Speed Gibson

Whoever's handling her press is good. Already in the race per the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Almanac, Ember Reichgott Junge announces her candidacy once again for Congress to replace retiring Martin Sabo. Not only that, she makes the front page of the Metro section or whatever it's called these days. She gets a color picture insert, and gets their premier political reporter Dane Smith to write it. Dane Smith even obligingly included this little piece of crap, probably from her campaign:

"..., Reichgott Junge has been considered a moderate or centrist DFLer."

By whom? Not regular viewers of At Issue with Tom Hauser who see her follow the DFL talking points to the letter every week. Then there is this curious quote:

"I can reach out to all sides [liberals and moderates]," Reichgott Junge said, "and that's not a bad thing."

All sides, as long as they're Democrats. Remember, anyone left-leaning enough to be called a moderate by the Star Tribune is a Democrat. Anyone to the right of that is an ultra-conservative.

Since the Republicans have no chance whatever, I should just sit back and watch the show. But Ember seems a bit too shrill to follow the calm and collected Martin Sabo, not to mention a bit of a fibbing problem. But her amazing press agent will deal with that, too, I'm sure.

I'm still a week behind catching up from vacation on the audio side. But I did finish the video backlog, finding some amusing quotes. From Almanac March 17:

"In the name of the Church, in the name of forgiveness, let's move on to the other issues." — State Senator Dean Johnson, with host Cathy Wurzer nodding approvingly.

OK, maybe she just wanted the interview to move on. From At Issue with Tom Hauser March 19:

"Dean Johnson got up in front of these people and lied." — David Strom

[Less than a minute later]

"No one has said he has lied." — Ember Reichgott-Junge

Sorry Dr. Evil, I guess you're a nobody. But Ember wasn't finished.

"I believe Dean Johnson and I believe the Court and I think they're consistent."

And this:

"Dean Johnson is not on the Senate Judiciary Committee, or if he is, he's just one vote."

On Almanac March 24, all twelve DFL candidates for the Fifth Congressional District appeared. Reporter Mary Lahammer's "Walk the Line" segment was cute, having them move to one side or another in response to questions. One questions was "are you a liberal?" Only three pretended they weren't, and Mary asked them what they preferred to be called:

Rebecca Yanisch: "Progressive."
Jon Olson: "Moderate."
Ember Reichgott-Junge: "Progressive moderate!"

That sure clears it up.

"Progressive government works. We've shown that in Minneapolis." — Paul Ostow

Works for whom? From At Issue with Tom Hauser on March 26:

"Here you have a fellow that's the former Minority Leader for the Republicans. Now he's the Majority Leader for the Democrats. It takes some skill to do that." — Former Governor Wendell Anderson

What skill would that be, Governor? Duplicity?

"Had Pawlenty or Sviggum done this, the Democrats would be attempting to destroy them and deny their children adequate nutrition." — Dave Thompson

True dat.

"Bottom line, the votes are not there [for the Marriage Amendment] on the Senate floor." — Ember Reichgott-Junge

Then what is Dean Johnson afraid of?

"Speaking of the 2006 elections, Ember is not going to be with us for a short amount of time." — Tom Hauser

Hauser quickly revised and extended his remarks to include the possibility that she might win the election. Unfortunately for his viewers, he probably had it right the first time.

Doug at Bogus Gold called it:

Next week is supposed to be "Songs of the 21st Century." Which means new stuff. Which means lots o' crap. Bring a shovel and a bucket and I'll see you next Tuesday.

I don't go out of my way to watch this, but the DVR makes it almost unavoidable now. But the DVR can't make them sing on key.

With the exception of Paris, maybe even Bucky, this show stunk. With this musical decade off to such a poor start, and with the producers limiting their choices to low royalty songs, no wonder it stunk. Even Chris Daughtry showed no imagination.

Paraphrasing Simon, "if I had paid to see this, I would have left the concert."

The major players - Pawlenty, Day, Sviggum, et al - have publicly accepted Senator Dean Johnson's limp apology. As the Star Tribune notes in a good article, he and his lawyer are still clinging to his baseline story, that at least one such conversation happened.

