As I write this, Kamala Harris’s lead in the Real Clear Politics average has shrunk to under a point, while Trump’s lead in the seven battleground states that’ll likely decide the election is approaching a point. That’s all within the margin of error – but polls tend to undercount Trump, and he’s outperforming both his previous bouts.
So, yes, Trump will be elected as the 47th president of the United States, and the liberal talking heads will melt down just as they did in 2016. But what matters most is what happens after the election, and whether the experience of Americans will reflect renewed prosperity, a safer world, and respect for tradition and common sense. Many will try to prevent that, but making America great again should be a unifying goal. “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”
I’m not sure the Democrats can let the nation have a peaceful, prosperous four years without repercussions.
I don’t need a lot of reasons not to vote for Kamala Harris next week. I’ve documented many of them.
She’s vapid.
World leaders – the ones that aren’t really just French or British or German version of her, anyway (including the Cartel leaders, who are the de facto leaders of Mexico and are world leaders in a sense in their own right) – have contempt for her, and are clearly drooling at the things they’ll be able to get away with if the American people screw this up.
The policies she does support are disasters, for the economy, liberty and the American republic.
She’s not a lot better at assembling a coherent thought than Biden, or go offscript without screwing up than Trump.
And that’s enough.
But it ain’t everything.
She’s got a pretty tenuous grasp of right and wrong.
The LIttle Girl Who Cried “Hitler”
Out of useful ideas, the Giggles/Piglet camaign is resorting to perhaps the Dems’ most loathsome trope: their opponents are “Nazis” and “Fascists”.
Auschwitz Survivor, Jerry Wartski: “I know more about Hitler than Kamala will ever know in a thousand lifetimes. For her to accuse President Trump of being like Hitler is the worst thing I've ever heard in my 75 years of living in the United States." pic.twitter.com/KXwCr9Gz8L
I stay pretty relentlessly civil – but there is nothing more loathsome, in part because it trivializes one of the most evil ideologies in history to try to win votes from stupid people.
For which she should rot.
Then there’s the little matter of her own little problem with authoritarianism.
“My Authoritaaaaaaaaah”
Giggles clearly enjoys the perks – the power – of being in office.
And flexing that power – especially against those who can’t defend themselves against her:
One of the most brutal ads you’ve ever seen against a politician. Wow. Just watch. 🔥🔥🔥 https://t.co/pPhtYARzwJ
During a hearing to repeal abortion regulations, including protections for infants who survive abortions, Rep. Scott asks Rep. Liebling when a baby becomes a human. Rep Liebling calls the question “completely irrelevant.” pic.twitter.com/Il8oCUODcH
SCENE: Mitch BERG is glueing a board full of protruding tacks under the surface of a May Lor Xiong campaign sign, when Avery LIBRELLE rides up in an even weirder looking recumbent.
LIBRELLE: Merg!
BERG: (Visibly stifling annoyance): Oh, hey, Av…
LIBRELLE: Shut up. “Trump held a rally in the same place where they held…”
BERG: “Several Democrat national conventions?”
LIBRELLE: “No, it was…”
BERG: Several nights of the most recent Billy Joel tours?
LIBRELLE: No, it was…
BERG: Several Democrat national conventions, including both of Jimmy Carter’s nominations and Bill Clinton’s 1992 coronation?
LIBRELLE: Knock it off!
BERG: Led Zeppelin had a concert there. They filmed it. I think it was called…
LIBRELLE: Don’t!
BERG: “The Triumph Of The Will Remains The Same!”
LIBRELLE: I hate you.
BERG: “The all-star 1979 ‘No Nukes’ concerts?”
LIBRELLE: “NO! It was…”
BERG: I got it! Where former GOP presidential candidate Wendell Willkie led 20,000 African Americans in June, 1943 in the largest Civil Rights rally of its era, calling for equal rights and for victory against Hitler.
Walter Hudson is a first-term representative from Albertville. He’s been in the minority his entire legislative career – so has been able to have relatively little legislative impact.
