Conservatives – and humans with any sense of history or moral conscience – have been blasting CBS’s Margaret Brennan for blaming the Holocause on “free speech”.

Seems pretty indefensible.

Now, some do indeed try to defend Brennan. One such argument points to the fact that the Nazis did co-opt free speech. In an editorial in 1928, Joseph Göbbels, Hitler’s social media director, wrote, “We are an anti-parliamentarian party that for good reasons rejects the Weimar constitution and its republican institutions . . . We enter the Reichstag to arm ourselves with democracy’s weapons. If democracy is foolish enough to give us free railway passes and salaries, that is its problem. It does not concern us. Any way of bringing about the revolution is fine by us.”

So yes. The Nazis co-opted free speech. to gain power. .

They also co-opted many of the other institutions of German society – the Lutheran and Catholic churches, the school system, academia (Hitler’s inner circle was disproportionately artists, writers and intelledtuals, not thugs), the bureaucracy (in effect a fourth branch of government), and eventually the military, as well the quirks of the structure of German government under the Bismarck constitution (which the Weimar constitution didn’t change much, other than replacing the Kaiser with an elected President).

So it’s not a very good defense of Brennan.

So let’s make sure we’re clear on *why* this exchange happened.

• VP Vance loudly and rightly castigated Europe for curtailing free speech – arresting people for social media posts, confiscating computers, etc.
• Brennan tried to press Rubio, “You’re standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to commit a genocide”. Brennan was saying because the Weimar version of “free speech” was one of the *many* factors the Nazis (as you cite with Göbbels) were able to use to gain power, the Germans and Brits are *right* to curtail free speech [1].

In some ways, it’s the “why was your skirt too short?” argument.

In others, it’s much more sinister than that.

Remember – Big Left’s house PR firms have been strongly hinting that free speech is just too complicated and dangerous for us proles. Harris and Walz *ran on* curtailing free speech, including reinforcing the (very Göbbelsian) alliance between the DOJ and Big Tech. Governor Walz, who is in many ways the exposed “id” of today’s center-left, established a database to track “badthink” in Minnesota.

The system of which Brennan is a privileged part isn’t even being coy about it. They think free speech (for the rabble) is a bad thing, and they act on that belief.

Rubio pointed out, absolutely correctly, that it wasn’t peoples’ right to speak freely, but *a government with too much power*, that committed genocide. No need for an apology – it’s true.

Brennan is literally everything that’s wrong with today’s news media. I will be standing on Fifth Avenue pelting her with (rhetorical) rocks and garbage as security escorts her out of Black Rock when she’s eventually laid off, on her way to her inevitable job at NPR or “The View”.

[1 Well, *some* peoples’ free speech, anyway.

Up next in “profiles in courage”:  LA Mayor Karen Bass takes the firm moral stance that her people…

…er…

They, the people of Los Angeles pay good taxpayer money for that fortune teller who reads the future for good or bad auguries.  

So – Tina Smith is retiring from politics.

The rumor mill has it that the Walz camp is pressuring Smith to resign early, so he can appoint himself – setting himself up as an incumbent in the Senate race (and Flanagan in a hypothetical governor race), and giving him and Gwen that “inside the beltway” view they clearly lust for.  Flanagan entering the race changes that equation, maybe.

But let’s put a pin in the rumor, and talk about what we do know:  there are five DFL candidates so far saying they’re running, or thinking strongly about it:

• Gov. Walz
• Lt. Gov. Flanagan
• Rep. Ilhan Omar
• Rep. Angie Craig
• State Rep. Leigh Finké.

Who’s gonna get the nod in the end?

We’ll come back to that.

SOP – One thing Ken Martin has always been good at is concealing the metro DFL’s insanity to the state at large.  He’s sought, I think it’s fair to say, to convey the image that the DFL isn’t thst different from the Humphrey/Mondale DFL that everyone’s grandparents voted for while listening to WCCO and talking about Bud Grant over a Hamms and some walleye.  

See also 2018 – when the DFL convention was well on its way to endorsing Erin Murphy and Erin Maye Quade for the top of the gubernatorial ticket, as well as radical Matt Pelikan for Attorney General.  Martin stepped in, marshalled the party’s resources, attached Walz to Peggy Flanagan to keep the progressive base happy(er), and dragged him across the. primary finish line with barely a 40% plurality. 

With Ken Martin in charge, one might presume the machinations would end up something like…

• • State Rep. Leigh Finké – kryptonite outside CD4-5.   Ultra-progs might rally around Finké at the convention – especially now that Flanagan looks like a relative moderate – but the ultra-progressivr DSA vote would still get split with… 

• • Rep. Ilhan Omar, who would also be poison statewide, but who can raise money like…well, a Democrat with connections in Hollywood.  

