy Brucato of MinnPost confirmed what many have suspected: we have no idea how to maximize our political fortunes in the next 24 months while providing principled opposition to a political party never known for restraint and which does not have a mandate to turn Minnesota into a cold California. Brucato wrote about Senate Assistant Minority Leader Sen. Dave Thompson's address to a republican gathering earlier this week. I tweeted that his remarks were "incoherent twaddle."

Essentially Thompson surrenders to whatever may come, making the most banal political observations possible and fundamentally refusing to take any responsibility for the collective disasters that have befallen Minnesota republicans. Higher taxes, more unionization, wasteful transit spending at the expense of roads and the growth of government for its own sake will be coming under Gov. Dayton and the legislature his ex-wife Alida Rockefeller bought for him. My cat Agamemnon (@AgamemnonCat on Twitter) knew all this before the election if the DFL won but no matter. Thompson can't be faulted for stating the obvious; he and other republican legislators can be for communicating surrender and helplessness.

He noted that proclaiming there was a budget surplus while all the reporting declared deficits made it "look[] like you're being disingenuous, especially when it's self-serving." Since when is being disingenuous not self-serving? Oh and senator, why the lack of the first person singular? I'll take plural in a pinch. But no, Thompson's comments read as if he wasn't in office last session, let alone in a leadership position. They lack integrity.

Brucato quotes him further: "With the benefit of hindsight, politicians, policy makers need to respond to some perceived problem and I don't think your average voter perceived that marriage in Minnesota has a problem."

The stupidity of the marriage amendment was not apparent only after the fact of its crushing defeat and corrosive effect on suburban races, thanks just the same. It's good to know, though, that if we want hindsight leadership we have one on deck. Again, no first person singular. No apology for sheer, atrocious political judgment nor a vow not to be a pawn of Bob Cummins again. That sort of responsibility-taking is necessary in order for republicans to move forward in the next two years. We all get things wrong; perfection isn't the goal, improvement is.

Then, possibly as a result of having read some random tripe on World Net Daily, Thompson goes all in and declares 2012 as the year in which we lost the country to the European-style social welfare state. If you've gone French and surrendered your political raison d'etre you have an affirmative obligation to quit the field and let someone else take your place in the battle of ideas. It takes some brass to be instrumental in policy choices that led to an electoral masacre and then claim the war has been lost permanently because of forces beyond your control. As the British would say: right.

Not content with his molting thus far, Thompson continued: "Republicans were weak . . . in their choice of Mitt Romney for president, their poor get-out-the-vote effort, and their message."

Weak? And he would know of strength how precisely? Thompson endorsed lunatic Rick Santorum for president. Given that failure of judgment, he has zero standing to criticize Mitt Romney as weak, although clearly getting out the vote (or not) was dispositive and we didn't do a good job in that regard. There I have no argument with the senator. But to elide responsibility while taking cheap shots at Romney while contemporaneously throwing in the towel isn't being a leader.

The closest Thompson came was to say: "I take some responsibility . . . I'm too willing to say no. The electorate has not responded well to 'no.'"

Actually, senator, it was what you said yes to that helped kill us. But taking some responsibility is a start. I like Dave Thompson personally and there can be no doubt he is trying; here's hoping our defeat can bring out stronger, better leadership skills in him (and others) because I believe he (and they) possesses them and god knows we need them. When I read he told Brucato that we need to run the most conservative candidates who can be elected I thought to myself: we're all RINOs now.

Brucato's short but essential reporting can be read by clicking here.

The strangely under-read Dave Mindeman channels in his most recent blog post, whether he knows it or not, that old adage about the Bourbon restoration: they remembered everything and learned nothing. His observation, vis-a-vis Minnesota republicans, is not entirely wrong. Still, he's a showcase of liberal delusion:

"The reality is that a push for fairness in unionization is a long overdue structural enhancement for the middle class." Really? I'm not sure even Dave knows what that means. Or maybe he does but he's too delicate to spell it out? He's happy to use the force and brutality of government because he knows better than those upon whom he'd inflict his social engineering. The Left has become essentially fascist and it's news only to them.

More: "Thompson stubbornly defends a transportation system that can never meet our future needs."

Here is quintessential liberal cluelessness. Without subsidies bordering on rape of the taxpayer, current "transportation systems" would die on the vine. Minnesota population density simply doesn't support their rote transportation ideology. Lanes not trains™ would confuse him. Americans, still, have an individualist, not collectivist, impulse. Give him and his ilk credit for trying to change that; score one against my team for not resisting sufficiently. At least not yet.

Liberals remind me of carnivores: the former have no idea where money comes from, the latter no idea meat. It's not dispositive; the mere observation is sufficient.

Finally, if you ever thought liberals had no genuine understanding of those on the right, Mindeman's hallucinatory remark that "[t]he message Thompson espouses is the very one that lost" should confirm your hunch. But then, like non-white people, I suppose all republicans look the same to him.