And. yet the DFL is spending a lot of effort trying to sandbag him – clipping one of his speeches out of context (maybe more on that next week, and possibly on the show this weekend)…
…scant weeks before joining the team that defenestrated the POTATUS for being to senile to campaign (but not hold the nuclear football until late January).
Shooting at steel targets – at 10 yards. That’s pretty much guaranteed to richochet.
Eye protection? Kinzinger apparently wanted to protect his hairdo.
Oh, yeah – they had a box of Tannerite on the firing line. If that ricochet had hit that instead of the reporter, it would have made a bigger headline than a boom.
Here’s hoping that reporter’s insurance company takes Kunce to court (I have little. hope he’d do it of his own volition).
So – how is that battle for blue-collar guys going?
[1] UPDATE: I’m told the title is “JAG Officer”, short for Judge Advocate General Officer, or military lawyer.
A newly released analysis of fiscal policy ranked all 50 states with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ state coming in first and Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in last.
The libertarian Cato Institute released the report, which graded states by spending, revenue and taxes. The top ten states in the rankings starting at the top are Iowa, Nebraska, West Virginia, Arkansas, South Dakota, Montana, Hawaii, Georgia, Idaho, and Vermont…
In 2019, Walz’s budget would have added ‘$2 billion more in new spending and taxes would increase by $1.3 billion to pay for it, with the rest of the money coming from an existing surplus.’ But he compromised with the legislature, and the final tax increase was about $330 million annually. Walz also pushed for higher gas taxes and higher vehicle fees to raise about $1 billion annually for transportation, but those increases were rejected.
Walz pushed for more tax hikes in 2021. He proposed adding a new individual income tax rate of 10.85 percent above the current top rate of 9.85 percent, a surtax on capital gains and dividends, and a hike to the corporate tax rate from 9.8 percent to 11.25 percent. The proposals—which would have raised about $1.6 billion annually—were rejected by the legislature…
Walz hit the middle class with HF 2887, which raised taxes and fees on vehicles and transportation. The increases included indexing the gas tax for inflation, increasing vehicle registration taxes, raising fees on deliveries, and raising sales taxes in the Twin Cities area.
SCENE: In a conference room at the MN DFL headquarters. Chair Ken Martin is sitting along one side of the table with Gretel STROMBERG and Inge “Lucky” CARROLL, the executive director and chief social media meme-buffer at “Minnesotans United for All Conservative Causes”, the state’s primary non-profit political action committee that is no way, no how connected with the DFL, you racist pig. Across the table sits Chad MANBUNFRONDSON, upper midwest outreach director for the Harris/Walz campaign.
MANBUNFRONDSON: So here’s the new ad we’re thinking to get out the vote in Minnesota.
(MARTIN, CARROLL and STROMBERG look at each other. The silence is a little awkward).
MARTIN (finally): It’s pure genius!
(CARROLL and STROMBERG applaud politely in the background)
MANBUNFRONDSON: We just figured that after seeing her husband’s performance during Covid, where treating the state like a bunch of addled infants for 19 months got him re-elected, that we literally couldn’t go broke betting on the stupidity of MInnesotans.
STROMBERG and CARROLL (simultaneously): You got that right.
MANBUNFRONDSON: So, presuming the media vetted the Governor and his wife sufficiently…
(MARTIN, CARROLL and STROMBERG look awkwardly at each other. before bursting out laughing. MANBUNFRONSON, late to the joke, joins them).
MANBUNFRONSON: (Catching is breath) Yeah, I know. No matter how often I come here, I still can’t get used to this place.
MARTIN (Summoning a butler with a clap of his hands): Let’s celebrate!
And People can vote for whoever they want to. It’s still a fairly free country.
But I’ve had a few people in my circle say they’re voting for Harris and Walz to “save democracy”.
When I read that ,I try to grasp how much one must ignore – willfully or not – to believe that Harris and Walz [2] support the American republican (small-r) system of popular, federalist government.
How do I count the ways?
1. Harris wants to abolish the Filibuster.
So what, you say? The filibuster gets in the way of “Getting things done?”
