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Money Storm!

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Today’s post is a fundraising letter from Congressman Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s 9th District – all the water surface area in the state.

Greetings Constituents,

Yes, the forecast is alarming.

But I want to assure you that I am fully aware that a deluge is headed this way, and I have taken every possible step to prepare for the coming storm.

The expected onslaught will yield unprecedented piles and prodigious accumulations – exactly the type of crisis I have dreamed of facing from the moment I was sworn into this office.

And now, thanks to the Supreme Court, it is coming true. The country’s richest people are finally free to dump boatloads of money on me!

The court’s ruling in the McCutcheon case means individual Americans are no longer limited in the number of politicians they can support with direct contributions. While they will still have a $2600 ceiling per candidate per election, the overall election cycle restriction of $48,600 for Federal office seekers has been removed.

So if you have ever said to me, “Really, you’re the next Congressman I’d write a check to if I hadn’t already hit the limit!”, the McCutcheon decision means that excuse is gone and now is the time to pony up.

And yes, I realize that $2,600 would buy a very nice pony indeed, but as I’ve said at hundreds of chicken dinner fundraisers over the past ten years, “Why waste that kind of cash on such an extravagant gift for your daughter when I’ll be more grateful and I’ll actually listen when you call to offer your sage advice!”

Don’t expect others to take care of this. I don’t have any illusions about this making much difference to the average residential contributor in the waterlogged 9th district. After all, most people who live on the lake have boats, and boats consume dollars faster than horses eat oats. Ordinary people would be much better off giving their money to some worthy non-profit, like your local community radio station!

But major, major, bottomless-bank-account political funders coast to coast – you’ve got the resources and you know who you are. You now have it within your reach to make a maximum offering to every member of Congress! And what hobbyist hasn’t dreamed of collecting the complete set?

Trust me, the complete set has dreamed of being collected by you!

Mega-donors, your phone is about to start ringing. Yes, there will be pleading, cajoling, and some begging. The clamoring voices of Congressmen may all begin to sound the same to you, but if, in the background, you hear the call of a loon, that will be me!

Seriously,
Congressman Loomis Beechly
Minnesota’s 9th

Ever been strong-armed?

46 thoughts on “Money Storm!”

  1. Very cleaver, Dale, getting a plug in there for KFAI.

    I can’t recall every being strong-armed, possibly because I’m not all that difficult to talk into something.

    OT – Six or seven baboons have indicated an interest in a field trip to see the papercut exhibit at the ASI. I’ve sent out an e-mail and will attempt to find a date that will work for most of us.

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  2. Dale, I’m not sure this new format is working very well. It took some searching around to find the button to click on to make a comment.

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  3. Good morning. I’m sure I have been strong armed a number of times that I can’t remember. There are a few I remember.

    When I was a student I got a message from a Dean that I should stop making public statements about my opposition to the draft. He said that I get bad recommendations if I continued to speak against the draft.

    I had a neighbor who did not like us and was always looking for ways to give us a bad time. I guess that is sort of a form of strong arming.

    Another time I was told that a very good speaker that I had invited to address a meeting was too liberal and could not be allowed to speak. The person who said that told me he was the “top dog” in the organization holding the meeting and he had veto power over everything.

    I guess I am fairly good at remembering cases of strong arming.

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    1. How awkward, Jim. Did you tell the invited guest why you had to revoke the invitation? If so, what was the reaction?

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      1. I did tell the guest what happened. She was going to give a talk at our meeting at well below her usual speaker fee. This was an agricultural meeting and she knew a little about some of the people in our group that can be kind of difficult so she understood the situation. I was angry about being asked to cancel a speaker I very much wanted hear who I was sure would have some very good things to say. I’m sure you know the person who was going speak. It was Carol Bly.

