DFL-DEFINED SUCCESS IS RATHER "PEDESTRIAN!"

Senator Rick Olseen and Representative Jeremy Kalin have been prating about the successful outcome of the recently concluded 2008 legislative session.

In fact they came in for high praise from the Chisago-Isanti County Heartland Express transit system Director (see letter to editor - "Thanks to our legislators" - ECM Post Review, May 28, 2008).

Apart from the very questionable ethics and impropriety of a publicly salaried employee who stands to benefit directly from the legislation for which Olseen and Kalin are praised by the Director is the fact that the Director wrote the letter to the editor in her capacity as a public employee - "Transit Director" - rather than expressing her views as a private citizen for which she would be unquestioned in any venue. Where lies the supervisory discipline for this serious ethical infraction?

Contrast this then with the report by the North Branch Area School District 138 Superintendent, Dr. Deb Henton, in the same issue of the ECM Post Review wherein the Superintendent announces, flat out, that "transportation for secondary studcnts (living within a two-mile radius of schools) will be discontinued" beginning Fall 2008. This latter commentary, by the school superintendent, is important information for public consumption not a personal partisan political statement - it is simply a stated fact for which the Superintendent is to be commended for bringing it to public attention.

Should You Trust What Rep. Kalin Says - Or How He Votes?

Representative Jeremy Kalin tells the public that he is a "fiscal conservative." You have undoubtedly seen his public comments declaring that.

But the TAXPAYERS LEAGUE OF MINNESOTA - a "nonpartisan, nonprofit grassroots taxpayer advocacy organization representing thousands of Minnesotans" gives Representative Kalin a (ZERO) - that is right - a zero rating - in the organization's 2007 Legislative Scorecard.

For detailed and further information on ALL legislators (REPUBLICAN and DFL) contact the TAXPAYERS LEAGUE OF MINNESOTA at 651-294-3590. You will be interested to discover the difference between what Representative Kalin (and also Senator Olseen) tell you or what they put into their news releases carried by the local press and how they actually vote.

You owe it to yourself. Or as former President Ronald Reagan said of relations with the former Soviet Union - "TRUST - BUT VERIFY!"

We owe it to the Gov

Al Franken is his own worst enemy and we as conservatives can be thankful that the Democratic party has decided that he is their candidate of choice for the Senate this fall. State Senator Olseen is squarely in support of Franken and this puts us as conservatives in a very good position for his seat in the next election cycle. I have reviewed the legislation that Olseen has authored and co-authored during his tenure at the capital and it is embarrassing at best. Senator Olseen is very much married to Representative Kalin on many of his bills and these two are like bumbling dolts when it comes to addressing the issues that need attention. What we have here are marching soldiers of the state Dfl who are told how to vote and when to vote by the party leadership. The partisan state DFL party has decided that a state budget increase of anything less than 10% across the board is a tax cut. They have bred their state legislators to fall right in line with this inept thought process. Thank goodness for Gov. Pawlenty and the common sense of the GOP. This is a tough battle for us but the Gov. has done an admirable job of holding as much ground as possible considering the political landscape at this particular time in history. Let us begin here and now, we need to continue an aggressive campaign to throw out Kalin this fall, send Coleman back to Washington, and line up a candidate as soon as possible to replace Olseen in the Senate. It is never too early to start and we owe it to Gov. Pawlenty to send him some support in the House and Senate.

Crass Franken

In a former post, we noted that Dennis Prager said, "Today, people at work, to cite but one example, are far less free to speak naturally. Every word, gesture and look, even one's illustrated calendar, is now monitored lest a fellow employee feel offended and bring charges of sexual harassment or creating a "hostile work environment" or being racially, religiously or ethnically insensitive, or insensitive to another's sexual orientation."

Contrast that to Al Franken’s insensitivity to women while in his "work" of making "jokes." Leftists love to create the environment that Prager detests, but at the same time leftists practice that very activity. What is good for Franken to do is improper for others to practice. He is entitled to an exemption from what is dumped upon others and demanded as proper decorum.

