I’m trying to imagine the depths of Kamala Harris’s, er, nuance when it comes to civil liberties.  Perhaps…:

“It’s a false choice to say you support free speech, or censorship. I am in favor of the First Amendment, and I support a disinformation ban, licensing the press, and Governor Walz’s thoughtcrime database, like when I was born into the middle class!”

Or maybe…:

“It’s a false choice say say you are either for or against the Fourth Amendment. I support the 4th Amendment – and I think cops shouldn’t have to ask for search warrants before tossing your house and car, unburdened by what has been.”

Hmmm. How about…:

“It’s wrong to say you either support or oppose the 5th Amendment. I support the 5th Amendment – but it makes life easier for our First Responders in the County Attorneys office if we presume people guilty until proven innocent, abolish juries and defense counsel”

Oh, was there even a need to guess?

Her principles are, in fact, as convenient as her ethics.

SCENE:  Mitch BERG is looking for arrowroot flour at a local co-op.  Moonbeam BIRKENSTOCK, a twenty-something graduate of Saint Olaf, and of Camp Wellstone. Moonbeam works as a telemarketer for “Minnesotans United for All Progressive Causes”, steps around the endcamp.

BIRKENSTOCK: Merg.

BERG:  Hey, Moonbeam. 

BIRKENSTOCK:  So Drumpf really stepped in it this time.

BERG: (With mock concern, tempered with a bit of fatigue). What?  Again?

BIRKENSTOCK: (Oblivious).  Yep.  Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala!

BERG:  You don’t say.  I mean, that was pretty much a foregone conclusion long ago. 

BIRKENSTOCK:  Yeah, but here’s the best part:  He insulted her!

BERG: Oooh. Bad. Really really bad.

BIRKENSTOCK:  This probably ends the race.

BERG: Well, it ends something, anyway:

Only 6% said it made them more likely to vote Harris, while 13% said it made them less likely to—though ABC News noted that those who responded negatively to the question were “overwhelmingly Trump supporters” (Forbes has reached out to ABC News and Ipsos for more data).

But the poll found Swift’s endorsement didn’t even help Harris much in the expected key demographic: Just 8% of women under 30 said they were more likely to support Harris, 13% said they were less likely and 78% said it made no difference.

 

BIRKENSTOCK. So why insult her and risk all those votes?

BERG:  Not sure it affected any votes that weren’t going to go to Harris anyway. 

BIRKENSTOCK:  Hah!  Young women are fierce and independent and…and…I just can’t…

BERG:  Shake it off.

 And SCENE

Last week, we talked about Gene Pelowski (DFL, HD26B) about his reservations about the DFL’s trifecta.

Now, retired GOP Senate leader (in both the majority and minority) Paul Gazelka is publishing a book about Tim Walz.

And it‘s not a flattering look (emphasis added):

During his time leading the Minnesota Senate, Gazelka had a front row seat to observe Gov. Walz’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 riots that occurred in Minneapolis, and many other facets of Walz’s time in office. As such, Gazelka has written a book documenting the “daily battles” he fought with Gov. Walz.

“Now that Governor Walz has been elevated to the national ticket, I believe I have a duty to inform the nation’s voters about Walz’s failed leadership record,” the former majority leader said in a statement. “For that reason, I moved up the release of my book that chronicles Walz’s missteps handling the pandemic, freezing under pressure during the George Floyd riots, mishandling the state budget and more.”

This oughtta be good.

Why yes, I will be interviewing the Senator on my show. Saturday, 2PM.

Hope you can tune in.

Find out more about Protect The Vote.

Also, find out more about absentee and early voting here and here.

And of course, here’s today’s music list:

Gene Pelowski – one of the few DFL house members in a relatively rural area, from HD26A, which is the very southeast corner of Minnesota – is retiring from office.

And he’s having second thoughts about the DFL’s trifecta:

On the one hand, I applaud, and approve. 

On the other – where was all this independence over the past two legislative sessions?

I get it – the DFL had a four vote majority, so being a single dissident would have no effect other than getting him mau-maued by his own caucus. 

One hopes the GOP can pick this distsrict up.

They warned me if I voted for Donald Trump, democracy would be in danger.

And they were right:

It’s the things they say when they are among friends that really illuminate.

Seen on Twitter:

If someone on the Trump campaign doesn’t turn this into a bumper sticker, it deserves to lose.