That’s the point. Most of what makes America great is that unless there is *overwhelming* agreement about something, it’s either going to get watered down, or just go away.
And that’s a good thing – a 50%+1 vote majority can’t jam everything it wants down on the other 49%. Both sides are *accountable*, and both sides *matter*.
WIthout the filibuster, the US will turn into France or Greece – with policies seesawing back and forth with changes in power.
Getting rid of the filibuster destroys a key pillar of trying to run a country where people don’t necessarily always agree with, or even like, each other.
Governor Walz, for his part, ran a snitch line, and signed into law a “thoughtime database”. There is no way for a citizen to get *into* the database or find out what’s in it.
It’s not just Harris, and it isn’t just statements from 2019:
Which is, literally, a promise to disinform the public.
If a Republican had done anything of the sort, Democrats would be screaming about the “chilling effect on dissent and democracy” that is.
*And they’d be right*.
3. Harris supports gutting the 2nd and 4th Amendments.
Since you’ll ask – the 1st and 2nd Amendments *are* litmus tests to me. How someone treats your right to speak, your freedom of conscience, to organize, and to protect your life, family, property, community and freedom, tells you a lot about how they’d treat other civil rights.
My whole life, the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has been left-of-center or (from about 2000 to 2017) pretty much deadlocked. Democrats were fine with that – “elections have consequences”. So we conservatives got some good SCOTUS appointments – and the Democrats are going crazy:
https://kamalaharris.com/issues/
“[Harris] will also support common-sense Supreme Court reforms—like requiring Justices to comply with ethics rules that other federal judges are bound by and imposing term limits—to address the crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court.”
And who’s going to enforce those rules and limits?
The executive branch.
The Supreme Court, which is supposed to check and balance the power of the Executive and Legislative branches, will become subordinate to the President; the executive branch will be able to yank the leash of any justice that displeases them.
If you don’t think that’s a direct attack on how “democracy” is run, I’d love to hear how.
The Electoral College (EC), along with the structure of the Senate, was part of the agreement that smaller states – Delaware, Rhode Island, Vermont – made with the bigger ones (Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York) to ensure that American “democracy” wouldn’t turn into the equivalent of “two foxes and a chicken voting on what’s for breakfast”.
Without the EC, the President will always be decided by California, New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas and maybe Ohio. There will be no need for Presidential candidates to even show up outside those states.
And it’d violate the contract by which the smaller states agreed to share power with the Federal Government. And what happens when you violate a contract? [3]
6. And all of that is just about “protecting democracy itself”.
It doesn’t get into the many other reasons I could never support Harris or Walz.
– A foreign policy that *enables and encourages* the likes of Xi, Putin and the Mullahs. Diplomacy only works if it’s combined with the sense that there’s a nasty surprise behind it. Harris – the “last person in the room” – has been involved in more Biden administration fiascoes than any human should be allowed to; the Afghan collapse, Ukraine (Biden publicly told Putin he could invade *just a little* [4]), and the conflagration in the MIddle East (hint: saying “Israel has a right to exist, BUT they need to give Hamas and Hezb’allah a cease fire so they can re-arm, reorganize and try to exterminate Jews again later is *not* a coherent policy).
(Trump, for all his flaws, brought more progress than the Middle East has seen since 1978. Harris and Biden are benefitting, btw, from that – the fact that the Saudis, Egyptians and Jordan aren’t joining in with Iran against the Israelis is something kind of new.)
And for all the palaver about Trump “disrespecting” NATO, it served its purpose – starting NATO on the path toward becoming a serious defensive military alliance, rather than yet another bureaucratic salon.
Look, Trump is far from perfect – I didn’t vote for him in 2016, and I remain a Trump skeptic on many levels. I can’t stand his personality cult (or any personality cult in politics).
But January 6 was a riot, and even the FBI has cleared Trump of any substantial involvement. His statements about the 2020 election were way out of line…
…BUT even if Trump *was* trying to undercut democracy, our federalist system *did its job*, exactly as designed. In the grand scheme of things, nothing Trump did (or was alleged to have done) affected the handover of power, or the functioning of our institutions.