Some Minnesota Dems are leery of Franken’s past because of its implication on his political chances, but how many have an ounce of concern for what Prager says? Some Dem women spoke out against Franken for his sexually demeaning writing about women, but they are booed and dismissed. Far too many Dems are devoid of family values, having no shame to endorse a crass person for the US Senate.

Senator Rick Olseen (D-17) falls into this category, having endorsed Franken. Franken is an embarrassment to the human race and Olseen has the stupidity to endorse him. I echo Freedomwriter. Will Olseen host another party for crass Franken? Indeed, will the Chisago County DFL invite Franken for any events?

Party Party?

Will the DFL Party soon have another party at the Olseen residence celebrating Al Franken's endorsement by the DFL Party?

Another Al Franken Celebration

Just Wondering!

We are wondering if Senator Olseen and the local DFLers will be having another hilarious party soon celebrating with the presence of AL FRANKEN as the endorsed U. S. Senate Candidate. Representative Kalin clearly enjoyed it as evidenced by the party pictures. Or will they try to distance themselves from Franken like some of the other DFLers?

As we say - "Just Wondering!"

When I was a boy, America was a better place

By Dennis Prager

When I was a boy, America was a freer society than it is today. If Americans had been told the extent and number of laws that would govern their speech and behavior within one generation, they would have been certain that they were being told about some dictatorship, not the Land of the Free. Today, people at work, to cite but one example, are far less free to speak naturally. Every word, gesture and look, even one's illustrated calendar, is now monitored lest a fellow employee feel offended and bring charges of sexual harassment or creating a "hostile work environment" or being racially, religiously or ethnically insensitive, or insensitive to another's sexual orientation.

Read the whole article.

GOOD POLITICAL ADVICE FROM ANOTHER COUNTY

The following is a copy of a Letter to the Editor that appeared in local papers exactly as written by a Mora, Minnesota resident concerning DFL Senator Tony Lourey and DFL Representative Tim Faust of that legislative district.

It is interesting to read the letter carefully to see if you can find any significant place that ultra-liberals SENATOR RICK OLSEEN and REPRESENTATIVE JEREMY KALIN voted differently from ultra-liberals Lourey and Faust and the rest of the free-spending liberals.

Clearly DFL legislators are captives of the special interest groups that own them and they are not about to vote against those who fund them. Back home they put on a smiley face and down at the Capitol they do what they are told and you and I pay the bills they rack up.

The letter follows:

"Dear Editor: Now that the 2008 legislative session is over I thought it would be a good time to look at just what our State Senator Tony Lourey (Rick Olseen?) and State Representative Tim Faust (Jeremy Kalin?) accomplished during this last session in regards to our taxpayer dollars. Both of the gentlemen were given the opportunity to vote on eleven bills that could either raise our taxpayer dollars or not.

Senator Lourey chose to increase our tax spending 10 of the 11 times, while Representative Faust had a 100 percent voting record of increasing our tax dollars. I don't know about you, but that doesn't seem to me like they're working in our best interests.

So, if they are not working on our behalf whose behalf are they working on? Well here again voting records can show that. Back in 2007 one of the first issues taken up by Senate lawmakers was a 45 percent increase in their "per diem", a daily allowance for meals and incidental expenses. The increase from $66 per day to $96 per day is on top of a legislator's annual salary of $31,140, plus monthly housing and travel expenses paid year round. And guess where all that money comes from? You guessed it, the taxpayers pockets.

As long as we are on the topic of tax increases I wanted to inform the readers that they will have the opportunity to vote on a 3/8 of a cent sales tax increase on the ballot on November 4th. As projected by the Minnesota Revenue Department, by 2011 this tax increase will siphon $276 million out of taxpayers' pockets to be divided up among four new pots of money: 33 percent to the Outdoor Heritage Fund, 33 percent to the Clean Water Fund, 14 percent to the Parks and Trails fund, and 20 percent to the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. It's not often that we Minnesotans get a clear choice between between raising taxes and fiscal responsibility. . . . . . . . . . ."

