Exclusive Interivew with Senator David Hann about Seifert Endorsement

I was honored to be the first and only person to speak to Senator David Hann about his endorsement of Marty Seifert for governor or Minnesota. After Hann's dropping out of the race this week, many of his supporters where left wondering whom to support? Read about Senator Hann's personal endorsement of Seifert in my article at Hennepin County Conservative Examiner on Examiner.com.

Chinese Hackers Hit Government, Corporate Systems in U.S.

If you haven't yet heard about this, here's a good link to the Wall Street Journal article about it.

Why does anyone still think it's a good idea to have government-run socialized medicine with centralized databases filled with the medical histories of every American? Just asking.

Eden Prairie News Commentary Rises from the Ashes

The commentary piece I wrote in November 19th's issue of the EP News has found a new life as an article for my column on Examiner.com. Check it out if you didn't catch it in the paper the first time.

The Diatribe

I'm often in too much pain to write, so I've been taking long breaks. The kinds of things I write for my column on Examiner.com often require lots more time at the computer than my body can handle, and this blog has its own bar, albeit a higher one, but a bar nonetheless.So, I've decided that when these times come, I'm going to do a "Diatribe." I won't do tons of research or try to be eloquent. It'll get things off my chest, keep the blog rolling, and hopefully won't cost me too much in the pain department. So, my first Diatribe:

I was a judge at the Miss Coon Rapids pageant last week, and boy was I impressed. Not only with the caliber of the contestants, but with Miss America's Outstanding Teen. If you're not familiar with pageants, Miss Coon Rapids is a local pageant that leads to the Miss Minnesota pageant (in June), and ultimately to the Miss America pageant. I'm also the Director of Platform Development/Paperwork for the Miss Twin Cities Scholarship Program, and I love our two 2010 titleholders, Miss Twin Cities, Kathryn Knuttila, and Miss Capital City, Kaylah Dockter.

I was having a crisis of faith in pageantry after the disastrous crowning of Miss Virginia as Miss America on January 30 in Las Vegas. I happen to have a personal history with the new Miss America, and let's just say, I don't hold a very high opinion of her. It pains me just to think of her, and I'm reminded of her every day. I was thinking, well if this is what it all leads to, someone so horrible (in my opinion) winning the biggie, then what's the use? Then I was a pageant judge and saw America's Outstanding Teen, Jeanette Morelean, sing the national anthem. A Capella. Two feet away from me.

This girl is only 15 years old, and she just blew me away. She is the teen equivalent of Miss America and she's beautiful, poised and incredibly talented. She competed against teens from states all across the country to win the national title, and I can see why she won. This girl is a star, and if she is the future of the Miss America program, then I can stick around for a while. It's really a privilege to work with these outstanding young women.

It also helped that my neighbor, whom I mentioned in my last piece, advised me to pray for Miss America every time I see her icky face.


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I was thinking about the last bout of elections, and I realized something. From the Republican or conservative side, it wasn't so much an election as an "anti-election." We weren't so much voting for John McCain as we were voting against Obama. Many weren't voting so much for Coleman as they were against Franken.

I happened to really like Coleman, though he wasn't as conservative as I would have liked, but I think he's a really good man. I think Franken is a despicable liar and cheat who was only in this because he thought (or knew) he could dupe Minnesotans into voting for someone they saw on the tee vee. I would have stood on my head on my front lawn every Tuesday immediately after doing an Irish jig--for the rest of my life-- if it would have kept that man out of office.

This time, we need a real election. I know this will be hard, because Obama will be running, but we need candidates we can vote for, not just candidates we're voting against. Who should they be...

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I know many have opined on this already, but seriously, Meghan McCain, what were you thinking, or were you giving the old brain cells a break?

Miss McCain was a guest host on The View on February 8. She refused to comment on Sarah Palin, saying she had a book coming out in August, and she'd tell them all about it then. She did go off on the Tea Party movement, saying that she'd had to attend a function, but she didn't want to, and criticized what the speaker at the event said. "...he went on to say that people at the convention should have to pass literacy tests in order to be able to vote in this country, which is the same thing that happened in the 50's to prevent African Americans from voting."

Actual fact: The first voting literary test was adopted in Connecticut in 1855 to prevent Irish-Catholic immigrants from voting. Mississippi adopted them in 1890 to prevent African Americans from voting, and most other states adopted them as well. The laws were repealed with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

She then said--and I was watching it live with my jaw on the floor at that point--that "...I'm sorry; revolutions start with young people, not with 65-year-old-people talking about literacy tests..."

