I was out of town for Mitt Romney's appearance and missed his glitterbombing, but was present when Michele Bachmann got spangled at the RightOnline conference last year. Most disturbing to me again was how easy it was for the tossers to get such close access to elected officials and candidates. And again I'll ask: what if that wasn't glitter they were throwing — and where's the security?

In a Star Tribune editorial Thursday, the writer brings a possible security scenario that wouldn't bode well on future confetti-throwers:

Further glitterings, especially of presidential candidates, place everyone at campaign rallies at risk. Security officers must make instantaneous judgments about suspicious-looking people who get close to the candidates and their families. Whether it's highly trained Secret Service officers or local law enforcement, it's incredibly difficult in those split-seconds to distinguish someone drawing a weapon from someone pulling out a hidden bag of confetti.

It's not hard to imagine an anxious officer firing a gun, especially when there's often no weapons screening of early campaign crowds. That the activists were able to get so close to Romney and his family Wednesday demonstrates how vulnerable the candidates are and why security is edgy.

Besides the security risk, how does this help the glitterati's goal of acceptance and tolerance when they are perpetuating a form of bullying?

Glittering's mean-spiritedness only reinforces those who oppose gay rights, and it does nothing to win converts from those still on the fence. Activists need to ditch the dust. This is a risky, losing strategy.

If the glitterati thinks they're exercising free speech, Mark at Mr. Dilettante's Neighborhood boils it down to what it really is — assault:

The Star Tribune devotes 405 words on its editorial page to caviling about the moron who dumped glitter on Mitt Romney on Wednesday. He's the same moron who dumped pennies on Tom Emmer. You can read the editorial if you want here.

Lemme boil it down for you. This isn't a First Amendment issue. This guy is assaulting people. There is ample video evidence of his guilt. Arrest him, prosecute him and throw his butt in jail, preferably for a long time.

Up twinkles on all points.

The old saying "the truth will out" means that no secret can be kept forever. The question before us, however, is whether or not a secret can be kept long enough for someone to be elected President of the United States, and unfortunately we already know the answer. I am certain that had the truth of Barack Obama's agenda been widely known he would never have been elected. In particular, had we known about the ominous threats to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness contained in that abomination known as Obamacare , we surely would have elected somebody – ANYBODY – but Obama. Polls consistently show that a majority of Americans want Obamacare repealed and the overwhelming majority of Republicans want it repealed outright. So how can it possibly be that Republicans seem on the verge of selecting as their 2012 standard-bearer a candidate – Mitt Romney – that many suspect of not wanting outright repeal, and at best only willing to tinker around the edges of it?   I cannot imagine Mitt Romney being our nominee, if that were the truth and it became known.

So what is the truth? Well, there is a video over at Let Freedom Ring blog that gives one pause. In it, Mr. Romney says, "There’s a lot of waste in our Department of Defense like there is in the rest of government.  I’m gonna go after that waste. And I’m gonna take that waste and go pay for Obamacare."  It doesn't seem as if he simply made a gaffe or slip of the lip (he supposedly doesn't make them at all), but were that the case one would have expected an immediate rush to the microphone by staff to explain away this obvious double error – cutting defense to fund Obamacare.  Having raised the issue however, one then sees other clues to what the truth may be. 

1) Mr. Romney has never repeated his observation of a few years back that there were a number of serious flaws in Romneycare, and he continues to defend what he did in Massachusetts, the model for Obamacare, and says that should be the model for ALL the states.  

2) Mr. Romney's healthcare advisor Norm Coleman says that Obamacare will never be repealed, and he isn't contradicted by the campaign, either. 

3) Mr. Romney's campaign website says that on his first day in office he will "grant waivers to all 50 states."  That sounds good until you recognize that these waivers are only good for one year and apply ONLY to government employee health insurance plans.  The massive disruption to private plans, including millions of people being tossed off of their employer plans, while everybody's costs go up, Medicare gets cut and massive new taxes and death panels go into place, would still happen right on schedule.  

