ScaifeNet because we can't let Soros have all the fun...

...But I think he doesn't nearly go far enough: U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., joined by representatives of student, senior and disabled voters, called on Minnesota Democrats to unify in opposition to a photo ID requirement for voting. He said that while most Minnesotans carry an approved, government-issued photo ID, "that's not true of everybody. And this democracy has got to work for

Tonight’s precinct caucuses give Minnesota Republicans a chance to have a say in which candidate is best-suited to face President Obama in November. Well, not really. The results of tonight’s vote are non-binding, which means no delegates will be awarded based on them. Which is the same way it works in a certain neighboring state whose caucus attract a great deal more attention. At least we should be able to conduct an accurate and timely count of the vote.

At this point, I’m torn about which way I should vote. I followed fellow Frater Saint Paul in jumping on the Gingrich bandwagon after he appeared to be the best and most viable alternative to Romney. While I still like a lot about Newt, his viability as the non-Romney candidate has now come into serious question. While I definitely think Ron Paul and his paleo-libertarian views have a place in the Republican Party, he is simply not a serious consideration for CIC. That leaves us with Rick Santorum. While Santorum raises concerns in a number of areas, it seems like he may now be best positioned to emerge as the chief contender to Romney. Wins in Minnesota and Missouri could help his campaign regain the momentum they briefly had (and lost) after the Iowa caucus. And a late switch to Santorum wouldn’t violate the Buckley Rule: “Support the most conservative Catholic candidate who is electable.” Okay, I may have added a little corollary there.

Pondering who to support tonight also lead to the realization that when it comes to GOP presidential primary endorsements (at least the contested ones), I’ve rarely had the privilege of been able to support a candidate from start to finish.

It started way back in 1980. Believe it or not, I was actually backing George H.W. Bush at the beginning of the primary campaign. Once it became obvious that Reagan was the man of the hour, I realized the error of my ways and became a confirmed Reaganite. Keep in mind that I was all of eleven at the time.

I don’t really consider 1988 to be much of a contest as Bush was the sitting VP and natural choice.

1996 was a different matter. Early on, I was actually intrigued by the candidacy of one Lamar Alexander. Yes, that Lamar Alexander. Anyway, once Lamarmentum failed to catch hold, I reluctantly came over to support the sacrificial lamb known as Bob Dole.

In 2000, I started out as a tepid supporter of George W. Bush. The media’s infatuation with “maverick” John McCain eliminated him from consideration and although I liked Steve Forbes’ policies, I just couldn’t see him winning a national election.

Going in to 2008, I was excited about having Rudy Giuliani in the hunt. Then there was the Fred Thompson bubble. Remember Sam Brownback? Finally, I settled (again) with John McCain.

Then there were the ones who never ran like Tommy Thompson or that former South Carolina governor who I was at one point convinced would make a fine candidate for president. Sigh. I’m not sure if this history is a indictment of my judgment or that of my fellow Republicans.

One thing is certain. No matter who I decide to vote for tonight, they won’t be the one I really want.

Via Breitbart.

Say what you will about the Minnesota Poll and the Hubert H. Humphrey poll.  As bad, inaccurate, DFL-biased and seemingly-rigged as both are, they both actually release their cross tabs – such as they are. So far. With the WaPo’s … Continue reading →

Tony Cornish’s “Stand Your Ground” bill – which would make legal self-defense a more tenable option for law-abiding Minnesotans – is coming up for another hearing in the Senate Thursday. The bill – which got side-tracked in the last session, … Continue reading →

This year has been a trying one for those of us in the business of building and maintaining backyard rinks. The weather has been mostly uncooperative for the period of time when it’s usually possible to support decent outdoor ice here in Minnesota (sometime from early-December to mid-to-late February depending on the year). Too many warm days and far too few cold ones made it difficult to first get that initial base you need to build on and then to refreeze and enjoy the ice regularly afterward.

It wasn’t until after Christmas that I was finally able to get said base established and it’s been a struggle since then to find days when the ice was suitable for skating. The weekend before last was one of the few all winter that had two decent days ice wise and we were lucky enough to be able to get out on both of them. Yesterday, we laced ‘em up for a quick skate before the Super Bowl and considering how mild the temps have been lately, the ice was actually surprisingly decent. But overall this year, the payoff that you get from being able to play on the rink has not been up to expectations given the effort involved in setting it up.