An adult apology embodies regret, repentance, and restitution. He has expressed regret, but often of the "I'm sorry if you were offended" flavor so fashionable these days. He made one passing remark that he would try to do better; so much for repentance. Restitution requires at a minimum, a firm statement fully exonerating the Justices. This he has not done. Having obviously cheated in preventing a vote on the marriage amendment, he really should now relent. This he apparently will not do, either.

I guess it ends here, big lie number three for the Senate Majority Leader on my scorecard. Honorable people will accept the Court's unequivocal denial, which only Ember Reichgott-Junge thinks does not contradict Johnson's now unembellished statements.

The latest Dean Johnson "truth issue" (certainly not his first), was just starting as we left for a week of warmer temperatures. I followed it via Craig Westover and other blogs. I've caught up with only some of the TV and radio I recorded while away, and Senator Johnson will be issuing yet another "apology" today (Monday) as directed by the Senate Ethics Committee. I will wait until I'm caught up and hear this final "let's move on" apology before commenting on the latter.

But let's consider the infraction itself, the statement(s) by Johnson that some number of Minnesota Supreme Court Justices (several by name) had given him private assurance and insight on how they would handle a likely court challenge to an existing Statute. I have seen no one claim that such discussions by the Court, however informal, are appropriate. The Chief Justice, after polling the rest of the Justices, has flatly denied that any such conversations were ever held with Johnson, who is still insisting at least one did, the basis of his embellishments.

No matter how this shakes out, there is no legal issue here. There is nothing indictable here, nothing to sue for, nothing requiring resignation, or even a press conference. Dean Johnson's statements, including his Parthian shots at the minister who taped him, are being judged the moral plane - ethics if you will.

Much of the defense on Johnson's side uses some flavor of the "innocent until proven guilty" approach. This is intuitive, part of our American way, but more is required on the moral plane.

Johnson did more than simply overstate or misstate his position. He sullied the reputation of others (judges) and by extension, their instituion (the court). If there was no factual basis for this as seems likely, Johnson lied, no question about it.

But suppose such a conversation did occur as Johnson continues to allege? Is Johnson justified in using that "insight" in his political struggles? If he cannot back it up independently, he is not. That's the way life often is. You see something, hear something, are tempted to discuss it, but choose to avoid the "he said, she said" dialog that serves no adult purpose. It might make you follow up. It might make you cautious in dealing with that person. But barring corroboration, which is a good idea for everyone involved, you keep it to yourself.

The University of Minnesota doesn't get its first option for an on-campus outdoor football stadium. Now we find they own land in Rosemount they're willing to sell toward the deal.

They in fact own 2,840 acres, about 4.4 square miles. By comparison, the entire suburb of Robbinsdale is only 2.8 square miles. Columbia Heights is 3.4 square miles. Hopkins is 4.1 square miles. What could the U possibly need with that amount of land? Agricultural research? Do that outstate, closer to the industry, and where land is cheaper. Yet another campus, as if MnScu doesn't have the territory covered twice over already?

If I was in the Legislature, I'd demand a full list of all such assets before considering another stadium proposal. Their first proposal clearly wasn't the best for Minnesota taxpayers, and they knew it.

I rarely read USA today, usually only in hotels when I travel. Tuesday's Life section had a cover story on the rising scrutiny and problems with the Advanced Placement (AP) concept. The stated purpose of AP is to give top high school students access to college level courses. It looks good on the transcript when applying for college, and often can exempt one from some of the "liberal arts requirement" courses.

But many college admissions officers are finding AP not all that telling as to whether an applicant will succeed in college. Some department heads are no longer allowing AP as a substitute for general education courses; they are not proving to know what their AP test certification says they know.

I'm happy to see this willingness to question this concept, one I have considered to be largely academic fraud. It's a distraction to make parents overlook all of the troubling statistics about their schools. As for the AP testing, how can scores be going up if the program is expanding to include lower GPA students?

We ought to work on (improving) the existing curriculum, not on funneling people into AP who aren't ready for it." -- Professor Michael Kirst, Stanford

Exactly. How about dealing with the problem that 30% of our high school graduates who go on to Minnesota colleges need remedial work, not honors courses. What about the graduation rate itself? And our appalling minority achievement gaps?

