Obama finally decides to silence Trump and "birther" movement

I thought the issues of Obama's birth certificate and proof of citizenship were gasping for their last breath. So I was really shocked--mouth-hanging-open shocked--when Donald Trump brought up the issue on The View.

So many on the left have accused birthers of using the issue of Obama's birth certificate as a way to distract from the "real" issues. You hear that accusation against the right quite often from the left, by the way. Never mind their constant obsessive need to attack Sarah Palin, which has ceased to be a "real" issue because Palin is irrelevant to any important political issue in today's world. (What does Palin have to do with rising gas prices, three wars in the Middle East, etc.?)

I do really wish, though, that Obama had released his "real" birth certificate years ago. Today he said he thinks the question of his place of birth has been going on for more than two years. Why didn't he just stop it in its tracks by releasing the original certificate? Could it be people are accusing the wrong people of trying to keep the dialogue on trivial things like this instead of really important issues?

Birthers, who were considered by most to be laughable, obsessive conspiracy theorists, were clamoring for the long form of the birth certificate. Short-form birth certificates are not historical documents; my husband's is filled with false information, which is common for adoptees. It's true Trump nearly resurrected the whole issue with dozens of interviews on the subject, but the question was always there, hanging, considered by birthers to be insufficiently answered.

The indisputable truth is that the power to shut up the birthers was always in Obama's hands. Now his detractors can't dispute his birth certificate because it's the original long form (unless they go down the road of calling it a forgery).

One note to remember: This whole issue was started by Hillary Clinton, who asked for his birth certificate and questioned his place of birth when they were running against each other for the Democratic endorsement. He chose not to produce it then; so this begs the question, "Why now?"

I think Obama liked having the focus be on something so trivial and stupid as to distract from the real issues. Why else would he wait until now to produce the document that could have ended more than two years of din in America? He had to produce it now to stop Trump from talking and stop the new bandwagon he was driving through the whole of America on which loads of people were beginning to jump. He's trying to be re-elected. He's in campaign mode again, and he wants the focus to be on, well, how great he is, which he usually tries to illustrate by talking about how awful Republicans are.

The fact remains that the public was manipulated by Obama on this issue and the birthers played right into his hands. Nevertheless, I do believe it's time to move on (which I thought we had until Trump's appearance on The View), and hopefully see MUCH less of Donald Trump.

The Manufacturing Gap

I know I've been absent for quite a while, and I'm truly sorry about that. But tonight I stumbled across something I just had to comment on.

I'd finished watching American Idol and started doing dishes when a too-loud, smoothly southern voice began to emanate from my T.V. It was the voice of Erskine Bowles, Former Co-Chairman (D) of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and the former president of the University of North Carolina. He had a lot to say.

He was talking about the Democrats' proposed budget. He thinks America shouldn't be spending as much as it is on its military/national defense budget, and that we must spend more on education and research because, after all, we live in an intellectually driven global economy. Of course, I'm paraphrasing, since I had to pull my hands out of soapy water, take a few notes, and run up to my office to write this.

I beg to differ with Mr. Bowles and his take on the global economy. He stated that it's driven by intellect, based on education and research. I believe our global economy is soundly based on one thing: manufacturing.

We have outsourced too many of our manufacturing plants. For that matter, we have outsourced far too many of our I.T. resources as well, e.g. Dell returned its help desk to the U.S. from its outsourced India location after a few years of abysmal reviews from customers telling people not to buy Dell due to extremely poor customer support.

Our global economy still runs on "who makes the most stuff." By outsourcing America's "making stuff" to China, Japan, India, etc., and rarely manufacturing goods in America, we're sending our economic superiority to other countries and taking an inferior role in the global economy. 

We don't make much of anything anymore, and it is a conundrum. It's much, much cheaper to manufacture goods in other countries because those countries don't have to worry about pesky things like human rights, anti-child labor laws, and OSHA regulations. But when nearly everything we buy is made in another country, it takes money out of the pockets of ordinary Americans.

Americans have been spoon fed the idea that we are inferior to other countries because their children spend more time in school than ours or they study more difficult subjects at earlier ages. Don't get me wrong--I strongly believe in a rigorous academic curriculum for American students. But I believe the bottomless bowl of American educational and intellectual inferiority is intentionally fed to us by the teacher's unions and their supporters to garner more of our tax money for their pockets. If there are continuous problems with education, they can keep asking for more money "for the children."

The education gap that may or may not exist between our country and others (one can argue that our summer vacations and weekends off give American children the time and opportunity for creativity and ingenuity that other countries lack) is not the problem with our economy. It's the Manufacturing Gap.

How to solve this is the subject of a much longer post and one that wasn't written during the five minutes my husband was waiting for me to finish so we could watch "Dexter." But I had to say something in the face of this seemingly powerful man spouting the rhetoric that education is what drives the world economy.

The above-mentioned educational differences have existed for a long time in many countries. Yet the economies of the countries to which America has outsourced manufacturing are skyrocketing. It's common sense to see that losing this valuable manufacturing commodity is going to, in turn, drain America's economy.