Which is part of the bargain of course. Backyard rink builders are like farmers in that we’re at the mercy of the weather when it comes to the quality of the product that we’ll be able to deliver. At least for us, it’s just a hobby and not a livelihood. And as disappointing as the results have been this year, it’s still an experience that I’m glad to have gone through. This is my second year working on a backyard rink and the weather, and associated challenges that come with it, has been almost entirely different from the inaugural season. Cold wasn’t as much of an issue last year as trying to keep the rink clear of snow. Hopefully, dealing with those differences has helped prepare me for further unpredictable conditions in future seasons.


This year’s rink was also a bit bigger than last year’s and that expansion, while not significant, presented its own challenges. I’ve probably reached the point where any further growth in the rink’s size would require some leveling of the yard. I’d have to weigh the cost/benefits of that carefully. I have already given thought to adding boards to next year’s edition. I considered it for a while this year, but the delays brought about by the mild temps diminished my enthusiasm for that additional effort. Besides at this point, the kids don’t have much of a problem keeping the puck or tennis ball within the current confines of the rink’s short walls. But next year...

One of the pleasures of the backyard rink is the feeling of satisfaction-however fleeting it may have been this year-of putting together and then enjoying something all of your own doing. And for those of us who sit in offices and bang on keyboards or talk on telephones all day long there is also the physical element required in it and working with (and sometimes against) nature and the elements. Not the things you get to experience when you’re putting together a PowerPoint presentation. So even in a year such as this when the rewards are small, the effort is still worthwhile.

It’s almost ironic that as we approach what would normally be the beginning of the end of the outdoor ice season, the forecast for the rest of this week actually calls for weather suitable for ice making (with a high of thirteen and low of six on Friday for example). And it’s also the week where we depart for a family vacation to Florida. Upon our return home, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll see such cooperative conditions again which means that the useful season for our rink probably ends this week. The kids will still have fun enough playing on the ice and breaking it apart as it melts with the coming of spring, but the skating days are over. Until next year.

I agree with what Mitt Romney (I think – maybe it was Huntsman) said in one of the opening GOP candidate debates; any of the people on the stage, then and now would do a better job of rebuilding this … Continue reading →

There really hasn't been a lot of news on the Vikings stadium front these days, despite the kabuki going on in various locales:

Appealing for City Council support for a new Vikings stadium, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak surrounded himself with construction workers on Monday and said the project would create more jobs than any "single action that you can take."

Rybak and Barb Johnson, the City Council president, did little to disguise that the press briefing was an overt attempt to apply political pressure for the project, which does not appear to have the backing of a council majority. Rybak did not directly answer when asked whether he had majority support for a city subsidy package and chose instead to remain optimistic about the project's political chances.In other words, they are talking about a project in which there is no land secured, no money secured and the political support needed to make it happen is, at best, theoretical:

"The momentum is on our side at City Hall," Rybak said. "We need to get the last couple of votes there."

But Rybak and Johnson were joined by just one other member of the 13-person City Council at Monday's briefing, Diane Hofstede.

"It's no slam dunk," Rybak said. "Clearly, we have issues."
No kidding. We could call the new stadium the Hallucinationdome, perhaps. Oops, we shouldn't forget the corporate sponsorship. Perhaps it could be the Wells Fargo Hallucinationdome or something.

Meanwhile, back in Ramsey County, "work" continues on a stadium:

On Tuesday, Ramsey County is expected to consider a $20.6 million contract for soil cleanup at the former munitions plant in Arden Hills -- the Vikings preferred stadium site -- that would cap the cost for hazardous material abatement, demolition and remediation. The action would move the county closer to buying the 430-acre site from the federal government for $28.5 million.

Ramsey County already is seeking bids from architects for the stadium.

But both actions do not deal with a larger issue: How Ramsey County would raise $350 million locally for the project.Yeah, that money thing is pesky, isn't it? I will say this -- getting the remediation figured out for the Arden Hills site is a necessary task for the county, regardless of whether or not this project goes forward. The land will be developed in some way, eventually. Whether the land will (or should) become Zygi World is another matter, but in any event the work will need to take place.

Nothing has really changed, of course. The bottom line is the same as it has always been -- the Vikings will pay a certain amount of money to build a stadium and the state of Minnesota will have to pick up the rest. The "local portion" of the money is not going to materialize in either Minneapolis or Arden Hills. There's no reason to believe that the Minneapolis City Council is going to ignore its own charter and there's equally no reason to believe that the citizens of Ramsey County will agree to tax the snot out of themselves. So it's up to the state to come up with the money in either event. All the posturing and kabuki press conferences in the world won't change that.