And are these courses really college level?

"There is something about a good undergraduate general education that can't be easily replicated by a terrific high school course." -- Professor Bruce Johnstone, University at Buffalo

Right again. Age does matter. Maybe you saw American Idol last night. Even with Barry Manilow's help, most of the contestants were just too young to understand some of the complex songs they attempted.

Let's do this: any school that has a dropout rate over 10 percent, over a 10 percent minority gap, or over 10 percent of whose graduates need remedial courses later gets no public funding for AP courses. These problems come first.

I'm on vacation here in San Antonio, high seventies and all. We went down to Corpus Christie yesterday, and toured the retired USS Lexington, commissioned in 1943 after her predecessor went down in the Coral Sea. It's amazing that all that old technology even worked, it seemed so crude.

And speaking of crude technology, I happen to glance at the dashboard of our full-size rented Caddy with 1,200 miles on it. The red battery idiot light is on, not charging, and we're 150 miles from home base. So we switch drivers, and like Apollo 13 I have everything optional and electric shut down except the radio. We made it back and will switch cars today. Hope it starts.

It's got seat warmers, seat coolers, all kinds of toys, but GM can't keep a battery charged past 1,000 miles.

But, like I said, it's nice and warm. We'll get over it, heading up to Austin today to visit the LBJ library and a Waffle House.

For I believe 5 years, a number of us gathered on the State Capitol steps around April 15 to protest spending, taxes, and the lack of rebates from the large surpluses of the late 1990's. The crowds ranged from maybe 300 to 1,000, and we cheered and chanted as Jason Lewis and others threw us lots of red meat.

One of those chants would name Roger Moe, retired State Senator from Erskine, then the Senate Majority Leader. We were orderly, but a bit disrespectful at times just the same. At the time, he was the Great Satan of the DFL, trying to divert as much of the surplus as possible into the K-12 rathole rather than issue rebates. He made a lifeless run for Governor in 2002 and we haven't seen him since.

Much as my opinion of his opponent Tim Pawlenty has fallen, my opinion of Roger Moe has risen. Sure, he was a politician, sure he exaggerated here and there, sure he played some games now and then, but I cannot recall than the man lied or trashed others to get ahead. His successor, Dean Johnson, has shown us what we now miss.

I don't remember the specifics of these rallies, but I probably allowed myself to get a little too rabid in criticizing Roger Moe. For that I am now sorry. Roger Moe, I apologize. I never knew how good we had it.

I was just in "downtown" Maple Grove, found we were too late to get into Claddagh's Irish Pub, it being St. Patrick's Day. So, we went over to Houlihan's, normally good, but today featuring Oscar Mayer quality corned beef & cabbage.

The extra traffic made the many flaws in this area apparent. As a retired, nearly ten year veteran of my city's Planning Commission, I sure would like to have seen what went on before the Maple Grove Planning Commission and City Council. It looks to me like the developers rolled the city early on, setting precedent the later developers used to advantage.

The parking is inadequate in many locations, and much of it is awkwardly laid out. There are many dead ends where you cannot see far enough in to see if there's an opening until you overshoot. If you gamble and it's full, you have to carefully back out or execute a mulit-stage U-turn.

Entrances and exits are not intuitive. Much of Best Buy's traffic passes right in front of Linens N Things front door; I fear someone is going to get run over. And just because you see the building you want, don't assume you can just take the next turn or exit. It may already be too late, forcing a long loop back around.

I'm all for the "invisible hand" of free enterprise. But there is also a role for the "invisible foot" in providing adequate, consistent parking, landscaping, setbacks, lighting, and traffic flow.

Maybe some of this will be fixed as the area fills out, but you aspiring city planners out there should take a good look here at what not to do.

Remember when our national news media got a little too cozy with Saddam Hussein before the war? If we had been too tough on him, they explained, he would have kicked us out of the country!

Remember when Rush Limbaugh was forced off ESPN for saying something plausible, thoughtful, but oh so politically incorrect? The "issue" didn't even come up for a couple of days, but when it did, Chris Berman and Tom Jackson went nuts, engaging in slander to distance themselves from Rush - and really themselves as well. I could only surmise that it was made plain to ESPN that "access" to players was at risk if they didn't. (And by the way, Rush was right.)