End of quoted letter to the Editor

Proud to 'not be a Democrat'

I used to work for a guy that once stated “ Republicans believe that every day is the 4th of July, Democrats believe that every day is April 15th.” I was an impressionable young lad at the time and I came from a long line of Kennedy worshiping liberals and I liked what I heard from this new boss of mine. Ronald Reagan was his name and I was serving my country as a in the military at the time. The more I learned and listened to him, the more I believed in his message. Ronald Reagan made a lot of very difficult decisions during his tenure as President of these United States, and many of those decisions vilified him as a tyrant and aggressive war monger with all the military spending and weapons build up from the cold war era. Our young country, and in fact the world was fortunate to have had a leader like him at that particular time in history. Communism was defeated and the bell of freedom began to ring in places long thought to have been swallowed by the darkness of a communist way of life forever.

I was drawn to this message of ‘pride in my country’ and became a lifelong Republican, a Reagan Republican I guess you could say. There is a generation of us out here, we were relatively young during the beginning of the Reagan years but we grew up during the Reagan presidency and we flew flags on our porches, put bumper stickers on our cars and were openly proud to be American’s first, and Republican’s next.

We (my Reagan Generation) are now in the midst of our chosen careers and the majority of us are paying our taxes, providing for our families and nesting away some for that rainy day. We are putting our children through school, teaching them right from wrong, and providing a religious base for their lives. Yes, that’s right, I said it out loud, ‘religious base!’ Religion has become the ‘R’ word that so many have come to speak about in a hushed voice in only the closest of circles these days. This same ‘Boss’ from those younger days of mine also said, “If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we are one nation gone under”. I am not a religious zealot and do not consider myself to be a ‘far right wing conservative’ but I am proud to be a republican who cut his teeth during the Reagan years. I am proud of the fact that we rear our children to be patriots, to be God fearing, and of a very high moral character.

There are many of us out here and it is time we wake up and take back that which we hold very dear to our hearts. It is time to put back up those flags, find a candidate that we believe in and put that bumper sticker on our cars, maybe even plant a lawn sign or two and stand up for what we believe in. I can assure you that no one more than this writer recognizes the fact that the candidate pool is pretty thin right now but we have to start now. Before it gets any worse, here at the hometown level we must seed the growth of our party and our country. From the school boards to local city councils and township boards, county government to state government, we have to seed these governmental seats with fresh ideas and fresh faces. We must provide strong leadership that is not afraid to make some difficult decisions as that is what is needed at this time in history.

This writer is as guilty as many from my generation of failing to ‘keep my eye on the ball’ over the past 20 years or so and I could give you a hundred reasons as to why I have been too busy to ‘get involved’. That being said, enough is enough, it has become the right time again in history when our country needs to call upon my generation of Reagan Republicans to stand up and be counted. We are proud to be Americans, be proud to be Republicans and we need to get this country back on track. The pendulum is getting ready to swing way far in the ‘other’ direction and there is likely little we can do about that in the immediate future. But change takes time, Reagan knew that, he began in the early 1960’s and our country only realized the benefits of his vision after his presidency had concluded in the late 1980’s. Now is the time to get our feet wet and give back to this great country that has provided us with the opportunities available no where else in the world. We have benefited greatly from all this country has to offer and we now need to offer some pay back by means of service. It will be tough, it will mean sacrifice, it will mean meetings on nights we would rather go fishing of play golf, but our country needs us now and it is time to serve. Get a bumper sticker, put up a yard sign, get involved, don’t be afraid to let your neighbors know that you are a Republican. It is time be ‘Proud to be a Republican’ again instead of just being ‘ Proud to not be a Democrat’.

Disgusting Franken

Lori Sturdevant: Franken's 'I'm sorry' was a key first step
Franken still has work to do among skeptical DFL legislators -- and a recent rival might help.

ROCHESTER - Officially, Al Franken was endorsed by acclamation at the DFL state convention Saturday. That's the nicety that happens when the loser at these affairs is as classy as Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, and responds to defeat with a graceful motion for unanimity.

As a result, the tally on the one and only ballot wasn't announced. But as authoritatively whispered at the media tables, it contained an oddity: 2.9 percent of the 1,274.5 votes were cast for "no endorsement."