SCENE:  MITCH is talking with Inge “Lucky” CARROLL, a meme-buffer at Alliance For A Better Minnesota, at a Cathedral Hill bar. CARROLL is sitting at a table with an empty martini glass, sipping a cosmpolitan from a second as MITCH … Continue reading →

The management at the Strib has apparently decided that even Lori Sturdevant’s grueling one-column-a-week schedule at the paper just isn’t enough.  Now, she’s got a blog. And there’s another surprise; even Lori Sturdevant has found a left-on-right attack that’s ruffled her … Continue reading →

 You gotta convince me that you know what this is all about, that you aren't just fiddling around hoping it'll all... come out right in the end!

       -- Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, "The Maltese Falcon"

So do you remember Douglas Kmiec? He is the former Reagan hand who is quite noisily Catholic and was leading the charge to get Catholics to support Barack Obama in 2008. For his many labors on behalf of The One, Kmiec was rewarded with an ambassadorship to Malta, a post he held until last year. It didn't always go so well for Kmiec, who was involved in a fatal traffic accident that killed a nun, and who was essentially forced out because the State Department felt he was too busy writing polemics and not spending enough time meeting with the fourth undersecretary of Sidney Greenstreet, or whatever it is they do in Malta these days.

Despite all that, Kmiec has remained loyal and has been willing to carry water for Obama, even as rumblings concerning Obamacare's potential impact on Catholic healthcare were becoming increasingly dire. As recently as November, Kmiec let fly with a defense of his benefactor in the pages of the National Catholic Register:


At present, however, both political parties are remiss in not reminding the body politic how the principle of religious liberty actually operates. This has permitted some media voices, like the Washington Post's Michael Gerson, to perceive religious hostility where there is none. There is no violation of religious liberty when HHS announces a temporary (or permanent) regulation requiring all employers -- religious or nonreligious, Catholic or not -- to provide employees with an insurance benefit for artificial contraception. Yes, it would be more congenial if the HHS administrative process adopted the Catholic view of contraception over that of other churches, but that declination was a choice the church herself since Vatican II has conceded belonged to Caesar. Had the HHS regulation gone farther and demanded a religious employer to affirmatively endorse or require the use of artificial contraception or any other choice contrary to its own teaching or face a penalty, that would violate the principle of religious liberty.

While there is no constitutional violation of religious liberty in the HHS regulation requiring that coverage allow for the informed choice of all consumers, and therefore, HHS is not duty-bound to allow a Catholic employer exemption, why HHS went out of its way to promulgate an unduly narrow religious exemption intruding upon religious employer hiring policies and their ability to be of service to Catholics and non-Catholics alike illustrates a type of blunder-headedness on the part of some Obama subordinate officers playing into the hands of single-issue Catholics and other partisans. The intrusive exemption shows more disrespect for faith than the president's own value commitments.In other words, Kmiec was hoping that his friends would stop making him look bad.

Well, as we know, the decision came down. The mandate is in place and now Kmiec is stuck:


Kmiec, who served in the Reagan administration, noted that he urged Obama last year to grant an exemption, explaining that such a move “would be an opportunity to be more sensitive to religious freedom than the law requires.”
Asked whether he will back Obama in 2012, Kmiec replied in an email, "Until I have an opportunity to speak with the president, I am for now (unhappily) without a candidate."
It turns out that Michael Gerson was right after all. So the Maltese Frog wants to speak with the scorpion he carried across the river. Good luck with that, Mr. Kmiec. I do hope that the president does take your call.

I certainly wish you would have invented a more reasonable story. I felt distinctly like an idiot repeating it.

  -- Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo, "The Maltese Falcon"

There seems to be a widespread assumption that the Obama administration’s recent assault on religious liberty and freedom of conscience will be met with widespread resistance by American Catholics. While it appears that some Catholic leaders are responding thusly, I remain skeptical that there will any kind of mass Catholic backlash against President Obama because of this. For if the laity is to become engaged in the battle in a meaningful way, the people in the pews must be shaken out of their current passivity.

Many Catholics seem all too willing to erect their own wall between church and state and like to pretend that their politics has nothing to do with the Catholic Church and vice versa. The problem is that when the government breaks through that barrier and injects itself into the affairs of the Church by attempting to force it to accept policies that violate core tenants of its beliefs, the illusion of this happy little coexistence is shattered. Well, at least it would be if the Church were more consistent and forceful in explaining exactly what is taking place and why it matters to American Catholics.

My experience may not be typical, but so far little word of this current controversy has surfaced in our parish on any given Sunday. A few months ago, there was an insert in the bulletin that touched on it. Since then, nothing. No homilies, no presentations, no mention in the weekly bulletin. The only thing related to politics that has merited attention has been on the marriage front, with updates on the Minnesota Marriage Amendment appearing in the last few bulletins. But nothing on the Obamacare rules which are a direct threat to the freedom of the Catholic Church to exercise its religious beliefs.