But it brought me back to something I talked about on the air the other day.

Hear me out.

The Minnesota Model

See how Kamala Harris has been campaigning?

• Evading all questioning
• Avoiding policy discussions
• Being as vague and gauzy as possible about the bits of policy they do talk about
• Slopping the public trough with an endless diet of soft-focus social media
• Letting the opposition research staff and media (pardon the redundancy) do the hard work?

Look familiar?

If you live in Minnesota, it should.  The Democrats have been trial-running this strategy since at least 2018. 

Do you remember Tim Walz and Peggy Flanagan ever talking about policy?

Other than soft-focus platitudes about “fully funding education”, “reducing poverty 30%”, “sending kids to school with full bellies” (puke), “One Minnesota!”, and even abortion policy?

The only record the Walz/Flanagan regime will leave to historians is the endless river of social media posts, dripping with platitudes and set-piece photos of Walz in his “regular guy” costume doing “regular guy” stuff, holding piglets and hugging kids and getting fed Pronto Pups by the Lieutenant Governor. 

Ditto Angie Craig, whose only public persona is the biennial off-road rally she throws in that stupid black Jeep. 

If you’re looking at Harris/Walz’s national campaign and not feeling deja vu, I’d love to know why. 

If Trump manages to win, and the DFL takes some setbacks, maybe the “Minnesota Model” of campaigning – evade questioning (or count on the media not bothering to ask them), slop the trough with an endless diet of gauzy social media holding piglets and being “brat” – will start reachind the end of its fifteen minutes.

Here’s some Kamala Harris “Brat Vibes” from her time as San Francisco DA:

Just because you have a gun in the sanctity of your locked home doesn’t mean we’re not going to walk into that home and check to see if you’re being responsible…

If you don’t find “ignoring the Fourth Amendment” absolutely disqualifying, I’m almost afraid to ask what you’ll let government get away with.

Berg’s 20th Law of Social Justice Warmongering reads as follows:

All incidents of “hate speech” not captured on video (involving being delivered by someone p roven not to be a ringer) shall be assumed to be hoaxes until proven otherwise.

Look – these laws, and the concept of “Berg’s Laws” themselves, were always intended to be tongue in cheek.

I didn’t expect them to be invariable truths.

And yet they very much seem to be. 

When I heard about the “flood of threats” descending on Springfield Ohio, I figured “Berg’s 20th Law is in effect”.

Was I right?

What do you think?

I don’t know my own strength.

The DFL and Media (should almost be one word, shouldn’t it) are howling about allegations of domestic abuse against a GOP legislator, six weeks before the election:

In 2008, Dotseth was arrested and charged with misdemeanor domestic assault and he later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct. In a sworn affidavit by his ex-wife when filing for divorce, she detailed years of alleged abuse, according to the newspaper, including that he allegedly kicked and choked her in one incident and in another, pinned her against a wall.

Anyone but me getting deja vu, here?

I’ll help you out – 2006, during Keith Ellison’s first run for Congress, when the Strib put out a hatchet piece against GOP congresisonal candidate Alan Fine, dredging up domestic abuse allegations from his first marriage, but never managed to add a few things to the story: there were no convictions, Fine got custody of their son, and the wife went on to get arrested later on for…domestic abuse.

I’ll wager a shiny new quarter the allegations were brought up by an ex-spouse and her sleazebag lawyer to try to put a thumb on the scales during a nasty divorce – which is far from unprecedented, and in fact likely accounts for a huge percentage of domestic abuse allegationws.  Husbands and fathers are guilty until proven innocent, at least as far as the media and political class are concerned – as we saw with Fine. And it’s why the story is coming out today.  

I say nobody should even talk about leaving a race until Keith Ellison comes clean about his own, much better-documented history, not to mention Nicole MItchell leaving office and Judd Hoff leaves his legislative race. 

My two cents: This story means one or both of two things:

• The race for the state legislature is closer than the DFL is letting on. .
• Some oppo researcher, somewhere, is about to drop a big domestic abuse allegation against a DFLer. 

Any action on that bet?

Look – it’s not like there’s any reason at all, ever, that I’d vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.   I am not better off than I was four years ago, and likely either are you. 

But in addition to the whole “communist” thing, she appears to have been exactly the kind of soulless bureacratic bean-counter and image-polisher that I excoriated here. 