Now, I don't agree with the statement of the Tea Party speaker she referenced either, but that is what is so interesting about the Tea Party movement. There are people with all kinds of differing opinions and ideologies fighting for one thing: freedom. As for young people being the sole possessors of the right to bring on revolutions, Miss McCain seems to think the only revolution ever begun was the one started by leftist drug users in the 60's. She's living proof that we clearly need to teach American history more thoroughly in our schools. She said all of this in her privileged California-girl accent, which only made it sound dumber.

The reason Miss McCain is being given face time on T.V. is because she feeds into what liberals want. I don't know if she hasn't figured this out yet, or if she just doesn't care as long as she makes a buck. She is a perceived conservative insider (self-described "progressive conservative") who has nothing but criticism for conservatives and their values. When I went to search for a clip of what she said on The View, I came up with so many hits of things she said against conservatives on The View that it was hard to find the right clip. I decided not to link to it because it's more than six minutes long and a bore.

Meghan McCain has become a "useful idiot," and I hope her little diatribe costs her some book sales in August.

Conservatives, it's time to find each other!

I had a thought the other day when I was describing my neighbor to a friend. I was going to invite this neighbor to an event, and I was e-mailing my friend about it.

It suddenly struck me as I was writing the e-mail how completely different my neighbor is from me. She's about as old as my mother--maybe a few years younger. She has five very grown children and grandchildren that number into the 20's now. I still have children at home, but I am a grandmother as well. She is very frugal by nature, and she doesn't like animals. I don't think anyone would call me frugal, and I practically went crazy with grief last year when I had to put my two beloved poodles down. She is a very devout Catholic, and, while I am a Christian, I am far from being Catholic.

You wouldn't think we had anything in common, would you? Even so, she has been a rock for me to lean on when I need it most, and I go to her often with questions about morality, life and God.

Why?

We have one thing that binds us together: conservatism. When I moved into this neighborhood about ten years ago, I noticed she had a pro-life bumper sticker on her car. I don't even remember what was on it. We were checking our mail at the same time one day shortly after George Bush was elected. One of his first acts as president was to block U.S. funds to international family-planning groups that offer abortion and abortion counseling, which reversed a Clinton administration policy. I said to her, "Isn't it nice to finally have a pro-life president?" She agreed and we began to talk about the sanctity of life.

Most of our early conversations were about just that, and we have delved very deep into the subject. We don't agree on every little thing, but we agree on the vast majority of the issues that surround respect for human life.

Then I began to find that she had other conservative ideals, if I remember correctly, around the time we went to war in Iraq. We have tiptoed carefully through the minefield that is political conversation with someone you don't know well, and we came out the other side unscathed. Not only unscathed, but as friends.

Now we trade conservative e-mails, talk about the issues when we run into each other, and I have invited her to come along to many conservative events, including events for candidates we both support. She'll let me know if someone stole my lawn sign, and she has even had one replaced before I knew it was gone.

Though we are different, we are very much the same. We have the same worldview, the same value system, similar opinions. We are conservatives.

If we conservatives had the guts to reveal our true selves more often, we could find more friends. In Minnesota (the land of ten thousand liberals), we are often reluctant to say we are conservative. Liberals seem to have a talent for thinking everyone around them thinks like they do, and we just nod and smile while the they spout their rhetoric at parties and family gatherings. We are polite people by nature, so we don't like to rock the boat.

We need to stop hiding behind our polite smiles and our silence and speak up. Especially now, when our freedom is at very real risk, we must say who we are and be proud of it. I don't advocate rudeness; we should always talk about our conservative opinions in a respectful manner. We can reveal ourselves in other ways as well.

We can wear clothing, like the shirts made by Cool Conservative, an Eden Prairie company. You could drink your coffee out of a Cool Conservative mug. This company has made conservative wear you can be proud to own and that isn't offensive to anyone.

Or you can put a bumper sticker on your car. If you don't want to mess up your bumper, put it in your window. I have one that reads, "Women deserve better than abortion" from Feminists for Life. A liberal I know declared that a car bumper is no place for a discussion about abortion. But until we can just come out and talk about it, I think a bumper is a place to start--and anyway, I don't take orders from anyone.

We have to start somewhere. We need to find each other. We need to band together. We need to be strong, now more than ever, and there is strength in numbers.

Open your mouth. Put on a T-shirt. Put a Sarah Palin book on your coffee table. As for me, I think I'll put that bumper sticker on my car.