Now it can be told. Today, MNsure announced the
grantees and the dollars.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
The Banana Republic of Minnesota: Now It Can Be Told
In a late-summer series of posts, I described how
the Minnesota arm of Obamacare, MNsure, was going to distribute taxpayer-funded
grants for “outreach” to loyal Democrat and liberal interests. In a twist only Nancy Pelosi would
appreciate, MNsure would only reveal the identity of grantees and the dollar
amounts involved once the checks went out.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
The Democrats' Met Council Plays the Long Game
The Twin Cities’ regional government, the
Metropolitan Council, is embarking on an ambitious exercise in central planning
for a 7-county area under the banner of Thrive MSP
2040. As reported in local media,
the Met Council hopes to completely remake the landscape of the metro
region. The St. Paul Pioneer
Press reported last month,
Young "millennials" and the gray-haired baby boomers leading
the so-called "silver tsunami" are rejecting big, outer-ring
townhomes and looking for more modestly sized housing near transit, jobs and
services.
For the seven-county Twin Cities area, population growth will be centered
in St. Paul, Minneapolis and the developed inner-ring suburbs for the
foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, growth will continue in the less-developed edges--but more
slowly than previously thought.
Those are the latest predictions from the Metropolitan Council, which on
Wednesday released preliminary population figures that forecast the metro
growing by 893,000 residents by 2040
As I’ve written before, this view of the Metro’s
future is based entirely on wishful
thinking. There are no trends
visible in actual census data that would justify the Council’s shift to
promoting core urban growth at the expense of suburban growth.Sunday, October 13, 2013
Minnesota’s New Feudalism
I’ve written lately of the transformation of the
North Star state under the one-party rule of the Democrats under the banner of The
Banana Republic of Minnesota.
Author Joel
Kotkin has taken to describing the transformation of his home state of
California under one-party Democrat rule as the New Feudalism. Since Minnesota’s liberal progressives see
the Golden State as a model for all of America, Kotkin’s analysis may give us a
glimpse into our own future.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Follow the Money: SEIU Edition
In a recent
post, I touched on the activities of the Minnesota chapters of the Service Employees
International Union (SEIU). Even among
labor unions, at the national level, SEIU has a
reputation for strongly supporting President Obama. In this post, I dig into SEIU’s involvement
in the 2012 elections.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
The Invisible Koch Brothers
A lot partisans won’t let the facts get in the way
of a good narrative. For many on the
left, the brothers David and Charles Koch—oil industry
billionaires and Republican donors—collectively serve as Emmanuel Goldstein
and all-purpose bogeyman to
frighten the children of progressives at bedtime.
But facts are stubborn things, and the Koch Brothers
have been non-factors in Minnesota politics.
A few years back, the left-leaning Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper did a series on money
in
state politics. It tracked political
donations from January 1, 2001 through August 2008.
Number 1 on the top 200 donor list was Alida Rockefeller
Messinger—ex-wife of current Democrat Governor Mark Dayton—giving a total of
$9,165,357 during the eight-year period.
The next highest amount was $7
million lower. For more than a
decade, Minnesota’s politics has been dominated by a single leftist donor, with
access to the nearly limitless Rockefeller oil fortune.
A man named David A. Koch is ranked 20th
on the list, donating $438,360, barely ahead of a few lesser members of the
Dayton family. He is not the David H.
Koch of Koch Brothers fame. George Soros
appears on the list at 44th.
Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos ranks at 50th. NBA commissioner David Stern appears on the
list at 102nd.
Neither Koch Brother appears on the top 200 list.
Anatomy of Bias: New York Times [Updated]
Media bias is turning out to be the
theme of the week. In this edition
of “Anatomy of Bias,” we take a look at a national story with a suspiciously
local angle.
Monday, October 7, 2013
The Dead End Sitting in the Middle of the Road
How Political Centrism Always Leads to Bigger Government
As it does once a month, this Sunday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune published a commentary written by the state’s designated political centrists, former Democrat Congressman Tim Penny and former Independent candidate for governor, Tom Horner.
As it does once a month, this Sunday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune published a commentary written by the state’s designated political centrists, former Democrat Congressman Tim Penny and former Independent candidate for governor, Tom Horner.
This month’s theme from Messrs. Penny and Horner was
the Federal government shutdown, “If Congress won't lead, others must.” They write,
A full-fledged debate over the appropriate role of
government at the beginning of the 21st century is overdue. However, instead of
a thoughtful discussion that explores legitimate ideological differences
regarding the size and role of government, we hear only each side blaming the
other.
I don’t know about Penny and Horner, but I hear that
debate every day. The problem is not a
lack of debate, but that true “balanced solutions” cannot exist when the “ideological
differences” are ones of kind
and not degree. Sunday, October 6, 2013
The Anatomy of Bias: Minnesota Public Radio
You would think that, at this late hour in the proceedings,
the question of whether the legacy news media exhibit political bias would be
settled. And for the most part it
is. Polling conducted by the Pew
Research Center in 2012 indicates that 67 percent of the population
believes that the media is biased either “a fair amount” or “a great
deal.” Pew reports that,
The number of Americans who believe there is a great deal of political
bias in news coverage has edged up to [a record] 37% from 31% four years ago. Republicans continue to express more concern
about media bias than do Democrats, but the rise in recent years has occurred
across party lines.
Still, it’s a lesson worth
relearning from time to time. A more
interesting question would be how
such biases present themselves. It is
still relatively rare that a legacy media figure will make flat out statements
along the lines of “Republicans are bad, Democrats are good.”
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
The Age of Herbert Stein

Even with the warm weather lingering into October, I’m
declaring an end to summer and marking the return of The Column.
We have entered Day Two of a Federal government
shutdown, the
latest in a series of a dozen-and-a-half such shutdowns that have occurred
over the past forty years or so.
The latest deadlock between Congress and the President
is the result of the unbridgeable divide between the parties that I’ve been writing
about for the past two years. The
differences between Democrats and Republicans are ones of kind, not of
degree. Since there is no overlap in
what the two parties want, there is no natural point of compromise.
More interesting than the national story is the
local dispute
between the Minnesota Orchestra and its musicians. This dispute/lockout/strike had dragged on
for more than a year and has cost the Orchestra its celebrity conductor and
more than a full season worth of concerts.
In the Matter of Public Safety Matters, Part 4
In this series, I chronicle the activities of Public Safety
Matters Campaign, a police-union-backed effort to defeat Republican candidates
for the Minnesota State Legislature in 2012.
Until very recently, Republicans and police unions tended to
get along. In
Part 2 of this series, I note how Republican Tim Pawlenty received police
union support in both of his runs (2002, 2006) for Minnesota Governor.
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