Now we have the case of State Senator and Majority Leader Dean Johnson, once again in trouble for lying. His words were plain and recorded. His explanations have wandered far from the original transgression. I find it particularly amusing that Johnson doesn't understand why even a clergyman felt it necessary and justified to secretly record the conversation.

But the Minneapolis Star Tribune is apparently not all that concerned. "Majority Leader 'embellished' conversation with justice" is the latest headline. And I have read nothing about his prior "statements" regarding the Yecke rejection and the sudden 9:30 pm adjournment last summer. Why? Johnson's angry rebuke of the unknown pastor who taped him, perhaps just to protect himself, suggests an answer. If the Star Tribune were to treat him like a Republican, or even just take his words at face value, Johnson might have stopped talking to them. The loss of access to the head of the Senate would be embarrassing, having to simply quote the Associate Press.

I can hardly wait for the Editorial.

District Judge Mark Wernick has struck down the red light photocops in Minneapolis. The cameras do not photograph the drivers, and State law requires that the driver be identified beyond a reasonable doubt. Hooray and a honk for the ACLU of Minnesota; they were on our side for once.

Even if the system is changed to photograph drivers, I say it would still be unconstitutional because you cannot cross-examine a machine. Photographs and recordings, easier than ever to fake, generally cannot be introduced as evidence in criminal trials unless authenticated by testimony.

Do the right thing, Minneapolis. Tear them out.

In Laurel and Hardy's "Thicker than Water" an auction house lures the boys in with the claim that "we are actually giving things away today." Actually, it was Mr. Hardy's idea, smugly informing Mr. Laurel: "At last we get something for nothing." Naturally, they wound up getting nothing for something.

Now we have State Senator and Gubernatorial hopeful Becky Lourey's plan for "universal" health care, her Minnesota Health Care Security Plan. Perhaps you heard her discuss this on the Patriot Insider, when she claimed that her plan did not include a tax increase. But just as our current Governor couldn't see a tax for the fees, Lourey thinks a legal requirement to do what she thinks you should be doing anyway isn't a tax either. Really? Don't pay it and see what happens.

Her plan is pure Marxism: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The consumers are completely cut off from the producers in terms of market feedback. If you work in health care, you will work "efficiently" for the common good. If you run a business, you will pay in for the common good, and if that's more than today, well you should have paying this all along for the common good. The common good? That everyone has unlimited access to health care, or at least the health care she thinks you should have.

Her program, if successful, will embody a number of firsts:

1. Government service that is more efficient than the private sector


2. Wage and Price controls that work, with no cheating


3. Corporations that pay taxes without passing them on to its individual customers, employees, and investors.


4. Providers that won't leave the state despite higher taxes, income limitation, and increased regulation


5. Rationing that doesn't diminish quality


6. Consumers that won't question why they can't have more of something that's free

It's all been tried before. It has never worked before. The real answers lie in less government, such as with Health Savings Accounts, not more government as Lourey proposes.

"They" say that the Hiawatha Light Rail line is successful. It certainly is not financially, but if this is otherwise true, why?

I think because it's nicer than bus service. You ride in new, modern cars, not utilitarian buses that have changed little in 50 years. Cars have become much quieter, more comfortable, and more reliable over this period. Buses have not. By not improving the mass transit experience to match, Metro Transit lost its middle-class business.

Now, we could address the latter without a mulit-billion dollar Central Corridor light rail system as is proposed. Assuming mass transit usage is truly your goal, how about upgrading the buses?

We could start with a pilot project. Purchase a few upscale buses with soft seats, sound insulation, even heating and cooling, cup holders, tinted windows, maybe a little music. Make limited stops, but make a wide loop through each downtown. Provide enough slack to ensure reliable, on-time service. Charge $5 a ride, $10 for first class with fold-out desks, power and internet service for your laptop.

If there is some great unmet need that will attract riders to a light rail system, this will find most of them.

You wouldn't have to redact very much of Governor Pawlenty's State of the State speech such that you stump an outsider as to whether he is a Democrat or a Republican. I read the whole speech and frankly, I don't know either.