Despite my remarks, Mindeman remains a must read; he really is that good.  Do so by clicking here.

Comrade in arms Mitch Berg picked up on a MPR story and suggested republicans do nothing this session. Read his thoughts by clicking here. This is of a piece, I think, with current prevailing sentiment because, save for votes in the House needed for bonding, republicans in the legislature really won't have much to do.

Except they will and may not realize it. Enter Rep. Pat Garafalo and Jeff Kolb on Twitter the other day. Garafalo tweeted that he wished that former Rep. Tom Rukavina was in still the legislature as a speed bump against too much left-wing overreach. I suggested it was up to us, then; Pat responded that we don't have the votes. This wasn't a news flash and suggested a certain incumbent myopia. Kolb jumped in to the effect that he didn't care for the defeatist tone he was hearing and he was clearly onto something. In an odd way, all three of us were right at the same time.

Animal lover and friend House Minority Leader Rep. Kurt Daudt hasn't been all that much better but I protect him, as best I can, from the far right because the far right. Dave Mindeman wouldn't understand. The rest of us do; our political survival is at stake.

Privately--I don't think Jeff will mind my sharing this publicly--Kolb noted that the DFL was in the minority for two years and were hardly passive. True, they had their guy in the Governor's mansion so that helped a good deal but still, no surrender. They had a message, stuck to it, got it out. There's something to be said for sticking to your (mostly reasonable) guns on either side of the aisle. When people ask me what we should do going forward, I point to Carrie Lucking. Javier Morillo. Sally Jo Sorensen. Jake Loesch. Bob Hume, Governor Dayton's consigliere. We're being outflanked. Outspent. We can do something more immediately about the former; the latter requires more time. The problem is to be most effective in the former requires more of the latter and our begging bowls go empty.

Why and how they should be replenished remains Minnesota republicans most urgent task.



Above: The Nightmare, by Henry Fuseli (1781). Click on the image to enlarge.

Mary Franson Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

The most vilified person in Minnesota politics today won re-election to her seat in Minnesota's House of Representatives. Congratulations to my friend Rep. Mary Franson, a single mother of three but she won't get coverage on that from the local press because she's a republican. We all know this to be true.

I had to fight my own party in defending Mary. I did so publicly. You know who you are who demanded privately that her's was a lost cause. Guess what? You're the same people who said we'd keep the House. Or crow about a man's money who helps you claim there are more GOP women in the legislature as we lose both majorities. Thanks for that. I don't suppose we can get a partial refund on your fees? Because, you know, there is no win bonus for us not winning. Except P2B.

You may have also noticed that we are now a one party state. Do we have to pay you losers even more for losing because we'd fucking deserve it.

Last legislative session we didn't have any leaders. In fact, we had anti-leaders. Morons. Incompetents.

Not even status quo: our new majority made things worse. They earned their minority status this election cycle but the better good of Minnesota did not.

Enter Mary Franson: new, naive, honest, sometimes bumbling. Extremely well spoken on the floor of the MN House of Representatives and off.

But wait! Can she navigate The Wedge? Tell the difference of quinoa from teff?

No and here's hoping she never does. Would it be too post modern to take a field trip to Alexandria?

Her own personal life, at times, did her no good. (How does one tell a Protestant friend to "Get thee to a nunnery?").

Mary Franson is not a Rorschach test. Her example is not that indeterminate.

I call my friend The Monster™ in order to mock the idea Mary Franson does not care about the poor. Having been one, she could never be so.

Indeed, the worst "cures" for the poor come from those who never were or will be. Isn't this by now axiomatic? Which isn't to say it won't stop; there's the pity.

We republicans either unite regardless or we will surely wither and die in the next two years. Franson and her crazy public and private life was a challenge, this much must be admitted. I was an early adapter in the push back against just sitting there while the Left defined us; she was my unplanned front line.

If you know anything about the Holy Fool and Russia, Mary Franson might just be ours.

On It: Reading Minnesota's Liberal Blogosphere

As a general proposition I suppose it is more true than not that political activists tend to speak mostly to the like-minded. And yet a republican in Minnesota can learn a great deal not just about the loyal opposition but, appallingly at times, ourselves by reading some of the leading blogs on the left. Of course there is the usual agenda driven, unthinking types online but I'm speaking of those blogs that I try to regularly read which are unsentimental, mostly fact driven and simply well done.

Aside from looking at how other people blog, readers of Minnesota's liberal blogosphere will find some fairly penetrating analysis and coverage of issues and problems that republicans should be covering, if not in the first instance, then at least in tandem with our gravely mistaken friends on the other side. I also include those on Twitter who may or may not write a blog.