But the things Harris is proposing [5]? They WOULD change how our democracy works. Very much for the worse. They are a bigger threat to American self-government than anything Trump did, and certainly more than anything he’s *seriously(* proposed doing [6].
Joy doesn’t keep the world safe. Brat vibes don’t put food on the table. The American federalist system is stronger than mean tweets.
So I’m voting for Trump – *to protect our democracy”.
(PS – I’m a relentlessly civil guy. But responding with one of those passive-aggressive “laugh” emojis is going to get you called out).
[1] But everyone else is doing it, so sue me. Not literally, of course. It’s still a free-ish country – Walz’s “thoughtcrime” database notwithstanding.
[2] When I say “Harris” or “Walz”, I’m also including plenty of prominent Democrats who are likely to be influential in any administration they run.
[3] “Haha, Merg. That was settled in 1865!”. Well, no. It was settled in 1776.
[4] The “Just the tip” of diplomacy – and as we’ve seen this past two years, it’s worked about as well on the world stage as it did after prom.
[5] Saying “That was 2019! She’s changed!” ain’t gonna cut it. She herself says “My principles haven’t changed”. And if you’re holding things Trump said in 2006, in completely different contexts, against him, we need to have a word about this.
[6] And if you come back and say “he SAID he wants to be a dictator on day one!”, that was yet another dishonest edit. He’s going to roll back a slew of Biden executive orders, and reinstate a few of his own – all legitimate Presidential duties. Getcher shinebox.
SCENE: Mitch BERG is walking to a GOP fundraiser in one of the Twin Cities. He walks around a corner and almost slams into a distracted Avery LIBRELLE.
BERG: Er, excuse me…oh, hi, Aver…
LIBRELLE: Shut up Merg. Drumpf did a completely fake staged appearance at that McDonalds!
BERG: Huh. A politician doing a staged, fake appearance for purely political reasons?
LIBRELLE: Yes and…hey, the world is going cloudy. What’s up?
The driver got fired – but the story hasn’t quite gone away yet.
Secretary of State Simon rained down his anger…
…on the courier.
I just talked to MN Sec of State Steve Simon who didn’t hold back in his criticism of the courier who left Hennepin County ballots unattended for nearly 10 minutes in an open vehicle on Friday. Says he was “upset” that “one bonehead” put trust in our election system at risk. pic.twitter.com/jiCG0t7nP9
But it turns out, the bonehead was anyone who believed Steve Simon when he said Minnesota had the bestest, mostest sucurest election system in the universe.
This is a violation of the law that Simon is supposed to enforce:
Forget for a moment that this episode occurred on the orders of Bill Clinton’s disastrous Attorney General, to placate Fidel Castro (who is no way no how Justin Trudeau’s father).
It’s also crap; employer ID verification backed with police enforcement will do the vast majority of the deporting, as people head back south of the border to avoid trouble.
Just like they did after 2017.
(This could, one day, be a Minnesota Highway Patrolman grabbing a kid whose custodial mom wants to trans him, from his father…)
For a while, after winning complete lopsided electoral sweeps in Minneapolis or Saint Paul, the DFL victory parties would break out into chanting the line in the title.
Ownership has its privileges, as they way – but local DFLers sure seem to be squiggling away from any responsibility for that ownership.
A friend of the blog emails:
It was a town hall meeting to talk about the mess that is the Hamline Midway Neighborhood. The question was what is the city doing with Snelling University. The corner is so trashy, there is litter everywhere.
Our council member for the area, Mitra Jalali, proposes that the priority is trees and bicycle lanes.
She says it’s either that or a place for people to park their cars.
I mean, I suppose if we eventually get rid of all of the residents and businesses in the area, then no people will be there, thereby eliminating litter.
But, I have to believe, looking towards the thriving areas of St Louis Park’s West End or the shopping area in Eagan that Jalali is probably prioritizing the wrong thing.
All of Melo’s reporting of quotes on X from that meeting are pretty entertaining as the elected people try to dodge any responsibility for where we are today in St Paul.
This tweet is one from a rather large thread on the meeting. Worth a read.