Good Grief! It's a Charlie Brown Christmas!

I'm putting politics aside for for a moment to post a Christmas essay I wrote long ago. Merry Christmas.

As I prepare for the holidays, I’m reminded of a Christmas many years past when I learned an important lesson: a great Christmas doesn’t necessarily come in a perfect package.

That year I had lofty plans. It would be a Martha Stewart Christmas.

My expertly decorated house would be fit to be photographed for a magazine. I would bake awe-inspiring cookies from scratch. My husband and I would stroll through the malls taking in the splendor of the season instead of rushing to get our shopping done in a few child-free hours. Every gift would be wrapped with beautiful ribbons. Our Christmas cards would be hand calligraphed (never mind that I don’t know how to do calligraphy). Everything would have a special touch.

I thought I would have time to do it all because I was newly self employed. I could set my own hours! Time would be abundant! (Those who are self employed can pause now to chuckle at my naiveté.)

Instead, I found myself working around the clock on a client’s project. The countdown to Christmas was moving fast, and I hadn’t done anything. So one Saturday, I took a break to put up the Christmas tree.

We had bought a beautiful artificial tree at an after-Christmas sale the previous year. We sold our old tree at our garage sale. Or so we thought.

As we began to put the contents of two boxes together to form a tree, it soon became clear that we were dealing with the makings of two different trees. My husband and I exchanged wide-eyed looks of horror as we realized we had sold some poor, unsuspecting soul the bottom of our new tree and the top of our old one.

Because “self employed” is not a euphemism for “rolling in dough,” there was no way we could afford a new tree and still have presents to put under it. Life was grim.

“Kids, we can’t put up the tree,” I said. “There’s only half a tree.”

“Half a tree!” my daughter said with delight (inexplicably), and she and her brother started sticking branches into the tree’s post. It looked like a malformed bush.

Then, a Christmas miracle happened. My husband, Ebenezer, whose laments of “Why did I marry someone who is allergic to Christmas trees,” and “Do we really have to put up the tree yet,” are more common during the holidays than poinsettias, said, “We can make this work,” and started fashioning a tree from the mismatched parts.

With his help, the discordant mess was transformed into a small Christmas tree. Granted it was only about three feet tall and winged out on the bottom like Farrah Fawcett’s hair, but it was a tree nonetheless.

My son, blankie in hand, gingerly touched a branch and said, “Look at our beautiful, beautiful tree.” It reminded me of the scene from A Charlie Brown Christmas, in which Charlie buys a stick with some pine needles on it from a tree lot, and Linus, armed with a similar blankie, says, “All it needs is a little love.” Then the children transform the pitiful stick into a beautiful Christmas tree.

So we put our tree on a box to make it taller, wrapped the base with my mother’s homemade tree skirt and decorated it. I’ll always remember the four of us standing together in the soft glow of the twinkle lights to admire our handiwork.

My father called that night after hearing the news about our tree. “I’ll lend you the money to buy a new one,” he offered.

“No thanks, Dad,” I said. “We have a tree.”

I’m sure somewhere there is a family with a similar Christmas memory:

Remember when we bought that stupid tree at a garage sale, and when we tried to put it together we had parts from two different trees?

I wonder if those people were able to squelch their inner Martha and accept imperfection like we did. Or did their warm, fuzzy feelings of holiday cheer turn to cold, hard, homicidal rage? We’ll never know.

The countdown to Christmas continued, and my husband and I completed our shopping in a four-hour marathon. The presents had stick-on bows on them. The cookies came courtesy of the Pillsbury Dough Boy. I never sent my Christmas cards. Still, one of my most cherished holiday memories is of our Charlie Brown Christmas.

It’s a good thing.

Why did you vote for Mark Dayton?

It's a simple question. Those of us who didn't vote for him would like to know, now that we've been saddled with Dayton as our governor for the next four years. We didn't want this. We didn't ask for this. But, this is our reality. We lost. You won.

Why did you do it?

Did you really think he was the most qualified person to run the state? Were you voting against Emmer or voting for Dayton? Did you believe in Dayton's promises of raising taxes on the rich and how that will solve all our problems? Why?

I remember after Jesse Ventura was elected, so many people were shocked that he won. A lot of people admitted afterwards that they voted for Ventura because they thought it was funny. They thought he would never win, so why did it matter if they voted for him? They thought it was a joke. Except it wasn't funny. The choices those people made in the voting booth stuck us with Jesse the Governor Ventura and Minnesota's reputation for being the laughing stock of a country that couldn't understand what we had just done. (We still hold that reputation today for electing a washed-up comedian as our senator, and Keith Ellison, a left-wing nut job who just a few days ago called for the government to wreck America's entire economy if the legislature didn't extend unemployment benefits. People think Minnesotans are nuts.)