4) That same page, to his credit, says that he wants to "repeal and replace Obamacare," but the problem here is what he intends to replace it WITH.  It would appear from his statement that "states and individuals" hold the solution what he really intends is to implement Romneycare in all 50 states, by federal fiat, and it is hard to see how that is significantly better than the Obamacare we have now.

So, there you have it.  It is said that "the truth shall set you free," but you must first realize that "the truth is where you find it."  Hopefully we find it and set ourselves free before it's too late.

"So Derek, What do you think of the Republican candidates?" [I should note my friend although from the old country despises commies and is a solid conservative—he has lived in America for over 20 years.]
 
My relpy to him below was met with his agreement and he added he could not stand Newt:

I don't like any of them. Newt and Mitt are both big government progressives posing as conservatives.
 
Sanatorium is dull as toast, has no money or ground game and although a conservatibve is also prone to seeing government as the answer to problems and not the problem itself. He has no chance in the primary but he has gotten much better on the stump and is good at pointing out many of Mitt and Newt's flaws.
 
Paul has just the right plan for our domestic spending problems, but is a disaster on foreign policy and is as anti-charismic as any candidate I've seen, also saddled with his closet of quirks and radioactive positions.
 
I liked Bachmann but it became obvious early on she had no chance.
 
Romney has had this primary locked up since before Iowa. I will support him of course, but reluctantly. Pray for a strong VP candidate.
 
Can he beat Obumble? Possibly...best chance of anyone. But a centrist will not be enough to turn us away from 100+ years of progressive drift and anti-business policies. The cold war is long over but the commies and leftists have been eating the republic by inches successfully for decades.

Derek

Thanks to Dave Thul for pointing us to Walter Hudson and a discussion of the Great Judicial Debate of 2012.  If you haven’t heard of it, welcome to the club, and you’ve just made my point.  See those two great pieces and learn what the two sides are.  I haven’t chosen a side, but I find Mr. Thul’s logic favoring “MSRE” (merit selection, retention election) for judges uncompelling at best.  The alternative of direct contested elections, while flawed, is an improvement over the current situation and does not require a MN constitutional amendment to enact.  That seems a reasonable conservative position, though still not perfect in practice.

One could easily point out that most people don't pay enough attention to judicial races to make an intelligent choice, even when the election is contested. But any implication that the "D or R" does not convey sufficient information runs counter to that same argument, since it may be the only piece of information the voter has.  Right now the only piece of information the voter has is the "incumbent" label on the ballot, and that ought to be removed.  MSRE solves the problem of uninformed voters by simply eliminating the voters from the process.

Our Constitution says we elect judges. The MSRE system has NO judges elected.  If it's a bad idea to elect judges, change the Constitution to appoint them, require confirmation and be done, just like the federal courts. Maybe give them a fixed term and require them to be re-appointed. That's just as good as MSRE, and more transparent.

If you don't want parties involved, then recognize that the MSRE system GUARANTEES that partisan politics is involved because of who selects the "next qualified candidate," and because nothing really stops the political parties from campaigning against sitting "nonpartisan" judges.  Look at Wisconsin.

That neither major party commands a majority of the electorate is not a reason to eliminate all partisan labels or influence. The "independents," generally speaking, are people who aren't paying attention.  I don't want our government selected by them.  If they aren't sufficiently informed about a contested judicial election, why would they be more informed about an uncontested retention election?  At least a contest forces people to choose sides, one way or another, and competition is a good thing, right?

We hear concern that judges will be partisan activists rather than objective jurists, but what do we have now?  "Nonpartisan" does not mean unbiased or even competent.  "Good behavior" ought to be defined by the people, by voting either for a judge or for his opponent.  Selections by politicians would be MORE likely to be made on the basis of partisan political considerations.