• • Lt. Gov. Flanagan – She used to be considered borderline radical – she had the most “progressive” voting record in the MN House in 2018.   Is she progressive enough to keep the loony vote from moving to Omar and maybe Finké?  And while she was in literally every Walz ad, news release and selfie from 2018 to five minutes after he got off the national campaign trail, she hasn’t actually done anything.   What does she run on – being Tim Walz’s insurance policy? 

• • Rep. Angie Craig – On the one hand, she could climb into her jeep and make some more ads cavorting around Le Seuer county with some central-casting Good Ol’ Boys to make herself more appealing to Greater Minnesota than the three above.   Which leaves…

• • Gov. Walz, the incumbent.  On the one hand, polling shows he’s still got general approval – which is inexplicable to me.  He’s got a national profile.  He’s got fundraising chops like Omar – likely similar to those Crag draws from.  

If Ken Martin were in charge, I’d guess he’d throw the state DFL behind Walz, offer to get behind Flanagan for Governor, promise resources to soften and broaden Omar’s image for a future Senate run whenever A-Klo leaves office. 

But that was Ken Martin.   

Swerve: Persistent rumor has it that Ken Martin will be replaced by Richard Carlbom – former head (however briefly) of “Protect” Minnesota (remember them?) and before that the architect of the Same Sex Marriage amendment push.

On the one hand, he’s more openly allied with the “progressive” wing than Martin. 

On the other, he’s smart enough to have sold same sex marriage as a “moderate-enough” issue to win a statewide vote. 

If I had to predict…

Star-Tribune, 2020:  Crippling mass layoffs due to knee-jerk government response to Covid.   Economy in the tank.  Governor Klink sics his pet Soros Attorney General on dissenters, declares emergency power, sets up a snitch line. 

Star Tribune:   <Crickets>

Star Tribune, 2025:  A pulse:

I keep saying “you don’t hate the media enough”.   I’m trying to figure out a way to convey that idea without wearing it out.

Dunking on the MNDFL’s social media intern isn’t “punching down”.  It’s “squishing something with my foot”. 

But this one tells us a lot about the DFL. 

The intern is looking at something in the GOP platform:

Forget for a moment that they deflected from the GOP’s correct assertion that the DFL calls post-partum care “anti-abortion” – the crisis pregnancy center may be as noir of a béte to the MNDFL as Trump himself.

But look at the bit the intern highlighted:   it’ll show you how depraved the DFL is. The highlighted bit in the GOP platform asserts that *fathers should have rights* as well as obligations”.  

The DFL’s position is that not just the fetus, but the father, is just a clump of cells.  

Every time I think I hate the DFL enough, I find out I’m not even close.

Do pseudo-religious cults reflect the times in which they develop? Or does popular culture make the various cults the symbols of the times?

I’m sure there’s an online sociologist or philosopher, somewhere, who has thought this before – feel free to point them out – but what the heck.  It’s my blog, I’ll derive if I want to.

Think about the major cults that’ve made news over the past five or six decades:

The Manson Family formed in the Sixties – communal pseudo-hippies, living on LSD, intertwined with California popular culture – and in some ways marked the end of the Sixties.

The Peoples Temple – like an EST seminar run amok?  All about the seventies. 

Heavens Gate?  Even though it ended with a mass suicide in ’97, it flourished (after a fashion) in the eighties, for reasons that seemed to match the decade. 

The Branch Davidians?   Synonymous with the ’90s – in a decade of groups that fought the law and the law won, they were the big kahuna of them all. 

The 2000s?   My theory breaks down a little here, unless you count militant Wahhabi Islam which, conveniently for my theory, dominated American culture more than any cult in history. 

And with the war over and lost, we can go back to normal…

…well, not “normal”.  

It’s all setup for my theory that this particular cult may be perfectly set to define the 2020s, or vice versa, so far.

Margaret Brennan has emerged in this past few months as the poster girl for all that is stupid and depraved about our “elites”. 

But even I didn’t think she’d go here…:

Stupid reporter?

Or a natural progression of the whole “free speech is bad” thing that elites were pushing during a campaign where the Democrats were opposing it?

Why choose?

Bigman asked for it.  What the hey.  ‘

Sunday open thread. 

We’ll do more, earlier in the day, next time.

Today’s song list:

Tina Smith is retiring from the Senate, citing health.

So – who’s turn is it in DC?

Tim Walz has made noises about running – and clearly lusts after DC real estate.  More on that maybe next week.

Peggy Flanagan came right out of the gate, though, and announced yesterday. 