Thats right, Councilwoman Jalali – it’s the design of the streets.
I’m adding emphasis to this next bit:
Worth looking at- Sandy Pappas saying she actually rides Green Line (but was getting a ride home from husband after the meeting). Leigh Finke saying that millions of dollars were given to DNR for trees and “they spent it in outstate which didn’t need it” so this year, gave “even more money” to Met Council “who has to spend it in the metro area.”
Yup, our problems are not enough trees …
Until the city gets serious about crime, drug-dealing, vagrancy and vandalism – all of which are epidemic at Snelling and University – the new trees would just serve as canvasas for taggers.
Sort of like that freaking Loon at the southwest corner of the intersection.
When a hurricane like Helene or Milton ravages coastal communities, already-strained first responders face a novel, and growing, threat: the lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles, e-bikes, and countless gadgets. When exposed to the salty water of a storm surge, they are at risk of bursting into flames — and taking an entire house with them.
“Anything that’s lithium-ion and exposed to salt water can have an issue,” said Bill Morelli, the fire chief in Seminole, Florida, and the bigger the battery, the greater the threat. That’s what makes EVs especially hazardous. “[The problem] has expanded as they continue to be more and more popular….”
“…“They burn hot, they burn fast, and they’re hard to extinguish,” Morelli said.
Can’t wait until someone does a comparative study about how EVs and gas cars compare when stranded in blizzards.
In 2015, I spent some time in Detroit on a business trip.
And even then, before Covid, downtown Detroit felt…vibrant. Fun. There was stuff going on in the evening. There were places to go, things to do, people around and about.
Companies were paying people good money to buy or rent downtown and walk to work.
Things felt pretty decent…
…in about a square mile downtown. [1]
Go outside that square mile or two and it became…well, Detroit.
But I come not to praise Detroit, but to bury WUPHs – White Urban Progressive Homers, people who tie their identities so close to their cities that it squeezes out all humor, and all thought itself.
As President, Donald Trump failed Detroit. Now he has the audacity to talk smack about our city, again. pic.twitter.com/jZWFq1uS4q
Every two years she dusts off the ads with her four-wheeling around the back roads of her district, hanging out with the good ol’ boys in LeSeuer County, trying to appear “moderate”.
Remember Yusuf Haji?
Probably not. He’s running for Dakota County Commission.
Seems pretty innocent, right?
Turns out Haji’s got friends in low – and left-wing – places:
MInd you, this is in the same community that just had two cops and a firefighter killed by someone who would have been in jail but for the DFL’s other dilution of the criminal justice system.
Thing is, this area – the DakCo Commission, the various House districts (Gabriela Kroetsch is a strong GOP challenger in HD55A), and of course Angie Craig is vulnerable enough that this district is considered a plausibly contested race.
So if you live in the south burbs, don’t be fooled. Haji is a Moriarty – and Angie Craig is sucking up to the radical fringe that is no longer a fringe in this metro.
A little more seriously? I didn’t get fooled by the “Red Wave” hype two years ago – I’m never quite that optimistic – but there’s a difference in the air these days:
20 days until Election Day! Here’s how the 2024 presidential race looks compared to the same date during the 2020 and 2016 elections, according to the RCP poll averages. pic.twitter.com/hscPfzV9wl
I actually wrote this post during the last session – one of those “let’s make sure it doesn’t go down the memory hole” things.
And while the DFL sure seems proud of what they did, they get quiet about it when talking with audiences outside Minnesota, now that the Piglet is running for Veep.
JD Vance’s visit to the Third Precinct brought out, if not the worst of the plagues facing today’s Minnesota, at least the most comical: the WUPH.
The White Urban Progressive Homer. Generally a 20-30-something male, employed in the non-profit, public or academic sector, part of the laptop class, single, socially mobile, mostly self-focused.