Anyway, this is a serious question. I'd really like feedback from those of you who voted for Dayton. I'd like serious answers, please. I think it would be good for those of us who think having Dayton for a governor is one of the worst things that could happen to our state. We have to live with the consequences of your actions, so please enlighten us. Maybe you'll say something that will make it not seem so bad. At least we might begin to understand each other a little better.

So please, comment on this article and tell me why you voted for Dayton. You don't have to identify yourself, though if you're not ashamed of your vote I don't know why you'd need to remain anonymous. I may just post them as comments, or if there is enough feedback, I'll compile it into an article.

I promise to treat your comments with respect.

Thankful for the Gift of Unemployment

The Gift of Unemployment

When it first came, we hardly noticed it. It was hidden among the jumble of personal effects in the cardboard box my husband carried the day he was laid off.  I remember it in an out-of-body sort of way, like a flashback in a movie: the two of us, on a hot July day, sitting together on our front steps while he quietly told me the worst had happened.

The environment at his workplace had become so toxic even workers in their 20’s were quitting for health reasons. I remember thinking this could actually be a good thing, because if he had continued working there, it might have killed him. Still, the gift of his health lay buried in the cardboard box he wouldn’t unpack for more than two interminable years.

Several months into his unemployment, the small severance had run out, and our savings were gone. This time the gift came not in a box, but in a paper grocery bag. It was left in front of our garage door. There was a card signed in stamped letters that said simply, “You are loved.” The bag was full of food. I wept.

Food had begun to be a problem.  We are a family of six.  It was time to go to our local food shelf. I’d been there to donate.  I never thought I’d be in need of their services. We were greeted by smiling volunteers and counseled for intake by a true gentlewoman.  Though it was so hard to take this huge step no one who donates to food shelves thinks they’ll take, we left with the gift of our dignity, wrapped in brown paper bags full of food and sundries. Our grocery bills were just too big to keep up with.  Hell, all our bills were big.  Electricity, water, garbage…

COBRA.  For those of you who’ve never needed it, it is a law requiring all employers to extend health benefits to laid-off employees for 18 months, but at full cost to the former employee.  For us that meant our healthcare costs were almost equal to our house payment.  But we had to do it. We couldn’t let anyone in our family go uninsured.  We loathed and scoffed at it at the time because it was so expensive. But then it ran out. Our gift was wrapped in the 18 enormous checks we had written for our healthcare.  Inside was gratitude for those 18 months of healthcare and the wisdom to recognize our naiveté at our insistence that we would never be able to do without it.  Because we did.

My husband and I are still uninsured. All of the children are now covered.  We found ways to cut some of our medical expenses by switching to cheaper prescription drugs, which in some cases was no small sacrifice. We carefully thought through every doctor visit, every medical test. We used minute clinics for acute illnesses. We shopped around for the cheapest pharmacy. We were gifted with self sufficiency and control at a time when those things seemed to have vanished from our lives. We now have a different outlook on health care in our nation, and no, we do not believe in ObamaCare or any form of national socialized medicine programs for the general population. But we do see how each of us plays a role in the enormous cost of medical care in America.

Lest you think I’m some kind of freaky, bubble-minded saint, I will freely admit we weren’t discovering a gift around every corner. Sometimes the discovery came months later.  Someone told us after about 18 months of unemployment that the depression in our house was so great it was palpable when coming through our front door. That’s hard to hear. But it was true. All of us were affected in different ways, and all of us are changed.  We each went through our private hell, a hell that some of us are still clawing our way out of. Except for the baby.

She loved having my husband home full time for most of her life. If I needed a break from care giving, he would take over for a while.  If she wanted to see him, she would yell, “Papa, I need you!” in her sweet baby voice, dragging him from his never-ending computer search for work. Her gift was Papa’s always available lap, ready for her to snuggle in to learn about coins or watch country music videos. Our gift was, and is, simply her.

The next gift was enormous. We managed to hang onto our home. I would often have nightmares my family was living somewhere else, and we would drive by and watch from our car windows while another family moved in.  The nightmare reoccurred in many forms during those two years.

We didn’t hate the empty space made by the deck we tore off our house just prior to my husband’s lay off only to have to spend the savings for our new deck to survive. The back of our beloved home is ramshackle at best, and the front isn’t doing much better. When you have no money to spare, home ownership becomes a whole different animal. Our paint is peeling, our front deck is rotting, and our lawn is full of weeds because weed killers and fertilizers are not necessities. Our concrete steps are cracked and our driveway needs to be seal coated. And that’s just the outside. But we love our home more than ever. We don’t look at it and see its flaws anymore; instead we see the place where our family has grown for the past 11 years, our dream home we fought so hard to get in the first place and then to keep, though the things we had to do to keep it sometimes hurt our hearts and our dignity. But we learned sometimes a gift can come along with dents in your armor and scars you’ll bear forever.

Because behind the scars is the biggest gift of all.  It’s a gift we’ve always had, but sometimes it seemed invisible. We took it for granted many times when we did see it, because it was there all the time.  We are forever humbled by its enormity, its continuity, its loyalty.