In order for there to be action, there needs to be a call for it first. I fear that too many Catholic leaders are still reluctant to sound it.

Gary Larson on what the effort to recall Governor Walker means to Wisconsin and how it could serve as a prelude to November's national election:

Pouring untold millions in recall elections effort, state and national unions seek now to overturn the results of the last real election. Recall looms for Gov. Walker and four Republicans legislators similarly targeted for their reformist ways.

Unions seek a form of jury disqualification on a massive, statewide scale. Facts are immaterial in labor-induced wars to get their way. Unions' collective wish here in Wisconsin is to restore a pushover state government which labor can “bargain” with (a-ha!) for members' privileges, a.k.a. entitlements, with payoffs at the end to legislators falling in line with their demand.

Frequently referred to — both by union biggies and their allies in news media, as “union rights,” somehow immutable, or Heaven-sent. They are not; rather these are man-made revocable labor contracts masquerading as “rights.”

Outcomes of the recall elections will cast a shadow on national elections in November. In essence, one central issue – unrestrained government spending – dominates. And then, the $15-plus trillion dollar question will be answered: Do Americans really care about budget restraints, about shared sacrifices, about living within means, about bloated labor contracts, etc.? Or opt to continue to saddle their grandkids with massive, unsustainable debt loads?

The GOP’s plan to help the economy by, among many other things, dialing back regulation, makes intrinsic sense if you have the faintest sense of how business works. Most liberals do not.  They think jerbs are created when government submits … Continue reading →

To: President Obama From: Mitch Berg, Mere Citizen Re: Our Stature In The World Dear Mr. President, Maybe if you bowed deeper and more vigorously, you could fix this little mess. That is all. PS:  Please ask Rep. Ellison if he’ll … Continue reading →

While we won’t be doing the traditional Reagan’s Birthday family dinner tonight, there’ll be jelly beans for all at work today.  It’s Reagan’s Birthday! Today would be the 101st birthday of the greatest president of my lifetime, so far. It’s … Continue reading →

Tuesday is caucus night in Minnesota and I'll be going to mine, which takes place at Mounds View High School.

What I don't know, even yet, is who will get my support. It's a difficult decision among four flawed candidates:

• Mitt Romney is not consistent and while he's less apologetic to be a Republican than, say, Jon Huntsman was, his only real conviction seems to be that Mitt Romney ought to run things.
• Newt Gingrich is a loose cannon. He's a great guy for generating ideas, but the job description is leading the executive branch of the federal government, not running a public policy seminar.
• Ron Paul is correct about monetary issues, but his foreign policy isn't realistic. You can regret, as I do, the extent to which the United States has become an overextended imperial power, but you can't just walk away from the empire.
• Rick Santorum seems the sort who has no issue with big government, so long as it can be directed to his interests.

So I'm still not sure what to do. If you are going to the caucus tomorrow, which candidate gets your support? And why?

Things continue to get worse in Syria. If this dispatch from the Telegraph is accurate, things could get even more ugly:


In his first full-length newspaper interview, General Mustafa al-Sheikh, who has taken refuge in Turkey, gave an apocalyptic insider's view of the state of the regime – despite its attempt to reassert control this weekend.
He said only a third of the army was at combat readiness due to defections or absenteeism, while remaining troops were demoralised, most of its Sunni officers had fled, been arrested, or sidelined, and its equipment was degraded.
"The situation is now very dangerous and threatens to explode across the whole region, like a nuclear reaction," he said.I'm going to hope that he was using "nuclear" metaphorically.

We have no good options here. There's neither the will nor the wallet for the United States to get involved with this mess, which is now pretty much a full-blown civil war, and frankly I don't see that it would lead to anything other than more death for American soldiers, without any chance of making things better there.

So what do we learn from this? I suspect that events are in the saddle, much more so than they have been in the postwar world. If you think you know what's going to happen, you are almost certainly wrong.

2612 weekdays of waking up at 5:30AM and writing til 7-ish. 520 weeks of following the Minnesota news cycle. Two Presidential, three Gubernatorial, three Senate and 32 Congressional contests, plus five complete legislative election cycles and 11 Legislative sessions.  One … Continue reading →

Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism – with ice-fishing thrown in to boot!  We’re broadcasting from the “Holes for Heroes” event, on Medicine Lake.   The event is a benefit for veterans; we … Continue reading →