The vital Northstar Corridor? Vital? Vital to whom?

Not just 10%, soon to be 20% Ethanol, now it's 25 and 85 percent? After all Brazil does it. Yes, and Brazil uses sugar cane, much easier to process than corn. And Brazil's equatorial climate provides a year round growing season.

Performance pay for teachers? Not in the bill you signed.

Some say this was the opening of the 2006 Pawlenty re-election campaign. I'd say it's off to a pretty poor start.

It's hard to believe that the 1987 World Series was almost twenty years ago. Many young sportscasters are talking of how they were 7 years old or so then. But young or old, it didn't matter to us and it didn't matter to Kirby Puckett either.

Kirby Puckett lived his life his way, to the last, warts and all. And yet he seemed to be selflessly doing it all for us. It wasn't Machiavelli or Svengali, just love, for us and the game. As Tony Garcia noted, he was never booed.

State Senator Becky Lourey, DFL candidate for Governor, appeared in hour two of this week’s Patriot Insider, heard 9-11 AM Saturdays on WWTC 1280 AM. I knew she was a liberal, but I was nonetheless surprised to hear her make one unbelievable statement after another, on one subject after another. The podcast is must listening.

After co-host Mark Yost noted that Governor Pawlenty made a trip to work for more H-1B temporary work visas, Lourey said:

“We need more high-tech worker visas, but we also need more essential employee visas. If you care about the meat packing industry, and the canning industry, and the roofing industry, we need more of those visas as well. But, we have to be careful, because if Governor Pawlenty is putting this State into a state of bigotry, those folks with the H-1B’s won’t want to come here.”

Host Patrick Campion asked her point blank to defend that statement. She couldn’t do it, backsliding into “immigrants built this State” rhetoric, refusing to distinguish between legal and illegal immigration. Campion then asked this: “Do you think the State of Minnesota be safer or less safe if there were no illegal immigrants in the State of Minnesota?” She said less safe if police officers had to do immigration work, because immigrants wouldn’t cooperate with police. And besides,

“Illegal immigrants don’t commit crimes.”

An illegal immigrant is by definition a lawbreaker, of course, but if you listen to the podcast you’ll understand that there’s no such thing in her world. Immigrants are either legal or trying to be. She claimed that the immigration process is very, very complex, and I suppose it is if you’re looking an illegal alien trying to find a loophole. She wants the police to just police, and by the way, thanks to Governor Pawlenty’s cuts to LGA,

“… all of our Police departments, all of our Sheriff’s offices are understaffed now.”

Lourey believes that health care is a right, to the point where she advocates a State Constitutional Amendment to that effect. Imagine, we can demand the services of doctors and nurses, against their will if necessary! It’s our right!

She proposes something called “Universal Health Care” for all of Minnesota, though her web site is vague about this. I suspect she’s talking about the Maryland Wal-Mart plan – spend 8% on health care or give us the 8% and we’ll do it for you. If so, this is a tax increase, which she claims that her plan does not require. She needs to be more explicit here.

When she described some hard times she experienced with a pile of 21 medical bills she couldn’t pay. Campion asked, “Who would you have liked to pay those 21 bills for you?”

“This is all a partnership, for goodness sake. Wal-Mart is sending their employees to subsidized state health coverage.”

Education?

“We are are pouring less and less money into education as a percentage of what we used to put into it.” [I don’t understand what this means, either. -–SG]

Transportation?

“There’s no way that you can build your way out of congestion by building highways.”

Visiting guest host Paul, The Nihilist in Golf Pants, noting that she was 0 for 11 on the Taxpayer’s League scorecard, posed this: “If 8 of 38 Senators got a zero rating from The Taxpayer’s League, that puts you in the far left, does it not?”

“I think it puts me right in the mainstream. I think it puts me in the column of fiscal responsibility.”

Like I said, listen to the podcast. Then imagine four years of this.

For the record, I am specifically reviewing what I recorded from KNOW-FM 91.1, the news flagship station of the Minnesota Public Radio empire.