The greatest gift is, of course, family. If not for them we would have lost our home. If not for them we would have gone hungry. If not for them we would have no electricity, heat, water, gas for our cars. If not for them, I believe our little family may have fallen apart.

They were there after friends got tired of our chronic miserable state and the invitations for dinner, drinks or just to socialize dried up just when a free meal or a break from the monotony would have been so welcome. We couldn’t afford to be “fun” anymore, I guess, so friends just stopped calling. But our family rallied around us and not only kept us financially afloat with their generous gifts—the ones that were so hard to accept, the ones that left the scars on our dignity—but they held me above water while I cried for my children, my husband, myself.

They held us up through the deaths of our two beloved dogs who died unexpectedly three months apart from each other after having been in our family for more than a decade. They held us up through the lost of my husband’s father, about whom I have written more than once on these pages. During that time we almost lost my father as well, and we lost our church home. There were times I cried out to God asking what we weren’t learning, what weren’t we getting, why was it taking so long and why was there so much loss along the way?

And there are so many answers. When I said we have changed forever, I meant it. We can divide our lives into Before Unemployment, and, mercifully, After.  Before unemployment we were wasteful. We saw the flaws in our lives, not the gifts. We dwelt more on what we didn’t have than on what we did. Though we said grace before dinner, we weren’t truly thankful for the food on our table. Things we would have complained about before don’t bother us (my husband came home after the first week of his new job and said that very thing because he’s so grateful to be working that none of the little annoyances—the ones those who feel their state of employment is untouchable see everywhere—faze him).

Unemployment and the gifts it brought taught us so much. So, this Thanksgiving, I am most grateful simply for the ability to be truly thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Oh, no, not again...

Congratulations to all of last night's winners. I am bowled over (in a good way) by the Republican take-over of the state legislature and the U.S. House. A special congrats to Erik Paulsen, David Hann, Jennifer Loon, and Kirk Stensrud. I know everybody worked so hard, and they have the results to show for it. Special kudos to Stensrud for unseating Maria Ruud, which was no small task for a new guy. All the best to all of our conservative winners, and a prayer for clarity for the other ones.

I believe we will ultimately wind up with Governor Dayton. I can't quite believe people voted for him, but I think he'll hold on to the win even after any recounts. I know there was voter fraud on many levels and in many ways, but I don't think it will matter.

A couple of questions, though. My Dad noticed last year when voting that the woman in front of him in line to put ballots in the counting machine had filled out the ballot with check marks instead of filling in the little bullets. The machine rejected her ballot, of course, so the volunteer directed her to the table to receive a new one and fill it out correctly. The volunteer then took her incorrectly-filled-out ballot and put it in a pile to the side of the counting machine. My Dad asked why the ballot wasn't being shredded or destroyed in some way, and he said that was what he was instructed to do with them.

Then we saw the recount in the Coleman/Franken debacle, and low and behold, our T.V. screens were filled with images of ballots with check marks, circles, smiley faces, you name it. Then the persons charged with the task of recounting the ballots would have to discern voter intent ("they put a smiley face next to Norm's name because they think he's laughable and wanted their vote to go to Franken," etc.) . Now, if those voters' ballots were rejected due to being improperly filled out, and they were given new ballots and instructed how to properly fill them out, and took the new ballots and put them in the counting machine, that should be their vote, right? So there would be no reason to ever count ballots improperly marked with circles, check marks and arrows, right? If someone knows why this isn't the case, fill me in.

Dad asked the same question of the volunteer last night. The volunteer said he was just following instructions, and that he didn't make the rules. Dad asked who he would have to talk to to get this looked into, and the volunteer told him he didn't know, maybe the legislature. Well, that's wrong, it's the Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie, who allowed vote counting to stop as soon as state embarrassment, Al Franken, had enough votes to win, among other very questionable tactics. Well, Ritchie was re-elected last night (does anyone read anything in this state?), so I don't think anything will change with this recount. But I would like Dad's, and now my, question addressed. Feedback, please.

One more thing before I collapse. I have read reports and viewed video tape about bus loads of mentally challenged people being taken to the polls for early voting and being instructed whom to vote for, (democrats) or in some cases, had their ballots filled out for them. There are also some reports coming in about bus loads of impaired individuals from nursing homes in the same vein. There are certainly rules about assisting disabled individuals to vote, but isn't there some rule that the person at least needs to have the mental ability to freely vote for whom they wish to vote? I would never want a disabled person to be disenfranchised, but what those people did, especially with the mentally impaired people, was, well, evil.

(Three part video about the Crow Wing County early voting fraud. Worth watching.)

And I mean EVIL. What special kind of demon do you have to be to fill a bus full of mentally handicapped individuals who, from eyewitness reports, didn't even know what they were there for or what voting was or what a polling place was, and use them as literal pawns and puppets for the democrats to get more votes for their candidates? Isn't it bad enough that four out of five dead people vote democrat? This is much worse than that.