It's rare that "none of the above" does that well early in a major state party endorsement fight. For an explanation, I headed to the clusters of state legislators that formed and reformed all day at the back of the convention hall.

A half-dozen of them -- products of the endorsement system all -- were known to have preferred to let the primary voters decide the party's Senate nomination this time. Why?

"I'm already hearing about this at the door," said Rep. Jeremy Kalin of Lindstrom.

He has heard voters react to references to sex and rape in the 30-year body of work Franken produced as one of the nation's leading jokesters. The "ouch" that material causes has escalated to the political danger level in recent weeks.

Kalin, a first-termer in a swing district, said he isn't worried about how a poor Franken showing would affect his own prospects. His support isn't dependent on coattails.

"Legislators are nervous about this, but not for themselves," he said. "We're worried that, in what should be a good year for the DFL, we won't be able to win this Senate seat."

Party endorsement brings Kalin and most other good-soldier DFL office-holders at least nominally into the Franken fold. Still, some of their support has a tepid, tentative quality to it that could be trouble for the Senate endorsee -- especially if he pays it no heed.

Read the whole editorial in the Strib.

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The recent DFL endorsement of Al Franken was less than enthusiastic. Some delegates did not vote for either Franken or Nelson-Pallmeyer, a rarity.

Rep. Jeremy Kalin (D-17B) acknowledged he was hearing that some at the convention ". . . preferred to let the primary voters decide the party's Senate nomination this time . . . " That speaks of great enthusiasm for their candidates, doesn’t it? That’s what you get when your candidate moves to Minnesota to enter politics without moving up through the ranks and writes vile stuff.

Kalin spoke of hearing voters react to Franken’s sexually explicit and debasing writing that has riled so many. Kalin stated, "We're worried that, in what should be a good year for the DFL, we won't be able to win this Senate seat." There is reason to worry. People want a statesman, not a sexual fantasizer and classless jerk to represent them in the US Senate.

But Kalin isn’t worried for himself— "Kalin, a first-termer in a swing district, said he isn't worried about how a poor Franken showing would affect his own prospects. His support isn't dependent on coattails." Apparently Kalin doesn’t believe Mark Foley had any coattails either. Or maybe those kinds of coattails affect only the Republicans. If Franken doesn’t have any coattail affect on Kalin, then we will know once again that the Party that claims to stand up for women, actually doesn’t.

Kalin did not stand up for women against Franken in this interview. All he is concerned about is winning his seat. Sturdevant herself did not report that Rep. Betty McCollum was booed by her fellow Dems when she disavowed Franken for his vile writing. Dem women speaking up for women are harried. Where were you Kalin? If you won’t stand up for Dem women against a man who obviously disturbs you (politically, not morally), you will certainly not stand up for women.

Where is your courage? Where is your character? We will not forget.

No profits, no oil

Below is a paragraph from a great article.

For most of the 25 years between 1981 and 2006, says foundation president Scott Hodge, taxes collected from oil companies by federal, state, and local governments were nearly double the industry's profits in any given year. For all the clucking over ExxonMobil's $10.9 billion in profits last quarter, little attention was paid to its total tax bill in the same period: more than $29 billion.

Read the whole article by Jeff Jacoby.

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Additional comment: June 9

I would like to restate Jacoby's statement for its proper effect. When ExxonMobil made a $10.9 billion profit last quarter, that was our money--the money of petroleum purchasers. Some of that profit will be plowed back into the company, as all good private enterprises do, to develop more oil production for we consumers to buy in the next decades.

Some of that profit belongs to stockholders who invest in the company in order to make a profit on the use of their money (stockholders take risks with their money). Average Americans are stockholders, many of them owning mutual funds of which oil stocks are a share of the portfolio. So when Congress castigates ExxonMobil for a large profit, or Clinton or Obama aim to throw a windfall profits tax on the oil companies, they are sticking their finger in the eye of the average American, insulting the average American for making too much profit.