No huge surprise there. 

Of course, some of her support rates a grim chuckle:

Her “lived experience” is entirely as part of the non-profit/DFL/industrial complex; she has never not been a first or second-tier government employee.

As to “proven leadership?” The only issue I can recall about her actually leading, as opposed to posturing…

…was when as chair of the Capitol Architecture Committee she let a group of her cronies tear down the statue of Christopher Columbus on the Capitol mall, and then made sure their leader and token arrestee was “sentenced” to teach kids about the evils of Christopher Columbus.

Now that’s leadership.

Besides Walz (ahem), we’ve Ilhan Omar, Jacob Frey, and we’ve got late-breaking rumors that Leigh Finke is mulling throwintg Leigh Finke’s hat into the ring:

MInnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon apparently shares a platitude writer with Tim Walz:

Same person? Different? hard to say – but they share a certain – uh…

…factual incoherence?

The DFL’s strategy in the tied MN House appears to be “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks”.

Case in point:

They’re certainly not dialing back the crazy.

Keith Ellison is going to spend millions of taxpayer dollars defending the state against a Federal Title IX rule!

“In Minnesota, participation and eligibility of transgender student-athletes is determined by state law, through the Minnesota Human Rights Act and the Minnesota Constitution. The Minnesota State High School League, similar to other youth sports organizations, is subject to state anti-discrimination laws, which prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. Therefore, students in Minnesota are allowed to participate consistent with their gender identity. League Member Schools have done excellent work in respecting students and their individual situations as they determine their participation and eligibility within interscholastic sports.

Look – the DFL just discovered the 10th Amendment!

While the fracas in the MN House is getting all the attention, the DFL is having to battle for their electoral lives in the Senate, where their one-vote rests on Senator Nicole Mitchell.

The reasoning is getting clearer and clearer:

Becker County Attorney Brian McDonald added a second burglary charge Monday against state Sen. Nicole Mitchell focusing on items she had with her when police encountered her stepmother’s home in April 2024 in Detroit Lakes….Mitchell’s case was supposed to go to trial in late January, but her defense team invoked a Minnesota law saying lawmakers cannot be required to attend court proceedings during a legislative session. That delayed Mitchell’s case until June and possibly later, depending on when the 2025 session wraps.

The new complaint includes more details about her alleged interaction with police. It says Mitchell told an officer “I’m just hoping this mistake won’t completely f*** up my life” and that she voiced alarm about affecting her military retirement.

She’s gonna leave the Senate, one way or another, and while two tied chambers isn’t any bigger of a hassle for the Governor and DFL and their agenda than one tied chamber, Woodbury isn’t so utterly safe that they can take anything for granted. 

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

Mistakes were made.  Nobody could have known.  Can’t we just move on?

Written for Canada but the same lesson applies to Minnesota.  

Joe Doakes

Open the tweet to read the whole thing. 

And pass it around. Forgiveness without atonement is a litlte hollow.

A US District Judge in Mississippi rules that the ban on fully-automatic weapons violates the Bruen decision.

He wasn’t happy about it – but he made the ruling:

In his ruling, Judge Carlton Reeves, an Obama appointee, made no bones at all about the fact that he hated what he was doing, but under Bruen — of which he is also not a fan — the law is very clear.

The Supreme Court has, of course, ruled that gun control laws like the machinegun ban can be justified in the case of firearms that are “dangerous and unusual.” Judge Reeves, however, ruled that while machineguns are dangerous, they are not, in fact, unusual. And we can thank the work product of the great legal minds of the US Department of Justice for their failure to argue that machineguns are rare. As the judge noted . . .

Bruen nevertheless tells us that there is an American “historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’” 597 U.S. at 21 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 626). That is the law to be followed. The ultimate problem for the government, then, is this: although machineguns are “dangerous,” it does not explain how machineguns are unusual.  …

The Morgan case raised by Mr. Brown says there were more than 740,000 machineguns lawfully possessed in the United States in 2021. 2024 WL 3936767, at *4 (citing ATF data). The government has not pointed to any other number. The Court accepts it as true.

Seven hundred and forty thousand is no small number.7  The government presents no argument or explanation for why such a large figure is somehow not common. Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines common as, among other things, “widespread.”8 Three-quarters of a million of any kind of firearm is plainly widespread. 

The government also failed to show any historical evidence that banning machineguns would be consistent with gun laws at the founding.

It appears the legal and legislative sharks are circling the National Firearms Act.

Don’t get irrationally exuberant just yet:

Let’s be clear here. This ruling came in a criminal case and applies only to Justin Brown. Don’t head over to your local gun store expecting to buy full auto M4 any time soon.