I would guess people who would do such things may be headed for that very, very special bad place they reserve for mean nurses and bad teachers. Because they all do the same thing: take advantage of or abuse helpless people. They make me sick.

So, we have a lot to be frightened of. Mark Dayton being our governor, for one. Sick, evil people who'll use the elderly and mentally challenged to swing an election their way.

But we have a great deal to celebrate as well. All that hard work really panned out (a special nod to Chip Cravaack, who unseated the damn-near unseatable Jim Oberstar.) Now, the newly elected need to take their mandate and run with it when they are officially seated in their new jobs.

They all need our positive thoughts and prayers, especially those with whom we disagree.

BREAKING NEWS: Is Mark Dayton Really Sober?

I was doing research for this series of articles when I stumbled upon something, a word actually, that made me change direction from asking the question, "Is Mark Dayton stable," to:

Is Mark Dayton sober?

Dayton is a self-identified alcoholic who has been through treatment twice, most recently about three years ago for one full week after relapsing near the end of his senate career. Records show Dayton has only been sober for about three years. Or has he?

I ran across an article from the StarTribune, published July 4 2010, which led me down a path that questions Mark Dayton’s sobriety. The article was titled, "Mark Dayton: a topsy-turvey ride." In the second paragraph, something caught my eye. It said, "Sipping from a bottle of kombucha, a fermented tea that has become a campaign trail staple, this former U.S. senator is trying to revive an up-and-down political career at age 63."

Fermented tea? Doesn't "fermented" usually mean something has turned to alcohol? There began my research on kombucha, the official drink of the Dayton campaign.

What I found was a treasure trove of reasons why an alcoholic shouldn't be downing kombucha tea, and if he is, he is no longer sober as defined by Alcoholics Anonymous. Here's an article on Relapse Prevention, which may apply to this situation, because this tea is well known for its varying alcohol content.

A website called, "Organic-Kombucha.com. contains this heading: "Who should avoid drinking kombucha tea?" The a sub-head reads: "We strongly suggest not to use kombucha under the following circumstances:"

Alcoholics in recovery - Many recovering alcoholics have found it helpful to drink Kombucha during their recovery period. It is said to remove the desire for alcohol. But be warned though, Kombucha does contain a small quantity of alcohol, normally less that 1% by volume. Any recovering alcoholic knows that even a small quantity of alcohol can have a negative effect on them, so be careful.

Kombucha, in fact, may contain much more alcohol than mentioned above. On June 28, 2010, the New York Times reported Whole Foods pulled the product from their shelves because, "the alcohol content might be high enough to attract the attention of the federal government."

Well, they were right.

Two days later, the Treasury Department issued a warning stating kombucha may be subject to the same taxes and regulations as other beverages containing alcohol. The agency said it “is coordinating with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ensure kombucha products currently on the market comply with Federal laws..."

Analysts said some kombucha teas sold under brand names like Synergy can ferment after shipment, raising the alcohol content from a legal 0.5 percent or less to as high as 3 percent, similar to some beers.

Kombucha tea seems to be well known for its "buzz." In fact a lot of people flipped out when their kombucha was taken away. The way people talk about it, it’s as if they need it, not want it. There’s even a facebook site devoted to the lamentations of kombucha users deprived of their favorite drink: “Dude, Where’s my Kombucha?” You can track “bucha” sightings around the country, including a supply in Vista, CA, to be sold only to those over 21.

GT Dave, owner of Synergy Drinks, announced a recall after reports of elevated alcohol levels in Kombucha products. More publicly, Linsday Lohan blamed Kombucha for setting off her SCRAM bracelet due to its alcohol content. GT Dave believes the elevated levels may be occurring after the product has been bottled and left their facility.

If that is the case, the bottles would need new labels marking the alcohol content. Kombucha is said to increase metabolism, reduce cholesterol, and even fight the effects of aging. Oddly enough, Kombucha has been said to cure alcoholism. This seems rather bizarre being that Kombucha contains alcohol.

One could argue, “Well, Dayton might not know it contains alcohol. So it’s not his fault.” I argue that it doesn’t matter. I once knew a recovering alcoholic who was given a glass of spiked punch at a party, which led almost immediately to heavy drinking and the destruction of his family. It doesn’t matter why an alcoholic drinks, it just matters that an alcoholic in recovery should not drink at all.

We don't know how many of these drinks he has per day. Is kombucha the reason Dayton often appears befuddled? Is it the reason he seems to slur his words at times?

There is a saying made famous by the movie, "28 Days," starring Sandra Bullock. It addresses when an addict should try to have a serious relationship. It is, in a nutshell: after an addict has become sober he should buy a potted plant. If after one year the plant is still alive, he should buy a pet. If after the second year the pet is alive, then in the third year the addict may begin to consider having a serious relationship with another person.

We don’t know exactly where Dayton falls on that sobriety spectrum. But either way it’s too soon for him to be entering into the very important relationship of governor of an entire state with responsibility for roughly five million souls.

