Gilmore and Glahn Now on TCNT Podcast Network

John and I have moved our weekly podcast, Gilmore and Glahn, to the AM1130 Twin Cities News Talk Podcast Network.  Our shows can be found here.

Roundup on the Minnesota/ISIS Connection

Here are a few useful links for those wanting to follow the story of Minnesotans fighting for ISIS:

KSTP-5--FBI concerned about terror recruitment in Minnesota

Fox Channel 9--The Reporters--first story

The Daily Mail--Minnesota men fighting for ISIS

Minnesota Public Radio--Jihad in Syria lures Somalis from Minnesota—from June 2014

MPR--FBI agent wakes up every morning worrying about the threat at home

Accountability Journalism

Leave it to the overseas press to do the work that local Minneapolis media can’t be bothered with.  President Obama flew to Minnesota this week to visit with a typical, struggling mom, “a 36-year-old working wife and mother of two preschool-age boys,” as reported by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Only the U.K.-based Reuters news service did any actual reporting on the meeting, noticing that Obama’s luncheon partner’s

LinkedIn profile shows she was once a field organizer for Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington.

I noticed the same thing last night, but our local media was too thrilled to have the Great Man in their midst to do any due diligence on the White House’s carefully choreographed Minnesota campaign stop.  Wouldn’t want to spoil the mood.

Too bad, they missed what could have been a great story.  The Star Tribune did report,

President Obama began a two-day visit to Minneapolis on Thursday sharing cheeseburgers with a local working mother and bringing a middle-class message tailor-made to aid Democrats fearful of massive losses in the upcoming election.

Which Democrats?  Did the President choose Minnesota—of all states—for his visit because some of those fearful Democrats may be located in the North Star state?  Star struck local media were unable to form a question on that subject.

Even if our worried, local everymom did turn out to be a ringer, her concerns are real.  She “wrote of a weakened housing market hitting her family hard, causing her husband’s construction business to fold.”  Sorry, with this President, that’s a feature, not a bug.

As the Star Tribune’s editorial page gleefully declared this morning, “There will be no need for any additional single-family, large-lot houses.  Zero.”  This is this direct result of the President’s New Urbanist, no-growth policies.  Sorry husband of local working mother, you are just out of luck.

But don’t worry, the photo op turned out great.

Minnesota's Radio Forum, Show No. 2

The second episode of Minnesota's Radio Forum will air Saturday March, 8, at 1 p.m. on AM 1570.  Producer Georgie Hilker has put together another great program this month.

We talk about creating jobs in Minnesota, with Bill Blazar of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and former state representative Julie Bunn of Lake Elmo.  And a real-life business owner calls in to discuss her struggles with hiring more workers.

Taxes, the skills gap, and minimum wage all get hashed out as we look for ways to put Minnesota back to work.

Ringing in March on the Radio

We kick off March with a bang on the radio.

King Banaian Show, AM 1570

Saturday morning, March 1^st at 9 a.m., I’ll be filling in again for King Banaian on his radio show.  Our guests will be: 

• Elizabeth Emerson, Director of Government Relations for Goff Public, will update us on the first week of the 2014 session of the state legislature.
• Kim Crockett, COO of the Center of the American Experiment, will talk about pension solvency.
• Gita Sitaramiah, Director of Communications for Greater MSP, will talk about strategies to grow our regional economy.
• Tom Fisher, Dean of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota, will talk about transportation policy.

Gilmore and Glahn Radio Hour, Blog Talk Radio

On Sunday’s Gilmore And Glahn show, we’re hosting conservative columnist Diana West for the whole hour from 4 to 5 p.m.

Minnesota’s Radio Forum, AM 1570

This week we taped our March episode of Minnesota’s Radio Forum.  This month the topic is Jobs and our guests include, 

• Bill Blazar of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce
• Julie Bunn, former State Representative from the Lake Elmo area and a Stanford PhD. in Economics
• Traci Tapani, Co-President of family-owned Wyoming Machine and a state Chamber board member

The program will air at 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 8.

Big Weekend for Radio

I have the unique honor of filling in for King Banaian on his radio show this Saturday.  It runs from 9 to 11 a.m. on station AM 1570.

My guest in the 9 am hour will be Fluence Media's Blois Olson.  Joining me in the 10 am hour will be the Taxpayers League's Ted Lillie.

And, as always, I'll be co-hosting the Gilmore and Glahn Blog Talk Radio show Sunday at 4 pm.  Tune in!