And they seem to obsess relentlessly about the zipcode they live in – or at least parts of it:
Restaurants on the same intersection JD is standing (and talking about a "city in decline"): Du Nord Cocktail Room Lagniappe (creole) Arbeiter Brewing Hook & Ladder (music/shows) Zen Arcade (marijuana) Loncheria Los Amigos Wendy's Raising Cane's Mr. Momo Quruxley (Somali) https://t.co/DKei9BBvNl
Here’s a lake thats been here since before there were humans in Minnesota. Therefore everything in Minneapolis is fine. Go about your business, peasant!
You know how they say the worst, most arrogant condescending New Yorkers are the ones that were born in Albany?
A get a little of that vibe from the WUPH – people who seem to think a place’s natural beauty and social amenities impart worth on people who live there is…
Baldamar is my secret suburban restaurant where no one ever knows me, so I go there sometimes and eat by myself at the bar and pretend I am mysterious
Which, to my New York example, is about as parochial as the Lutheran church gossips in the basements of the churches in Woodbury and Forest lake that I suspect so many WUPHs originally come from in the first place.
Martha Raddatz, on behalf of all media/Democrats (pardon the redundancy) re Venezuelan gangs: “Hey, it’s a big country. Let’s keep things in perspective!
Raddatz: "The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complexes… A handful."
Vance: "Do you hear yourself? Only a HANDFUL of apartment complexes were taken over by Venezuelan gangs and Donald Trump is the problem??"pic.twitter.com/6PlNAPur8y
Also Martha Raddatz, on behalf of all media/Democrats (pardon the redundancy) if five self-identified Boogaloo Boys are seen hiking in the woods somewhere in northwest Georgia: “Lets examine this wave of white supremacist terror threatening our social fabric”
Also also Martha Raddatz, on behalf of all media/Democrats (pardon the redundancy) if a group of Venezuelans, criminal or otherwise, moved into her neighborhood: “Hello, Servicemaster? I need an exterminator…”
Some people are now calling you a “lame duck” president — but then it occurred to me today: You’re not done. You’ve still got 100 days left in office! And the Supreme Court has just granted you super powers — AND immunity! You don’t answer to anyone. For the first time in over 50 years, you don’t have to campaign for anything. You are the opposite of lame, Joe. And you are not a duck. You, sir, are the President of the United States of America, and for the next 100 days, you have tremendous power. The only people you have to answer to is us. The people who put you there. You have an extraordinary opportunity to make a whole bunch of things happen. Great things. Important things. With a simple stroke or two of your presidential pen, you can make life better for millions of people in ways you never would’ve dreamed possible. You will leave the White House a hero.
So I’ve put together a list — a Bucket List for Scranton Joe — of executive actions that you can legally take today or any day until January 20, 2025.
It’s Michael Moore – Flint Michigan’s own wannabe Mussolini.
And in case you didn’t want to read the whole piece (it’s probably the right call, other than sociologically), here’s where he wants POTATUS to wave his magic wand and do, via executive order, before leaving office, Constitution be damned:
Declare the ERA the 28th Amendment. I never knew the President could unilaterally do that…
Cancel all student loan debt, now. SCOTUS be damned.
Cancel all medical debt. Hey, why not unilaterally repudiate all national debt?
Close Guantanamo Bay. OK, that’s something he could legally do. Not that it’s a good idea, but he could .
End the embargo on Cuba. It’s “to free our souls”. Because the UN General assembly demanded it – and who has a better hotline to “our souls” than the body where Sudan lectures the US on human rights?
Force a truce in Israel: It’s only sporting to give Hamas time to re-arm, after all.
End the war in Ukraine. Hey, there’s an idea. As Moore says, Biden should “use” his “foreign policy knowledge and prowess“. Where was this advice three years ago?
Empty Federal Death Row. . Note: Suddenly, Moore cares about what Popes say.
Free Leonard Peltier. You’d think the Innocence Project would tackle that case. And yet they have not.
Pardon Edward Snowden. Huh. You mean, expose Obama-era misconduct? Remember, fat boy – drapes don’t have shoes.
Pardon the self-rightous “nuns” who vandalized a Minuteman missile. See #9, above.
Ban Spam texts. Eureka!
Grant clemency to non-violent drug offenders. Now he’s starting to sound like Trump.