Top five reasons Minnesotans MUST vote for Tom Emmer: Reason #5

The election is drawing near, and I am hearing some disturbing whispers out there. They are scary; just right for Halloween. They are the comments and beliefs of life-long Republicans regarding Tom Emmer. Why is this so spooky?

Because the whisperers were fed half-truths by the mainstream media, and they swallowed them whole. There have not been TV spots or newspaper articles in large enough numbers and in the right places to refute the garbage the opposition spoon fed to the masses. So now (hopefully not too little too late), I'm presenting my top five reasons why Republicans, conservatives, independents and thinking Minnesotans must vote for Tom Emmer.

I choose my words carefully. When I say "must," vote for Tom Emmer, I don't mean "should," or any other lazy word that could be inserted into the sentence. I really mean "must." Why?

Because Tom Horner just isn't going to win. The last I looked, he was polling in at about 13-15 percent. If you usually vote Republican and you're a Horner fan, realize that a vote for Horner is a vote for Dayton.

I truly believe Mark Dayton as Minnesota governor would be disastrous for this state we all love and call our home. That's really the reason in a nutshell, but I've broken it down to five sections:


Reason #5
Tom Emmer is the only pro-life candidate.

Emmer has been endorsed by Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL) for his flawless pro-life voting record in the Minnesota senate. He co-authored the Positive Alternatives Act, which was signed into law by Governor Tim Pawlenty in 2005. The law provides grants to organizations that help women with alternatives to abortion. He has also co-authored legislation to end taxpayer funded abortions.

He supports the Women's Right to Know Act, which provides pregnant women with crucial information about their pregnancies and the procedures involved in an abortion procedure. (e.g., Materials providing information concerning an unborn child of 20 weeks gestational age and at two weeks gestational increments thereafter covering the development of the nervous system, fetal responsiveness to adverse stimuli and other indications of capacity to experience organic pain, and the impact on fetal organic pain of each of the methods of abortion procedures commonly employed at this stage of pregnancy.) He also supports a federal ban on partial birth abortion.

Mark Dayton, on the other hand, supports partial birth abortion and voted against the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act twice when he was a U.S. Senator (you know, the job for which Time Magazine named him one of the five "worst senators").

He supports abortion on demand and rejects any attempt to ban taxpayer funding for it. He is against parental notification for minors to have abortions, a law which is currently on the books in Minnesota. He recently donated $5,000 to Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the United States. How long do you think he would be governor before abortionists could again perform surgery on a minor without the knowlege of her parents, or any adult for that matter? This would be a boon to child molestors as well because they could bring their victims in for abortions, no questions asked.

Dayton also opposes the Women's Right to Know Act because it's better for the abortion industry if women are given no information other than what the abortion mill wants them to think: that they are about to undergo riskless procedures and they are just carrying blobs of tissue instead of living human beings.

Tom Horner was sculpted from the same piece of clay as Dayton. He supports abortion on demand, he is in favor of taxpayer funding for abortion and he opposes the Women's Right to Know Act as well.

The clear choice for life is a vote for Tom Emmer for Governor of Minnesota.

Check back very soon for reason #4, Stability.

The left thinks Americans are stupid

For those of you who have been wearing earplugs and bags over your heads for the past few weeks, this is what has happened. The nutshell version is that Bill O'Reilly went on The View, which caused Juan Williams to be fired by NPR. Seems kind of stupid when you put it that way, doesn't it?

Well, it is stupid. Actually "stupid" is the proper word to use as an explanation for the why discourse in our country has become stilted, thanks to the Church of Political Correctness (CPC).

Bill O'Reilly was a guest on The View and said he was against the proposed mosque being built so close to the ground zero site because Muslims killed us on 9/11. Whoppie Goldberg and Joy Behar, after yelling and swearing at their guest, got up and walked out of the interview. What made them so angry?

In statements they've made since the incident, both Behar and Goldberg have said they essentially couldn't just sit there while O'Reilly was painting all Muslims with the same brush. Goldberg continues to assert if all Muslims killed us on 9/11, does that mean Mohamed Ali killed us on 9/11? Of course the answer to that is "no."

So the remedy for O'Reilly's "mistake" was to clarify his statement with one word: "extremists." If he had used that one little word, the whole circus would not have come to town.

I like words. Words are of the utmost importance in my life. I think words have incredible power, and I guess that's why I love them so much. It's important to use the correct word in the correct situation. One of my favorite quotes is by Mark Twain. He said, "The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and lightning bug."

In the case of O'Reilly's statement, the use of the qualifier "extremist" would have been enough to assuage the CPC in Goldberg and Behar. Okay. But I agree with O'Reilly's statement that people know what he meant. When he said, "Muslims killed us on 9/11," he didn't mean every Muslim in the world was involved in the plot to kill us on 9/11, and he thinks America understood that. I believe that's true. Why?