The selection commission that is at the core of MSRE might be fine in a vacuum, but in the real world where the governor is far-left DFL, the legislative minority DFL is given equal weight to the GOP majority, and the current Supreme Court could be considered left-leaning for having fought against election by the voters, the deck is already stacked and could probably never be un-stacked.  It would be one thing if the replacement for a judge unseated in a retention election was the "next qualified candidate" but it isn't.  It is the candidate selected by the Governor from a list of "qualified" candidates, which is pretty much what happens now, 90% of the time.  Except under MSRE it would be 100% of the time.

Finally, I don't like wars, either, but to simply surrender because "you can't win," even if true, is hardly a solution to the problem of aggression by superior force.  Maybe we have to fight smarter, but we do have to fight.

It seems like a few small reforms, like removing the word "incumbent" from judicial ballots and requiring that judges not retire just before their term ends, thus setting up a political appointee as the replacement and incumbent, would make our system of electing judges better, without a constitutional amendment making them worse.

A soundbite is a quote, usually from a politician, that encapsulates said politician's central point and lasts no more than 7 seconds.  Since most politicians have cultivated the art of using the maximum number of words to convey the minimum amount of information, the punditocracy, media and "chattering classes" do us ordinary voters a sizeable favor by condensing down long-winded circumlocutions into these short and simple phrases.   Where we have problems is when we assume that this simplification is being done objectively, or when it is simply not possible to reduce a complex issue to such a simple statement.  To draw an analogy, a soundbite is like a cowbell's clang-- a very good and simple thing if you are looking for your cow in the deep weeds, but a noisy and annoying distraction otherwise.         

Do you remember how we were told what doofuses we were because John Kerry's issue positions were more "nuanced" than us poor rubes could grasp?  I have always thought it was because he not only did not speak in soundbites, but that nothing of what he said actually HAD a central point that could be extracted. The problem is different today. Our left-leaning major media and our conservative alternative media seem to have teamed up to do this sound-biting in such a way that not only is the nuance being lost, but we're sometimes getting an impression entirely at odds with what the candidate may be trying to say. Especially if you are a Republican, never trust your political enemies to tell the public what you really mean.

The case in point is Newt Gingrich. He is a prime example of a politician that says lots and lots of things, differing from most others only in that there are lots and lots of ideas behind much of it.  So when I hear an otherwise-solid conservative blogger opine that "Newt is not a conservative" I think that I and the conservative cause are being done a disservice, because it cannot possibly be true. If, however, one hears only of some small quote or action from Mr. Gingrich's lengthy public record and assumes it represents the total of his thinking on the matter, you can easily draw the wrong conclusion, which is what Newt's political enemies no doubt intend. I would like to believe that Republican voters are smarter than Democrats and capable of sorting through at least a little bit of the nuance, thus realizing that these tiny excerpts are NOT proper abstracts of Newt's detailed positions.  For that, we are going to need to listen for more nuance and less cowbell.

CD3 Republicans at a full Committee meeting Monday night voted to write a check to the Republican Party Minnesota for $3,000 as a show of confidence in the newly elected leadership. This followed the announcement from SD33 chairs Patti Meier and Norma Friedrichs that the BPOU had written a check of $3,300 to RPM. SD33 is a very ambitious fundraising district in the prosperous Republican area around Lake Minnetonka.

The thinking behind the vote was not that these 2 donations would make a substantial dent in the large RPM debt, but that it would be a sign that BPOUs, CDs, and grassroots activists are looking forward to November election wins, and a willingness to help rebuild the party. This hopefully will also be a sign to other individuals, districts and big money donors to chip in. There is a powerful conservative spirit in the activists to grow rather than continue grousing about the past.

We're just lucky we don't live in CD8.

 

Please check out this short video - we have raised far too many people with literally, no class. This soldier, who has given up two years of his life to pay homage to those who have died for our freedoms, spares no words; 

 

 

No Laughing at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

 

The Sentry opened up a very direct instruction to a group of people laughing at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Not a peep was heard afterwards.

Notice how he went about it...he stepped off the black mat, made his comments, proceeded to the end of the mat without getting back on until he reaches the end...then step onto the black mat again, begins his 21 steps again....