Kamala learned well from her Marxist parents; you gotta break some coconuts to make an omelet unburdened by the brat that has been. 

Or something like that. 

During Covid, I spent a lot of time driving between Minnesota and North Dakota.

And I listened to both governors’ press conferences, back when those were a daily or weekly thing – in one case, back to back, Walz and Burgum.  And the contrast could not have been more stark: listening to Walz felt like I was back in elementary school, with a history teacher who was really more of a football coach talking, slowly, like he thought you were as dumb as one of the jocks on his offensive line.  Burgum, on the other hand, sounded like he knew he was addressing not just adults, but people he had to treat with some basic adult respect.

And after seeing this…

…it’s all starting to make sense to me.

Side note:  a joint press conference with Kamala Harris and Gwen Walz would drive the suicide rate into double digits.

While this appears to be pure fluff on the surface…

Minnesota Governor and 2024 Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz has built a reputation as a bit of a foodie, or maybe just someone who enjoys food of varying qualities. After all, he’s not always eating the most refined foods — he’s declared his love for diet Mountain Dew, corn dogs, and Minneapolis’ signature cheese-filled burger,the Juicy Lucy. He’s even won the Minnesota Congressional Delegation Hotdish Off multiple years for his truly Midwestern tater tot casserole. This love of deliciously decadent foods definitely gives him points for relatability, while his universal free lunch program for Minnesota kids poises him as an executive who believes everyone (especially children) has the right to eat regardless of income.
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At the end of August 2024, the display of Governor Walz’s gastronomic delights continued as he was shown on his YouTube channel ordering a mint chocolate chip shake at Cook Out in North Carolina. Led by North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, this was Walz’s first trip to the southern fast food chain. When asked what he thought of the shake, he replied, “It’s really good.” Maybe not the most glowing review, but he did appear to enjoy it, at least. (“Oh, my god,” he said in delight as he continued eating.)

…it it is no less incisive than the rest of the MSM coverage Governor Klink has gotten so far.

SCENE:  Mitch BERG is shopping at the Roseville Cub.  The one on Larpenteur, not the one at Har Mar.   He rounds the end-cap in the condiment aisle, and sees Avery LIBRELLE, Cat SCAT and Gutterball GARY.  Before he can backtrack, they notice him.

SCAT:  Hey, Merg.

BERG:  Uh…

GARY. We need to talk about voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

LIBRELLE:  Yes.  It’s time for a conversation. 

BERG:  A “conversation”.

SCAT:  Yes. 

BERG. OK.  But it’ll be a short “conversation”.   Harris and Walz are communists.  They’ll wreck the economy, trash civil liberties, throw the borders open thus crushing working Americans incomes, and give dictators from Putin to Xi to Khamenei free reign, while presiding over a “Lose Slowly” policy not only for the country, but for all of western civilization.

LIBRELLE:  Huh.

GARY:  OK.   You’ll need to change your mind, or this conversation will get “hard”.

(The three look menacingly at BERG).

BERG:  (Breaks out laughing, snorts in derision, walks away).

SCAT:  I think we got to him.

LIBRELLE:  Same.

And SCENE.

Another assassination attempt on Trump yesterday. 

Donald Trump was the target of what the FBI said “appears to be an attempted assassination” at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday, just nine weeks after the Republican presidential nominee survived another attempt on his life. The former president said he was safe and well, and authorities held a man in custody.

U.S. Secret Service agents stationed a few holes up from where Trump was playing noticed the muzzle of an AK-style rifle sticking through the shrubbery that lines the course, roughly 400 yards away.

 

Looks like eight years of “denormalizing Trump” is bearing fruit.

“Klan” leaflet with “German”-style type appearing “according to a pastor” in Springfield Ohio:

“Stamped Self-Addressed Envelope?”

Berg’s 20th Law governs:

All incidents of “hate speech” not captured on video (involving being delivered by someone proven not to be a ringer) shall be assumed to be hoaxes until proven otherwise.

Now, let’s take bets on how long it takes for the story to come out as a hoax. 

Closest without going over?

(And that German-style font?   Isn’t it just amazing how “white supremacists” are mouth-breathing cretins who also love to slip in sly historical illusions via graphic presentation?

John Nagel is running for the MN House in District 46A.