Because I don't think Americans are stupid. I don't think they are such useless morons they couldn't have made the distinction that O'Reilly's statement wasn't meant to include every Muslim on the planet. I believe they are smart enough not to need the qualifier "extremist" to know what O'Reilly meant.

Goldberg's argument (a ham-handed attempt to prove O'Reilly's statement to be wrong) that American terrorist Timothy McVey wasn't a Muslim and nobody runs around saying Christians bombed Oklahoma City is irrelevant to the argument because McVey didn't commit his terroristic attack because of his religious beliefs. For him, it was all about politics. Goldberg's argument is like comparing apples and bicycles.

There are some things that are just true even if we don't want them to be. And one of those truths is that not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists since 9/11 have been Muslim. It's just true. I'm sorry about that, but it is. But we have become so beholden to the CPC that we can't speak the truth, or act on the truth, at least without fear. That's why 85-year-old Norweigan grandmothers are searched before boarding planes. And that's an example of how far the PC movement reaches. It reaches into our safety and scrambles it up.

I don't want to be hypocritical here. It so often happens that when liberals get caught saying something stupid in public, and the public reacts, they clutch their collective pearls and gasp in surprise and horror that someone would actually take action against a famous person because of something that person said. Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, Bruce Springsteen and Sean Penn spring to mind. Maines was shocked and outraged people would burn her CD's and stop buying them after she made a derogatory remark about President Bush. Springsteen saw his concert ticket sales plummet after he made several similar remarks during the 2008 election season. And I, and many other conservatives, will never pay to see a Sean Penn film because we don't want to line his pockets with more money so he can continue his traitorous activities, such as visiting Saddam Hussein weeks prior to the start of the Iraq war.

These celebrities and their fans think it's simply wrong to punish these people with boycotts, etc., for what they say in public. They scream and yell things like, "What happened to free speech?" "This is America. Don't we still have the right to free speech?" What I have always said about these situations is, yes, you still have the Constitutional right to free speech, but what you don't have is protection from any reactions to that speech as long as those reactions aren't from the government and don't involve things like imprisonment. You can talk all you want, but people are allowed to judge you--it's as simple as that.

So I am not saying the left has no right to react to O'Reilly's statement on The View and Juan Williams' subsequent comment about his own private thoughts. They have every right. What I'm saying is that the basis of their reactions is stupid. It stems from left-wing elitists who see themselves as opinion leaders because they are above the mere rabble who might be too stupid to see the nuances in language without everything being spelled out for them.

This argument isn't really about outrage about O'Reilly's statements. It isn't about outrage about Juan Williams' statements. It's really about elitism. The CPC is an elitist group that thinks America's little people can't understand a person's intent without things being absolutely perfectly worded. They understand words have power. Look how far president Obama has gone to erase the word "terrorist" from the American vernacular.

In my opinion, the "progressives" have come full circle. The political correctness religion practiced by most of them has made them the most bigoted, intolerant, narrow-minded group in America. There. I said it.

What began with (I have to try to believe) an honest attempt to stop using speech that was hurtful to individuals or groups has turned into an ugly monster that attempts to devour our right to free speech, stomps on our freedom of expression, and at times, strangles true intellectual discourse.

There was so much good that came out of the PC movement before it became a religion. It stopped people from using the "N-word" to the point where most white people wouldn't be caught dead saying it, and they truly think it's wrong to use that word. That's great. Because it is wrong.

All of the other racial slurs are wrong too. I don't believe in using the kinds of words that hurt people and that are meant to take the targets of the words down and lessen them as human beings. So I do admit the genesis of the PC religion had good intentions and some good results. I'm glad I live in a society in which it's considered socially unacceptable to use racial slurs or, for that matter, to degrade women. A society can only consider itself better if it is in that state of grace.

But, like most ideas the left get a hold of, they took it too far. Like free and reduced price lunches. Great idea. We don't want American school children going hungry. Yay. But then it was free breakfast for every student, regardless of need, free before and after-school programs for children regardless of need, and the pesky habit of teachers and school administrators to think and act as if students are being parented by a bunch of imbeciles who must be shoved aside so schools can raise the children instead, rendering parental choice to secondary status. They simply go too far.

In an effort to appear tolerant of groups like Muslims (and I truly believe a lot of it is about appearance, like when people said you should vote for Obama because he would change America's image because he's young, black, handsome and captivating), they collectively stomp on Christians. In schools, children learn all about Muslim holidays, Kwanza, etc., but it's not okay to talk about Christmas. The left just can't find balance. It's in their nature to take things to a point of ridiculousness.

Now, in PC land, people aren't allowed to say what they mean without being blasted by the left. If you say something with which they don't agree, or it's outside the boundaries they have set for all of us, you are toast. They are creating a society in which one must speak as they are told or suffer grave consequences. If you don't agree with them, you are labeled. If you speak the truth, you will be labeled. If you think outside the box, you will be punished.

So what started as a movement to stop racial, religious and sexual slurs quickly transformed into the word police. And if you really think about it, I mean really think, you'll discover, as I have, that the reason for most politically correct speech is the elitists on the left think the average American is too stupid to sort out an argument unless it is Dick and Jane'd to them.