The question now is, what happens next…whether or not the DOJ chooses to appeal the case to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Yes, the Fifth is probably the most gun-friendly circuit in the nation. But they’ve also ruled in the past that machineguns are both dangerous and unusual. That, however, was before Bruen. And you can bet that if the Brown decision is appealed, the DOJ will come up with arguments supporting its contention that guns with giggle-switches are, in fact, rare.

 

So it’s too early to start shopping.

But not window-shopping.

I am intermittently concerned that Big Left might eventually learn the lessons of this past election. 

And then I see things like this:

…and I’m at least a little less concerned about the mid-terms.

…is law-abiding citizens buying guns at gun shows. 

Not guys like this:

For those who don’t scroll down in these attached Tweets:

Thompson was sentenced to a “mandatory” 5 years for felon in possession of a firearm in Sept. 2023.

[counts on fingers and toes…] that means he should still be in prison, right??

Nope, not in Minnesota. He was released early by the UNELECTED MNDOC Commissioner Paul Schnell (appointed by Timmy) after just one year, in Oct. 2024, despite the fact that he’s a repeat violent offender, who already had THREE prior convictions on gun cases, including machine gun possession.

Wonder if he took a “universal” background check?

Joe Doakes formerly of Como Park emails:

The President issues Executive Orders which apply to the whole nation.  Opponents shop around for a sympathetic judge to block the orders.A federal judge for the District of Massachusetts blocked the federal employee buy-out offer at the request of employee unions.

A federal judge for the Western District of Washington blocked the Executive Order against birthright citizenship.

One federal judge for the District of Columbia has blocked the DOGE team from scrutinizing Treasury Department payments, and a different one in that district has blocked release of the names of FBI agents assigned to the J6 investigation. 

And that’s just in the last two weeks.  The Trump administration faced 22 nation-wide injunctions in his first term.

How can we have a nation of fair and impartial equal justice under the law, if judges in random jurisdictions can overturn the law of the whole land at whim? 

Justice Thomas criticized the practice of nation-wide injunctions in Trump v. Hawaii, saying, “. . . if their popularity continues, this Court must address their legality.”  Seems to me that time has come.

Joe Doakes

That time has definitely come.

Just in time for Christmas – and President’s Day [1] – the Governor Walz action figure!

Pull the string on his back to hear ten realistic-sounding phrases! –

• “One Minnesota!”
• “While billionaires feed their greed, we’re feeding kids!”

…and, like 6-8 more! [2]

Also – realistic “deer in the headlights” look when you ask him a question!

Corn dog, smart phone and DFL Comms Brodude sold separately.

[1] Too soon?

[2] Updates may be required.

I wasn’t surprised to see Ken Martin get elected as chair of the DNC.

And since David “Boss” Hogg threw his lot in with the Piglet last summer, I figured if Martin won, Hogg was on his way to, er, “bigger better” things at the DNC.

I was…er, right, sort of.

So the Democrats have decided to cling to the worst of their coalition, and to forefront it. Friedrich Hayek once pointed out that the problem with all large, powerful, nondemocratic institutions — particularly those with left-wing underpinnings — is that empirically, the worst inevitably tend to get on top. It is the nature of the machine, a product of its operation and existing incentive structures. Which is why I re-emphasize how unsurprising David Hogg’s political ascent to internally elected power has been: Given the party’s sclerotically hidebound decision-making apparatus, of course the DNC would find itself turning to someone like Hogg in a desperate attempt to connect with the “youth vote.” David Hogg is an old person’s idea of a young person.

He wrote it so I don’t have to.

Melissa Hortman folded her hand yesterday, and said the House DFL would come back to work.   Lisa Demuth is the Speaker, and the GOP controls the committees, at least until after the 40B Special on March 11. 

There are a few Republicans – largely from the crowd that thinks “Minnesota Gun Rights” is an actual gun rights group in Minnesota – who think it was a defeat for the GOP. 

Let’s let a DFLer address that:

For someone who’s gotten a little fatalistic about Minnesota Republicans screwing every pooch that can be screwed, it was a very good day.   This is not your fathers House GOP Caucus. 

More please.

This is an update of a post I ran in 2014

Today would be Ronald Reagan’s 114th birthday.

I’ve been writing about Reagan – who, along with PJ O’Rourke, Solzhenitzyn, Dostoevskii, my college English advisor and Paul Johnson is the reason I’m a conservative today – as long as this blog has been in existence.  His eight years were not perfect, and I don’t beatify my presidents, even if they’ve been out of office for almost forty years.  His last term wasn’t as stellar as his first, and his last two years were very difficult.