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  4. I can think of plenty of examples, but the crassest was the mortuary in St. Paul Park that handled my adoptive mom’s funeral. Mom had said many times she wanted to be cremated, but Dad demanded a traditional viewing, so we had to pick a casket. I insisted that she wouldn’t want an expensive one that would just get burned up (or, more likely, reused for pure profit), so the funeral director (clearly annoyed with me) said something on the order of “Well, we have something inexpensive if that’s what you REALLY want for your mother,” and showed us a truly hideous blue flocked thing. My expression must have been eloquent, because he finally showed us the pine cremation box inside the pretty metal viewing casket that was perfectly practical and exactly what Mom would have wanted, had she wanted a viewing at all. Burying my dad with O’Halloran-Murphy was much better, but I still have a jaded view of the funeral business thanks to that experience, and reading books like “The American Way of Death” certainly hasn’t improved my opinion.

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    1. Some funeral directors seem to be trying to live up to the bad reputation that has been attributed to them. I have been given a sales pitch by a couple of them that I didn’t like. You would think that they would have found a way to avoid that kind of sales pitch by now.

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    2. I thought I’d heard it all until my best friend came back from Arizona after dealing with his dad’s death. The old man chose cremation. When Greg showed up to claim his dad’s ashes, the funeral business operator told him they hadn’t gotten around to cremating him yet and, “Would you like to watch his remains burning?” Aghast, Greg declined.

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    3. There’s such a thing as a blue flocked casket? You mean flocked like a Christmas tree? That would leave quite an impression!

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      2. Sez you! What if it’s more difficult to move towards the light when you’re being launched out of a blue flocked box?

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        1. You might have a point there, Dale, especially if the blue flocking is flame retardant as it is on Christmas tress.

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  5. The most remarkable time someone tried to strong-arm me was when some kid from Sears came to my home to subject the erstwife and me to a carefully rehearsed high pressure sales pitch that would have us spending thousands of dollars to reface our kitchen cabinets. Within a minute or two I was so offended I knew I’d never buy this from Sears, for I felt they had abused me by putting me through this.

    But I was curious about what a high pressure pitch would sound, so I let him rattle on. He essentially constructed an elaborate series of arguments that were supposed to limit my choices and drive me to buy from Sears. The kid could tell he had lost the sale, but he had to slog through the whole spiel. Having seen how the technique works, I’ve been able to recognize it in other settings.

    I’m afraid I agree about the new format. I prefer this font, but the confusion about comments and replies means that a critical function of the dialogue has been sacrificed.

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    1. Sorry the design is problematic, Steve. I’m looking for an adjustment somewhere in the background controls. I’m going to a WordPress event in late April – maybe someone there can show me how to improve it.

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  6. SCOTUS has become little more than the right wing’s lobby. My research found that the Kochs contributed 460 million and Adelson 89 million last fall. To these three men who totaled out at 550 million, writing a check for millions at a time isn’t even felt. My paltry little $5 here, $3 there isn’t going very far.

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  9. Afternoon all.

    I’m sure that there is somebody out there who has tried to strong arm me in my personal life, but I can’t think of it. I wouldn’t say I’m immune, but I am pretty cynical and skeptical about a lot of things; lots of folks don’t get too far with me. I’ve become extremely adept at getting off the phone with solicitors these days.

    In my work however, it’s a different story. I constantly have suppliers trying to “cajole” me into spending more of my client’s money. Just this week a supplier added $935 to my final bill for the gratuities for their staff – AFTER my staff had already handed out cash on site for this. When I objected, the supplier said “oh, well, we’ll have to go back to our staff since we already gave out the gratuities”. I’m sure there are many folks who would feel badly about this, but I figure it’s the suppliers fault for not waiting to see if I would cave. And the cynic in me has given a little thought that the “we already gave it out” may not have been true!

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  10. Oh… almost forgot.

    Like PJ and Steve, I miss the Reply indentation… you never if a comment is a response to another comment any more!

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  11. As I boasted a few days ago, I have beaten WordPress’s sly program to convert me to an anonymous blue doily. Maybe I can share that.

    When you go to make a comment (“Leave a reply” or “Post comment”) you start by putting the cursor inside the box. As soon as you do, WordPress throws up the Gravatar it means to use for your comment. If you are logged in and have a photo, that will show. Or you might get the blue doily. If you get the blue doily, click on the fancy blue button with the big W for WordPress. You move to a screen that lets you log in. And then your chosen Gravatar returns.