Now, another "word" moment has happened on The View. Today Joy Behar, in rare form, called congressional candidate, Sharron Angle, a "bitch" and said she is "going to hell." This is a pretty straightforward statement requiring no additions or translations by the PC Police for the average American to understand it.

But let's see what happens next in this soap opera of words. Juan Williams was fired from his job at NPR because he talked about his own fear of seeing people in Muslim garb at airports. He used no racial slurs and no hate speech, but he was fired immediately.

If I want to skip down the yellow brick road of political correctness, I would label Behar's outburst today as hate speech. I believe that, all things being equal, she should be fired immediately.

Should I hold my breath? I'm told I look good in blue.

Some light reading

President Bush signed into law a bill that phases out the incandescent light bulb by 2014. Not only was this hasty, but it’s disturbing because of environmental impacts and issues of personal freedom.

Americans have been strongly encouraged to replace their incandescent bulbs with compact florescent light bulbs (CFLs). A common example to quantify the benefits of using CFLs is: If every American home replaced just one incandescent bulb with a CFL, in one year it would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes and it would be like taking more than 800,000 cars off the roads. It will also reduce your energy costs.

Sounds like a great idea. But like most seemingly simple solutions to complex problems, it requires deeper thought.

CFLs contain mercury. Mercury is a neurotoxin. Therefore, CFLs must be disposed of as hazardous waste. You could take them to the nearest hazardous waste drop off center. You could wait for a free hazardous waste drop off day.

Or, you could follow the advice of Joseph Rey: “If you’re the Marriott hotel disposing of a great number of bulbs, you have to do it so mercury doesn’t leak into landfills. But if you’re one person, you can just toss it out.”

Who is this guy? He’s director of education for the American Lighting Association. He gave this sage advice in an interview in the February 2008 issue of House Beautiful magazine.

The actions of "one person" will multiply. If you live in a town of 20,000 households and every household did as recommended by Joseph Rey and just threw one bulb away--just one per year--there would be 20,000 CFLs leaching neurotoxins into landfills. Over five years, that would be 100,000 CFL bulbs leaching mercury into the ground. Of course we wouldn’t all do that, but you know there will always be people who will dispose of hazardous waste improperly if they know they won’t get caught. 

We should be concerned not only about the earth, but the environment in our homes. Using CFLs could be especially worrisome if our families include infants, small children or pregnant women, who are most susceptible to the effects of mercury. Most important, we should have the choice to make these kinds of decisions for ourselves.

If you break an incandescent bulb, you sweep up the pieces and throw them away–safely.

However, the American Lighting Association has very specific guidelines for what to do if a CFL breaks in your home. They include: 

• Open windows 
• Leave the room for at least 15 minutes.
• Wear gloves while you scoop up fragments and powder, seal them in a plastic bag, and place that into another sealed plastic bag.
• Throw it in the trash if your state allows; otherwise, dispose of it as hazardous waste.
• If you must use a vacuum, put the used vacuum bag into two sealed bags. The next several times you vacuum the area, shut off your heating or air conditioning and open the windows for at least 15 minutes after you’re done vacuuming.

Whew, that’s a lot of precautions to take for something CFL proponents insist isn’t toxic, as evidenced in this often used example of how safe CFLs are: There are only 5 mg. of mercury per CFL compared to 500 mg. of mercury in a thermometer, so you’d have to break 100 CFLs to expose yourself to the same mercury as in one thermometer.

Well, okay, but how many people do you know who still use mercury thermometers and consistently break them? Following this scenario, the town of 20,000 people would have to break and throw away 200 mercury thermometers to equal the mercury levels of one improperly disposed CFL per household. That seems unlikely.

There are other health issues to consider. Migraine sufferers around the world are uniting to protest governments mandating the use of CFLs. The British Association of Dermatologists has called for exemptions to these mandates to protect those with skin conditions worsened by fluorescent light, such as some forms of lupus. Eastern medicine practitioners consider fluorescent light to be detrimental to humans because it emits frequencies they believe worsen or cause multiple health problems.

Should the government have the right to mandate use of something containing toxic materials whose health effects haven’t been fully studied and allow no exemptions for people with health problems that could be exacerbated by the mandate? If the government so readily pulled the trigger on this mandate in the name of environmentalism, what’s next?

Could they ban lawns because of the water used to maintain them? How about air conditioning? Burning wood has been banned in Sacramento, and southern California's ban on building wood-burning fireplaces in new homes could come to your state next, in the name of global warming, not due to wildfire threats. These governmental intrusions are growing. For the government to invade the homes of its citizens by telling them how to live is the antithesis of what America stands for.

I know “going green” is a hot issue right now, but let’s slow down, think things through. Let’s not accept knee-jerk reactions to the fear mongering of environmental activists. The CFL mandate is just another example of getting carried away with something that looks really good … until you shine a bright light on it.