Kim Rich? He’s running for 46B

And Nathan Herschbach? If you’re in 53A, your mission is clear.

And here’s today’s music list. 

There are two kinds of people in the world: people who look at statements like this and think:

And, moreover

…either:

“WHAT?  Government doesn’t have a plan for me?  Ehrmuhgerd what will I do?“

Or

“Well, good.  That’s why my ancestors came to America; so we could have our own plan and not worry about government’s “plan” for us.

Am I the only one that finds this more than a lot creepy?

Big Left’s greatest achievement may have been convincing a plurality of Americans tthat “freedom” means satiety and freedom from material want in exchange for, y’know, freedom.

Amongf the Kamala Harris lies that ABC at the debates was the idea that “crime is down”:

It means you have a functioning BS detector. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which measures Americans interactions with crimes not reported to the cops, unlike the FBI report Muir was flogging.

And it’s not good:

Overall, the NCVS indicate that in 2023, the rate of nonfatal violent victimization in the United States was 22.5 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older, which was similar to the 2022 rate of 23.5 violent victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older. Violent victimization includes rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault.

Ironically, the NCVS had lower numbers for violent victimizations for 2020 and 2021, despite the widespread perception that crime got significantly worse during the pandemic. In 2018 the figure was 23.8, in 2019 it was 21, it was 16.4 in 2020 — remember, lots of people were stuck at home, and fewer people on the street means less street crime — and in 2021 it was 16.5.

 

And a look at the Minneapolis crime dashboard, counting only crimes reported to the cops, is also a little instructive: as of today,

• homicide, larceny and robbery are up from last year
• Assault and sex offenses are up above the 3 year average (and that counts 2021, one of the worst years on record)
• Vandalism and domestic assault are up over both last year and the average. 

One of the things that always drew me to blogging was the notion of having a voice to shoot back (figuratively) at Big Media’s stultifying echo chamber. 

I had no idea, 22 years on, that we’d be this busy at it.

It may be a symptom of how complete the “Great Sort” has been – but the safer a Democrat is, the more comfortable they feel “saying the quiet part out loud”, as the kids say these days:

By the way, Governor Newsom:  No.  Denied. 

Now what?

Now, Warnock feeling safe? Well, he is, for another couple years anyway:

On the other hand…:

Anyway – if you are a Democrat, you need to make absolutely certain your candidates accept nothing less than completely confiscation, publicly, and immediately.

Minneapolis has a crime problem. 

Even some Democrat-voting locals appear to be on the ragged brink of figuring it out:

Nothing is being done about it?

Balderdash!

Minneapolis DFL leaders are posting photos of people biking, and sunsets!

Who are you going to believe?  Your lying eyes?

If the Harris/Walz ticket wins the presidential race, taht means Minnesota will be left with Peggy Flanagan as governor.  Not only is Flanagan a died-in-the-wood radical, she is one of the least likeable people in Minnesota politics (or was, until we met the DFL’s legislative class of 2023).

And if Trump wins, Walz will return to Minnesota most likely weakened after running into a media that asks him questions more probing than “Pronto Pups vs. Corn Dogs – what’s your take?” for the first time in his political career. 

This is an opportunity.

Now, some will say “The MNGOP will just screw it up”.

Let’s talk about that. 

Let’s start off with two points:

1. MNGOP has MUCH less power over who runs for office and what they say than the MNDFL does.
2. Unlike the MNDFL, the MNGOP is controlled by activists (defined as “people who show up, who support candidate, and who try to convince people to vote along with them”). But it takes something MN Republicans are bad at; patience and sustained effort. Let’s talk about both.

The Car, Not The Driver

Like a lot of people who rail on about politics without having been all that involved, I used to think the MNGOP drives policy.

A very smart person who worked at the MNGOP grabbed me and hauled me off to lunch and explained things to me.  Turns out…

…It doesn’t.

Campaigns, candidates and (eventually) elected representatives do.

So when people say “The MNGOP needs to DO something”? Their job is to support candidates who will…DO something. But you need the candidates.

If GOP activists bubbled up from the districts and endorsed 201 Michelle Bensons, Peg Scotts, Harry Niskas, Walter Hudsons, Mary Fransons and Jim Nashes, we’d be a red state and the MNGOP would reflect that will. If they kept that momentum doing and endorsed people of that caliber for govenor, the party would reflect that will – eventually.  We’ll come back to that.