And then when they snub ExxonMobil by not recognizing that the company paid $29 billion in taxes in the last quarter, they are snubbing the average American because the consumer paid all those taxes in the end. Congress has the audacity to condemn Big Oil in a capitalist economy, believing that consumers and stockholders are too occuppied or too ignorant to realize it's their money in the end.

Multiply all of ExxonMobil's profit and taxes by the rest of the oil companies which are in business. That is the enormity of the audacity of Congress towards we the consumers and we the stockholders.

The Crime of Not Committing a Crime

Academia touts itself as open-minded and tolerant of diverse views and the rest of us as close-minded and intolerant. Yet academia is one of the most intolerant segments of our society. Here are two important articles by Selwyn Duke.

Read a Book, Get Charged with Racial Harassment

The Crime of Being White

A Conservative Energy Policy

Dan Kish
This article is well worth reading. It presents a history of the strangle hold the Congress has on domestic energy resources. The members of Congress are the problem.

They say "we can’t drill our way to cheaper gasoline" to hide the fact that they won’t let anyone drill here in the US. They argue adding 70,000 barrels of oil per day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve – sequestered from use - will help lower prices at the pump but Ronald Reagan’s 1987 recommendation to open ANWR’s million barrels per day will not.

We conservatives believe in conserving and not wasting, for example, water, metals, food or energy. But we also do not believe in living with scarcity when there is no scarcity. If temporarily lost in the woods on a hunting trip, we will conserve and ration our water and food because of its scarcity.

But the US is not lost in a land with a very limited supply of energy. Our continent is enormously wealthy with energy supplies. Congress is creating scarcity by refusing to let vast oil reserves be developed. Scarcity is the talk of demagogues. Scarcity is used to control the masses. Scarcity is the talk of those ridden with guilt from any number of sources.

We conservatives believe in making machines more energy efficient, not just to save energy, but to be more cost effective and make it available for others to use to improve their lives. We also know that physical laws limit energy efficiency. It takes x calories of heat to move x pounds of a car through x miles. Physical laws impose limits on conservation. To be more energy efficient and/or reduce energy consumption, one of four things must happen:

• make the burning of energy more complete to extract all the stored energy
• make the transfer of the resulting heat more efficient in its ability to do work
• reduce the weight of the machine so less energy is needed to move it
• reduce the number of miles traveled

At some point all of these measures will reach maximum efficiency and we must seek more energy. A conservation program alone will always lead to scarcity. Scarcity is relieved by tapping the vast known reserves of energy. In the meantime, we need to develop new sources of energy and other types of energy. But there is no reason to embrace scarcity while developing new energies when there is plenty of oil energy to go around for decades to come.

The cost of gasoline is being influenced by speculation in the futures market. The prerequisite to such speculation is scarcity. An abundant, available supply negates wild speculation in the futures price.

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Addition made on June 10, 2008

Read economist Walter E. Williams' instructive comments regarding futures markets.

Propping up the Goracle

The Lieberman-Warner bill (America's Climate Security Act, aka the Climate Change Bill) is being considered in Congress. Mr. James Inhofe, Republican senator from Oklahoma, asks and answers this question:

Why are many in Washington proposing a bill that will do so much economic harm? The answer is simple. The American people are being asked to pay significantly more for energy merely so some lawmakers in Washington can say they did something about global warming.

They are assuaging their guilt with your tax dollars.

Read the whole op-ed.

So Much for Equality

The College Republicans at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania wanted to invite a black speaker to campus to talk about affirmative action. They even asked Susquehanna’s Office of Multicultural Affairs to co-sponsor the event, which it would not do unless the Office could provide their own speaker. The students were not permitted to advertize the event on the university’s web page as long as the school’s selected speaker was not a participant.

The speaker, Joseph C. Phillips, posted his comments here. Read his whole piece, but this paragraph should get your attention.

It is truly a sign of how mixed up the world is when a Black man telling Black students that there is no monopoly on brain power is decried as a sellout while White folk that believe Black students are only in attendance on campus because of lowered standards and that without lowered standards they would not be in school at all are seen as comrades in arms. Let’s just call that madness.