Still and all, he was the greatest president of the second half of the 20th Century.

But in these difficult times, after (in effect) three terms of a President who promoted  fear and malaise in the guise of “change” and “doing something”, it’s worth remembering Reagan’s example; when times seemed at their most dire, Reagan walked onto the scene with a smile and a vision, and a backbone of steel, and cleaned up the mess lefty by his failed predecessors – something Donald Trump needs even more, today.

And the most important part? He did it by unleashing something that many thought was dead – the inner, optimistic, take-charge greatness of the American spirit.

Ten years ago, I wrote “the best we can hope for from President Trump is that he approaches the job with the same tenacity to match his vision that Reagan had.” The first term was a mixed bag. This past two and a half weeks – well, so far so good. 206 weeks go go.

Oh, there are those who say “today’s GOP wouldn’t nominate Reagan!” – to which I respond with a contemptuous sigh, before telling the critic to listen to “A Time for Choosing”, and tell me who Reagan more resembles; Arne Carlson, or Scott Walker?

There are also conservatives who pick out their favorite issue – debt, abortion – and ask “what did Reagan ever do for us?”  

Remember – Reagan never controlled Congress.  Republicans controlled the Senate for his first six years, but they were by no means a rubber stamp.   The Democrats controlled the House all eight years, and seized the Senate in 1987.   Trump controlled both houses in 2017, and he does again today; it’s narrow, but it’s more than Reagan had to work with.  Reagan knew he had only so much political capital, and focused it all on his two major issues – defeating the USSR, and reviving the economy.

He succeeded wildly at both.

I’m imagining what Reagan might have done if he’d had Trump’s circumstances – control of Congress and the SCOTUS and that combination of first-term energy and second-term “I don’t have to worry about getting re-elected, so I’m gonna mix stuff up”.

Reagan’s gone. But that spirit, the one he understood, almost alone among American politicans of his era, lives on in the American people. Most of it, anyway.

So Happy Reagan’s Birthday, everyone!

Not sure what reminded me, but today is this blog’s 23rd birthday. 

It’s kind of amazing how life evolves – too slowly to perceive, yet startling, even overwhelming over time. 

On February 5, 2002, I was a fairly newly-single parent, working at a company that was visibly circling the drain faster and faster every day.  My kids were 10 and 9 years old.  I wasn’t adrift,  per se – “overwhelmed” is probably a better word. 

I was reading Time magazine at my desk over lunch hour, and I tripped into an article about the new generation of conservative intellectuals, focusing on Andrew Sullivan, who was probably the first big-name “conservative” “celebrity” blogger.  A sidebar explained what a “blog” was, and gave a URL to “Blogger.com”. 

Which I followed, that night, after the kids went to bed.  I started writing that night, and 23 years later, I haven’t stopped. 

The first two years of Shot in the Dark are long lost.  The next two are a little tenuous. But I’ve been writing on this platform, WordPress, since 2006.   I need a big of a technical facelift – I’m praying for a two day blizzard that’d justify me spending that kind of non-work time at my desk. 

My kids are now a tad older than I was when they were born.   My career – which seemed fragile and tenuous 23 years ago – has worked out pretty well.  Better than that company did, anyway.  The blog morphed into the Northern Alliance of Blogs, where I met King, Ed, Chad, Brian, Atomizer, JB, John HInderaker and Scott Johnson and, eventually, the first real-life social circle I’d had in a long, long time. 

Life moves slow – usually. Starting this blog 23 years ago today kicked off one of the bigger, better evolutions in mine.  And for that – and all of you – I’m thankful. 

So why is the DFL fighting everything so hard this year?

As we’ve noted in the past, the DFL has been in the minority before.  And they never reacted like they are today. 

So while acknowledging all the usual caveats – anonymous sources, citing even more anonymous connections, etc – read this entire thread anyway:

Presuming it’s true – it smacks of plausibility – then USAID is just a huge money-transfer machine, slapping altruistic facades onto over-the-top grifts to launder taxpayer money to the non-profit/industrial complex.

Looking at the freneticism and bile of the attacks on DOGE, Musk and the effort to tame USAID, it looks like it’s struck a nerve.

So – imagine what’ll happen if a Republican gets into the executive branch in Minnesota ever again?   Or gets enough power in the legislature to do some serious digging and publicizing?

If a Minnesota version of DOGE – perhaps the “Office of Minnesota Internal Graft, Abuse and Waste Detection” – were to get free reign to find where Governors Dayton and Walz and their non-profit/industrial complex handlers hid the bodies?

I suspect this list would get a lot bigger -and that that is why the DFL is squawking so hard this time