The KNOW program schedule lists "Morning Edition with Cathy Wurzer" as running from 4 to 9 weekday mornings. Actually, there are two distinct programs here. From 4-6, this is basically the National Public Radio feed (80%). Cathy Wurzer logs less than 5 minutes per hour, with a smattering of local news headlines, weather, and promotional announcements. Therefore, I'll focus on the second portion, from 6 to 9 AM.

This happened to be a pledge week, so maybe this isn't the best comparison against the other morning shows. However, such pledge drives are an all-too-frequent fact of "public" radio life. I therefore went ahead, obtaining this breakdown of the 6-9 portion of the show:

National (NPR) news   41%

Pledge drive          33%

Local (MPR) news      15%

Commercials            5%

Weather                3%

Promos, banter         2%

Sports                 1%

Other than the pledge drive, almost a welcome distraction, I can sum up the rest of the content in one word: bland. The news copy is bland, the vocal styles are bland, even the music snippets are bland.

Bland doesn't mean bad. Given the choice between a pungent, hard-left, sneering Air America and a bland, center-left, pedantic Public Radio, I'll take the latter. The news segments were generally accurate and informative, and had the luxury of time to develop some points. But bland doesn't mean great, either. The measured delivery of well written, perfectly enunciated copy comes across as a bit pretentious.

The MPR studios are reportedly have the latest and greatest in technology. As James Lileks might put it, a alien spacecraft would stop there for spare parts. Despite all this great equipment, the final product is a bit sloppy. Cathy Wurzer, who I think does a good job on TV's Almanac, really isn't nearly that good on radio. She's very smart, well-read, and cultured, at least within her liberal world. But doesn't mean you automatically have radio skills. She simply cannot fill time leading to a hard break, often resulting in babbling, broken speech, and even dead air pauses. Compare this with WCCO-AM, where however annoying the pace, they make dozens of flawless transitions an hour.

On the plus side, there are no traffic reports, other than one or two mentions of a major accident. Some may like that sports gets little attention; the one percent I show was almost totally about the Olympics. Averaging in the pledge drive segments over the year, the time spent in commercial breaks is still well below the competition.

MPR's Morning Edition is no Faberge Egg as some would have you believe. It sounds smooth and silky but that inherently limits the topic choices, and includes no dissent whatsoever. Let me put it this way. Spend 20-30 minutes reading your morning newspaper, then listen to an hour of the many morning programs I'm reviewing. MPR's Morning Edition is the one that adds the least additional information.

Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch, thought by many the front-runner for the DFL endorsement for Governor, has so far avoided the DFL candidate forum and debate circuit. This is not unexpected nor bad politics. As the front-runner, he has little to gain and much to lose should he slip.

But he did agree to appear on The Patriot Insider (Saturdays on WWWTC 1280 9-11 AM) and, well, it didn't go well for Mr. Hatch in my opinion. Facing the trio of Campion, Yost, and Westover, Hatch found it difficult to argue his positions because the trio would not blindly accept his premises. A couple of his statements got laughed out of the studio, others shown to be severely misleading. Tough as this was, it could have been worse.

Hatch, for example, said our medical costs are double what they should be, at least in Minnesota. Really? What would you cut or close? Salaries? Headcount? Clinics? Hospitals? It would have to be truly Draconian. He later claimed that 45 percent of the cost was administrative, but even if we all paid cash there would still be significant accounting and medical records to keep. Plus, this would undo the cost-shifting that is currently "paying" for the patients without coverage, and that's a DFL non-starter.

Most curiously, though, Hatch didn't talk on the big issues. He focuses on a couple of specific points, as if to suggest that the ability he shows in these areas (!) would naturally carry over to education, the environment, crime, taxes, transporatation, and so on.

In fact, much of the discussion seemed to revolve around his prior job as Insurance Commissioner. He seemed almost excited to discuss it despite his otherwise rather moribund vocal style. He really didn't discuss his performance as Attorney General much at all. His latest proposal on the Meth problem - sue drug companies - came at the end, and was unconvincing at best.

I didn't hear any big ideas. I just heard a policy-wonk still living in the past, probably enjoying his current job more than he would being Governor.

There's no sizzle, not even much steak here. The DFL should remember that Hatch has failed twice before in this quest.