 

 

It's reported at the StarTribune that Governor Mark Dayton may be close to announcing his preference for a new Vikings stadium:

With Gov. Mark Dayton perhaps ready to comment on where he wants the new stadium built, legislators have scheduled a six-hour meeting late Wednesday to try to resolve the stadium issue. “Maybe longer,” than six hours, joked Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont, the lead Senate stadium legislation author.

“I’m not sure a final decision will be made [Wednesday], but we are definitely going to make progress,” she added. The long-debated project still lacks a site and a public funding proposal, but supporters are pushing to have a plan in place for the Legislature, which convenes Jan. 24.

Reader and friend Todd McIntyre sent me his Vikings stadium proposal:

There is endless discussion and rhetoric about how to fund a new Minnesota Vikings stadium.  It’s evident that only a few desire to use public funds for another professional stadium.  Weeks ago, I contacted my State Senator Ann Rest (DFL) and my State Representative Sandra Peterson (DFL) to learn of their position and neither support a taxpayer funded Vikings stadium.

Yet, Governor Mark Dayton (DFL) is adamant about making this development happen and is willing to use $600 Million of taxpayer money in the process.  So, I have created a fair funding plan that finds common ground among all of the stakeholders.

Since Governor Dayton seems to be the only person willing to fund the Vikings stadium, then the People of Minnesota believe that Governor Dayton should personally fund this stadium himself.  Governor Dayton doesn’t live in the 1% world; he lives in the .01% world!  He is one of the wealthiest individuals in the State of Minnesota.  His family has made millions from people procuring merchandise from his stores, and from the sale of his stores to Macy’s and other investors.

In fact, Governor Dayton not only has enough wealth to develop the Vikings stadium, he can reimburse Hennepin County for its development of Target Field.  The stadium should even be called the “Dayton’s Legacy Field” to honor the man so determined to make this venue happen.

Governor Dayton, the People of Minnesota are grateful for your generosity.  Thanks for stepping up to the plate and serving in this capacity!

Todd J. McIntyre, Plymouth, MN

I love it! And we could borrow Mitch Berg's title, "The Dayton Dustbowl" for a local event, too.

I thought we had all promised ourselves that we were not going to let the media pick our candidates for us this time around?  No way.  We've got all of this new media, and we've had all of these debates and we are all better informed than ever before. And yet here we are, barely past the New Hampshire primaries, and Mitt Romney is already the "inevitable" nominee.  Of the 1144 delegates needed for a first-ballot victory at the National Convention, 12 have already been selected and Mitt Romney has exactly 7 of them.  An overwhelming lead.

Face it, the major media have control of the narrative of this election, and right now their message is "Quick! Quick!  You have to choose NOW!!" Using words like "momentum," which would seem to be pretty meaningless in this context, they are nonetheless stampeding us towards a candidate that most of us think that the media think would be easiest for Obama to defeat. I swear that, of all the Charlie Browns in the world, we conservatives are the Charlie Browniest because we fall for that major media Lucy-with-the-football trick every time. They seem to attack all of our candidates but one, and claim he is our favorite (everybody knows it). They will bring out poll after poll to prove it and, rather than making up our own minds we seem to accept that conventional wisdom, paying no attention to who it is telling it to us.  Once their chosen nominee is in place, they will turn on him like a pack of hounds, yanking the football away.  When will we ever learn?

Thank you Heritage Foundation for a nice dose of reality in the face of revisionist Hollywood history.  The Real Legacy of Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s Iron Lady.

Like President Ronald Reagan, her political soulmate, Margaret Thatcher came to power at a desperate time in her country's history, when real leadership and bold ideas were most needed. And by applying conservative principles to the challenges she faced, she was able to achieve real and lasting success. Then, as today, she faced an extraordinary set of challenges and a chorus of voices saying her country's best days were behind it. Thatcher's successes are a comforting reminder of the power of a bold, conservative vision at work.