Point being, the party isn’t a policy-driving organization.  Oh, it keeps the party’s platform – which is an enormous, unenforceable and occasionally self-contradictory agglommeration of wishes.  And it runs the process by which those caucus, BPOU and district endorsements waft up to the state level. 

But it doesn’t set policy.

If the activists endorse a majority of candidates who believe that the state anthem should be “Friends in Low Places”, and those candidates win elections, and the activists who nominated them and worked toward their elections stay active in the party and win seats in the State Central, then at some point in the future the policy of the MNGOP will be to enshrine that Garth Brooks song. 

Provided they show up and win.

The Arena

But the party reflects what the activists who show up, and KEEP showing up, bring to the table.

And the activists control how the party works – via various BPOU, District and eventually State Central Committees.

Thing is, it takes a couple of years of concerted effort to take State Central. As in, *sustained* effort.

Remember the Ron Paul crowd? They came,they actually took over the 2012 convention, they sent their delegates to Tampa…

…and then largely left.  A few of them stuck with the party and the process. 

Before them – remember the Tea Party? They came, they *slaughtered* the DFL in 2010 – and they left (or got hijacked by the “confrontation is BETTER than winning!” crowd).

In other words the party is controlled, not by the people who showed up at caucuses last February, but by the people who showed up the previous 2-5 caucuses, and kept showing up.

That is very unlike the DFL, btw. The GOP honors the decisions of the party’s activists, even when they make clearly doomed endorsements.

In contrast, the last activist-endorsed DFL governor candidate (for an open seat) was Mike Hatch. In every open seat election since then, the DFL party leadership has stepped in to assert its will – in 2010 pushing Mark Dayton past Margaret Anderson-Kelliher in the primaries, and in 2018 dragging Tim Walz over the finish line against Erin Murphy and Erin Maye Quade. 

For better or worse, the GOP goes with its activists.

Answers?

The answers are simple, but not easy or glamorous:

• Show up
• Endrose solid candidates for everything from school board to legislature to Governor and Senator
• Suipport them – with caucus time, money, work (!), and convincing neighbors. 
• Keep doing ti – even if you lose some races. 2022 (and, let’s be honest, every statewide race since 2008) was a heartbreaker.  So suck it up. 

The Minnesota GOP reflects the will of those who show up and keep showing up”. It sounds like a platitude.

It’s not – for better or worse. It’s a challenge, and sometimes it feels like a curse.   Democracy is so much easier when someone gives it to you, isn’t it?

Knock off the despair. If the Minneapolis City GOP can go out and scrap it out for every seat, people in Andover and Apple Valley can show up and win your purple ‘burbs.

Harris didn’t do as badly as she could have.

Trump didn’t do as well as he should have.

Both told howlers that got their opponents exercised.

The moderators were awful.

Nothing will change.

I predict there will be no second debate. 

Thoughts?

#3:  No matter how well they start and how promising they look, the Vikings will break your heart.

#2:   “Keith Olbermann needs to put down the phone and get out a little.  

#1:  Jen Rubin has departed controlled intellectual flight:

It’s an evergreen statement. And yet periodically she outdoes herself.

During the heyday of blogging, in the late 2000s, two of the big guidelines were “update predictably” and “give people reasons to keep coming back”. 

Where those two guidelines converged was this blog’s publication schedule. 

In 2007, I did some research, and discovered that something like half of this blog’s traffic hit before betwen 5AM and 9AM – and 80% had visited by 1PM. 

So I developed the habit of having stuff rolling out a 6, and sometimes 5 and 7, AM, and then a follow-up around 11ish, to catch the lunch-time crowd. 

And that’s been the rhythm of this blog since George W Bush was president.

Another constant on this blog, since 2006?   I’ve run it on WordPress. 

Unfortunately, WordPress keeps making “improvements”.

One of those seems to have broken the ability to schedule posts reliably; the past few days, posts I’ve scheduled for 6AM have not rolled out; I’ve needed to push them myself, after I noticed there was a problem – at, like, 8AM. 

So until that’s fixed, I’m tempted to just start running all my posts manually in the morning, since the day job’s demands get pretty sticky during the middle of the day. 

I’ll revert to the mean as soon as WordPress takes out the improvements.