I was put in mind of this when I read Steve Timmer's piece on Left.MN called "Tony Sutton: The Gift That Keeps On Giving." Timmer reports on findings issued by the speech deadening, sclerotic Campaign Finance Board (CFB) concerning a complaint filed by (who else?) Common Cause Minnesota over a $70,000 payment to Sen. Dave Thompson for media consulting. I've previously characterized that arrangement as a no show job in exchange for not running against Sutton as chair. Both men strongly and consistently have denied it was such. The CFB's finding number 7 states there is no probable cause for the conclusion I've previously drawn. Mostly, however, that seems to be the case because the Board couldn't find up from down in the MN GOP reporting system. If one is looking for exoneration they'll have to do better than to say the books weren't cooked, we didn't keep any.

What's interesting to me is that I have not seen a republican blog address this development. I think Timmer places too much blame on Sutton and doesn't delve all that much into the Thompson services allegedly provided. But it's his blog, right? The point remains that to know what is going on in our party, republicans should cultivate the habit of reading opposing view blogs. Ideally, we should have been covering this development along with Timmer.

His article can be read by clicking here. Aaron Klemz and Tony Petrangelo also write for Left.MN and are equally required reading.

Bluestem Prairie, written by Sally Jo Sorensen, is perhaps first on my list of liberal blogs to read to find out what fresh hell has or is happening in the republican party of Minnesota. Unfortunately, she rarely disappoints. Sorensen was previously surprised, then gratified, to learn that her blog was cited in Mary Igo's deposition before the CFB concerning Count Them All Properly, Inc. with respect to yet another complaint brought by the laughably "non-partisan" Common Cause, Minnesota. I should know because I sent Igo the Bluestem post which came up in her deposition. Full disclosure: I continue to represent Igo and the three other board of directors in that matter which is proceeding before a three judge panel of the Office of Administrative Hearings.

Bluestem is consistently fact filled, aggressively partisan in the most competent way (is there anything better?) and wide-ranging in its coverage. Agreement with what is being presented there is not the point; the point is to learn of things that should concern republicans and about which they will not find in the so called mainstream media. To the extent Bluestem covers items in the news (and all blogs do at some point), the additional, detailed analysis is worth the reader's time. At least that has been my experience.

Several days ago Bluestem went after House Minority Leader Rep. Kurt Daudt over what it perceived to be a shifting definition of "compromise." I was fascinated by the concern, always a sure sign we are doing something right. Of course, the left is concerned because it has conservatism's best interests at heart. The blog post constituted an ur-meme which was then attempted to be launched on Twitter. But Twitter is a kill box for all sorts of things pushed by the left, including baseless memes hoped to be picked up by the overtly sympathetic media. The compromise blog post can be read by clicking here. 

I've argued for some time that not only do we need to push back against narratives that hurt us politically, we need to frame them in the first instance in ways that advance our political beliefs.

Just yesterday Bluestem had an excellent report on P2B Strategies and Daudt's previous association with it. That not to be missed post can be read by clicking here. 

Did you know that P2B was paid to lobby the House Republican caucus to go along with the disastrous marriage amendment? I didn't. And that was a throw-away remark in this post (the original post linked there credits the excellent reporting of Briana Bierschbach of Politics In Minnesota).

We can't really compete if we're learning about ourselves from Sally Jo, no offense Sally Jo. Nor am I naive enough to think that simply trashing our own is somehow helpful progress (it isn't and I put my defense of Rep. Mary Franson and her food stamp remarks as Exhibit A in how not to shoot our wounded: democrats never do).

Three days ago Bluestem reported on MN GOP's financial reports in some detail. Click here for an eye-popping look at our own financial affairs.

Aaron Rupar blogs at City Page's The Blotter as well as being carried elsewhere in that publication from time to time. I said last week on Twitter that I found him to be the most consistently interesting journalist in the Twin Cities and I meant it. He has made The Blotter his very own; I'm not sure how anyone would take it over if he were to ever leave City Pages. Think of Page Six crossed with New York Magazine with a large measure of personal style that's impossible to pick up in any journalism class. Whatever "it" is, Rupar has it. The general link to The Blotter can be found here.

Eric Austin writes at Outstate Politics with an admixture of deadliness and humor. His blog can be accessed by clicking here. If you think liberals are without a sense of humor, you need to read Austin. Being out of the Twin Cities (he lives and works in St. Cloud as a teacher) provides a refreshing take on political skirmishes.

Minnesota Progressive Project is blog home for approximately a dozen writers, each with their own style, approach and skill level. Look at their offerings by clicking here.

There are many other fine liberal bloggers; explore the ones listed here and look at each site's blog roll of those who they themselves recommend. Add them to your RSS reader and you have a convenient way to learn what the opposition thinks of us and, increasingly, due to their majority status, of themselves.

Each of these bloggers are on Twitter as well, adding yet another dimension of fun for those of us in the minority for the next two years. Republicans have an enormous task ahead of themselves in making themselves into a party worthy of majority status in either legislative chamber let alone finding and putting forth candidates who can actually beat Gov. Dayton or Sen. Franken in 2014. Liberal and progressive bloggers have something to say in this regard, mostly about how we became our own worst enemy. Yet they can also indicate, albeit unwittingly, what we may be getting right as we take our first tentative steps into 2013 and the political wilderness.