Minnesota's Radio Forum, Now on Podcast

 

The podcast of our debut show is now available for download.  The show is a one-hour, monthly public affairs program airing on AM 1570.

In episode 1, we take on health care with the Citizen League's Sean Kershaw, Peter Nelson of the Center of the American Experiment, and the Mayo Clinic's Kathleen Harrington.
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Minnesota's Radio Forum

My newest venture is starting up this Saturday: a monthly, one-hour radio program airing on AM 1570.  The show will be broadcast starting at 1 p.m.

It's a public affairs roundtable show, taking up a different topic every month.  This month the topic is health care.  Joining me are Sean Kershaw of the Citizens League, Peter Nelson of the Center of the American Experiment, and Kathleen Harrington of the Mayo Clinic.

Tune in on Saturday, I think it will be worth your while.

Endorsement

In a little-noticed and quickly-buried development this week, the Minnesota’s Campaign Financed Board levied a $100,000 fine against the state’s Democrats for illegally coordinating campaign efforts.  The fine, one of the largest levied in state history, was for conduct involving an organized series of photo sessions with state senate candidates. 

The professional photographs were used in “independent” advertising on the behalf of 13 Democrat candidates for state senate.  Of the 13, 11 of the candidates won, flipping control of the state senate from Republicans to the Democrats.

Jim Carlson, Alan Oberloh, Vicki Jensen, Tom Saxhaug, Kevin Dahle, Kent Eken, Melisa Franzen, Laurie McKendry, Matt Schmit, Gregory Clausen, Alice Johnson, Susan Kent and Lyle Koenen were named in the Board’s investigation.

Of the 13 Democrat state senate candidates involved, several were running in Twin Cities suburban districts.  Three--Alice Johnson, Melisa Franzen and Gregory Clausen—were endorsed by the Star Tribune newspaper.  None of the three were senate incumbents in the last election: all three won.

My take after reading the Board's report on its investigation is that control of the state senate rests in the hands of a group that cheated to win.  The matter involves no small sum: the illegal coordination represented campaign contributions of more than $300,000 above the legal limit.

Voters are owed more than a “we’re putting this matter behind us” explanation from everyone involved.

What I Saw at MNsure Today

For the first time since September, I made my way to St. Paul to attend a meeting at the headquarters of MNsure, the embattled state agency charged with implementing the local Obamacare health insurance exchange.

This afternoon, Scott Leitz—the newly appointed interim CEO of MNsure—along with MNsure’s board chair, Brian Beutner, held a press conference followed by a meeting of MNsure’s Board of Directors.

Here are a few observations from the back of the room:

Turnaround Ahead

The cascading failures at MNsure reveal an organization in need of a turnaround.  The two men standing at the podium this afternoon were “steady as she goes” helmsmen, not turnaround specialists.  MNsure is in dire need of a skill set not on display today.

The German Connection

During today’s press conference, interim CEO Leitz was asked about a recent junket to Germany.  The reporter was referring to this trip (1st bullet) in which Leitz traveled to Europe accompanied by the co-chairs (Rep. Joe Atkins and Sen. Tony Lourey) of MNsure’s legislative oversight committee.  The committee has not met since September.  Once it resumes meeting in January, it’s probably too much to ask the literal fellow travelers of CEO Leitz to provide the unsparing supervision which is so sorely lacking at MNsure.

Customer Stories

Each MNsure board meeting opens with testimony from a customer.  As I’ve documented before, these “typical customers” often turn out to be partisan plants.

Reporters at the press conference cited case after case of real customers unable to navigate the MNsure system.  Those are the customers that the board needs to hear directly from, rather than the sycophants whose songs of praise will make board members feel better about themselves.

The press conference featured ever-slipping deadlines, earnest promises of future transparency (in contrast to the opacity currently on offer), and a tech surge backed by unknown funding sources (somebody has to pay for those dozens of IBM’ers running around).  However, until the Governor and MNsure’s management realize that the agency’s problems are ones of substance, rather than appearance, expect little to change.

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

A tip from The Network led me to this organization chart for the Minnesota Department of Human Services.

It turns out that the new interim “CEO” of the embattled state healthcare insurance exchange MNsure, Scott Leitz, was until today, the Assistant Commissioner for Health Care Administration.

His deputy, James Golden, is now better known as a tropical vacationer, accompanying the former Executive Director of MNsure to Costa Rica last month.

As Golden’s direct supervisor, Leitz would have likely had to approve Golden’s two-week vacation.

As Leitz’s deputy, Golden would be first in line to assume Leitz’s position at DHS, at least on an interim basis.