    Who knows why WordPress arbitrarily decides to demote us by logging us out? But this way you can get back in the fold and have your comment associated with your photo.

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  12. I’ve been strong-armed plenty by people who imagine they know what is best for me (if only I would realize it) and further imagine they are in the position to dictate same.

    Waste of everyone’s time and energy that.

    I’m afraid all that money going to promote unsustainable economic policies that concentrate wealth in fewer and fewer hands will end the same way. You can’t raise people to think they have the possibility to make their own way, then turn around and presume to dictate to them and expect that to end well.

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  13. One of the most memorable was when the nice old grandfatherly insurance rep I had retired and his office was taken over by a pushy much younger person. The new rep tried to convince me I needed life insurance (I was single and in my mid-twenties at the time). Tried to tell me this was an excellent way to invest (um, no). I about had to do the equivalent of hanging up the phone on her, except that I was sitting in her office at the time. I let her sweet talk me into some insurance that i decided the next day I didn’t want or need – and called to have it cancelled. I knew I had the time to do that. She didn’t want to let me cancel the policy, but relented when I said if she didn’t do as I asked I would not only call the main office for the insurance company, but also the Better Business Bureau and possibly the attorney general’s office if I needed to. I was not impressed. After that interaction, my next call was to find a new insurance agent.

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    1. I used to buy seed corn from a really nice quiet man who didn’t ‘sell’ by any stretch of imagination; It was more sharing a cup of coffee and he happen to have seed in the car.
      But when he retired the man who took over *just happen* to sell insurance as well as seed. And he would not take no for an answer. I know he wouldn’t because I kept telling him no.
      And when he called the next day to see if maybe now I wanted insurance I sort of blew a gasket.
      He didn’t come back the next year.
      I can take a lot, but don’t push me. 🙂

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  14. The strong-arming I remember most distinctly was many years ago when I was shopping at a garage sale for baby or kids’ clothes and toys. First mistake I made was to go to a sale in Edina. This sale had lots of girl clothing in many sizes,in great condition, and, as I was looking through things, every time I touched something, the lady there would tell me, “Oh, I bought that at [insert upscale store here] and I paid [insert ridiculous amount of money here] for that.” After about 5 or 10 minutes of this, I left as quickly as I could. I wasn’t brave enough to tell her that if I that I absolutely did not care what store the clothes came from or how much they cost originally – if I did care, I wouldn’t be shopping at garage sales.

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  15. I just learned that my dad needs to have his aortic valve replaced. I gather they can do it in a fairly non-invasive way. He is all forit. No one had to strong arm him into that decision. I may be home for a longer period than I initially thought while he has the procedure and recuperates. No need to strong arm me to be away from work for a longer time!

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    1. Renee, wish I could do something more than offer moral support. This sounds like a decision that should be made only after careful consideration of all available options. I hope you are comfortable that your dad is getting sound medical advice? If not, ask for a second opinion, and be sure both you, your dad and you mother know exactly what the procedure entails and what the risks are. How does you mom feel about it? Best of luck my friend.

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  16. Thanks for your kind comments, PJ. He has great trust in his cardiologist, as do I, and I did some research today about his condition, and there really isn’t any alternative other than doing nothing. That would leave him chronically dizzy, excessively fatigued, and short of breath, all symptoms that he is having with increasing intensity. He has aortic stenosis, and the less invasive procedure is done for people who are too frail for open heart surgery. I spoke with hospital staff today, and will talk more at length with the heart valve nurse tomorrow. i am so glad to be done with work tonight and can prepare to hit the road tomorrow morning.

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  17. no i dont get strong armed.
    i have guys form new york call to sell me on stock tips and the like and i discovered that they have a rule that they can’t hang up. i ask them if they would please take me off their call list and they tell me we talked just a little while ago and they are just following up on that call. dont i want to make money? when i get even with them i start asking if they like the yankees or the red sox and who they think will win the division this year and then if that bothers them that i wont listen to their pitch i start talking about my uncle casey in north dakota and what a guy he was and start telling long drawn out stories about relatives when i was a kid and then i tell them to hold on for a minute there is someone at the door and i mute the phone and listen to see how long they will wait before they hang up

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