These are the sort of questions that I hope get answered at tomorrow’s press conference.

On the Media: Signal-to-Noise Ratio Edition

One thing that I’ve learned in three years of public commentary is that, in order to comment on public affairs, it is necessary to be a critic and student of the media.

I also have learned that little of the content in the media—however defined—represents actual information. 

A User's Guide to the Liberal Legacy Media

You hear the constant complaint that the media are biased against conservatives in general and Republicans specifically.  Indeed, straightforward partisan bias--Republicans bad, Democrats good--would appear to explain about 98 percent of the political reporting found in the legacy media.

As explanatory theories go, 98 percent is good, but not good enough.  I have discovered a theory that explains 100 percent of the content found in the legacy media in the areas of politics, government and public affairs.

The Media Watchdog That Didn't Bark

Over at Power Line, Scott Johnson makes the point that local media have been unusually quiet about that hard-hitting Wall Street Journal piece reporting on the nation-leading bureaucratic bloat at our University of Minnesota.

The Journal put out its piece on Saturday (I added my take on Monday) and the Minneapolis Star Tribune today (Thursday) published a commentary from the Washington Post, that was originally published on Monday.  As for original, local reporting on this nationwide scandal:  nada, so far.

With the higher education bubble about to burst, you would think that some local outlet would smell a great story, or even imagine a prize for a great series on the topic.  Instead, we seem to have a curious form of "professional courtesy" at work.

Author Joel Kotkin has an interesting take on the formation of a new coalition of elites.  This coalition has thrived, relatively, during the recent Obama recession.  Kotkin believes that this new group is "made up of the leaders of social and traditional media, the upper bureaucracy and the academy", which he dubs "the New Clerisy."  If you are within the group, it appears, you are immune from criticism.

The New Weekly Column

As my New Year's Resolution, I am starting a weekly column in this space.  In my first edition, I am tackling subjects ranging from North Korean architecture, Nelson Rockefeller, and the recent Fiscal Cliff Follies.

Minnesota's Competing Narratives

A brief excerpt from the perpetually forthcoming book:

One way to view Minnesota's political battles over the last ten years is in the context of a longer-running conflict over the dominant narratives of the Minnesota story--the rugged individual of the Frontier vs. the mass collective of the Minnesota Miracle. 

An older narrative of Minnesota grounds our history in the pioneer families (think Little House on the Prairie)—having left the stasis of the Old Europe, or moving from “back East”—building  new lives in a new land.  Of course, this story tends to leave out those who came even earlier:  the native tribes and the French explorers and trappers who left their place names across our landscape.

Saving the Middle Class

[A repost of a book excerpt from earlier this year]

Is America's middle class in danger?  In October 2011, Anne Applebaum wrote an opinion piece in the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph— “Can America survive without its backbone, the middle class?”—and put forward this thesis,

I would argue that the growing divisions within the American middle class are far more important than the gap between the very richest and everybody else.  They are important because to be “middle class”, in America, has such positive connotations, and because most Americans think they belong in it.  The middle class is the “heartland”; the middle class is the “backbone of the country”.  In 1970, Time magazine described Middle America as people who “sing the national anthem at football games – and mean it”.[1]

Unfortunately, so much government policy is aimed at helping lower income families—through social welfare programs—and upper income people—through subsidies for the “Creative Classes” and outright crony capitalism, that the middle class, the middle-middle, ends up getting squeezed out.

On the Wireless Tonight!

Listen to radio AM1130 tonight.  I'll be a guest on the Late Debate with Jack and Ben at 9 pm.

Getting to the Future, First

Over at Private Citizen Media, I have been serializing the forthcoming book.  I'm now up to eight excerpts, covering various topics. 

• A Great Deal of Ruin--America's resiliency tested
• Winning the Future--Some thoughts on public education funding
• Getting to the Future, First--An alternative to the Blue Social Model
• The Gathering Storm--Decline is a choice
• Take Away Politics--Reform of the social welfare state
• More Admirals Than Ships--A Government 2.0 reform program
• The Regulatory Leviathan--How the regulatory state strangles the economy
• The "Frontier" vs. the "Miracle"--Minnesota's competing narratives

Doug Wardlow on "America's Turning Point"

Over at Private Citizen Media I posted an essay by Minnesota State Representative Doug Wardlow, who represents the Eagan area of the southeast metro.  Rep. Wardlow writes on "America's Turning Point" and draws some interesting parallels between the end of the Roman Empire and our current situation.