I caught part of Secretary Hegseth’s speech yesterday.   

I can see where the whole “Make the military a military again” think might get liberals exercised – they tend to see the military as a social program with some regrettable weapons involved.  

The part I heard sounded like it could have been an answer to Edwin Luttwak’s “Pentagon and the Art of War”, in which the historian noted that the Pentagon was overgeneraled, and heavily focused on maintaining a bureaucracy capable of re-fighting World War 2.   

Over generaled?  At the height of the Cold War, the US millitary had roughly one flag rank officer (general or admiral) per 2,500 or so troops.  

Today it’s close to one per 1,000.   

The parts I heard – re-instating male-centered standards for combat arms troops (infantry/armor/cavalry/artillery/combat engineering and the like) in particular – landed with this non-veteran.

Although I suspect the real audience was in Moscow and Beijing (Teheran caught the early show).  

Now, Trump’s bit about sending the military to fight “in the city?”  

Shiny new quarter says he knows it’s preposterous – but he’s trying to get Democrats to support criminals against, ahem, the US military as well as the citizens of those cities.  Hard to see where that’s a bad ideal politically, even if it’s balderdash legally (outside the POTUS’s Article 1 Section 8 power to protect federal facilities and operations – which will no doubt get defined to a fine sheen in court). 

You can, of course, count on Big Left to get the wrong point…:

…although to be fair it’s only Rupar, and he’s too stupid to understand that here, Hegseth was right. The only military that deters aggression is the one people are afraid to test.

Russia didn’t give to farts in the breeze about the German, French or Italian militaries – full of overweight NCOs and planes that don’t fly and units without armored vehicles because NATO turned into a “peacekeeping” force from 1993 to 2020 – when he attacked Ukraine.  Poland, maybe, but Poland can’t wage an independent war against Russia by itself, much to Poland’s chagrin, I suspect.  

Joe Doakes, ex-Como Park, emails:

One of the most common ways to refute any conspiracy theory is to point out that with that many bad actors, surely someone would have talked.  

 

https://x.com/MattForVA/status/1971575908424151298 

 

 Now let’s talk about the stolen election.

 

Joe Doakes

Joe’s not wrong – although it did come out in only (?) four years.

Here’s Jennifer Emick’s piece, “Debunking Alex Nowrasteh“

And today’s song list:

I’m not sure what Walter Hudson’s political plans are.   

But this particular video reminds me of Reagan’s “A Time For Choosing”:

It’s a difference choice – good vs. evil, as opposed to freedom vs. communism.  

And so maybe not all that different at all.  

A reliable source tells me they’ve heard from another reliable source that we’re nowhere near done finding fraud in Minnesota – and that upcoming revelations about Personal Care Assistant fraud and autism services may very well drive the total into the “multiple billions”. 

More to come.  

Much, much more. 

Joe Doakes, long ago of Como. Park, emails:

People keep using the phrase “go to the mattress” when talking about fighting. “Republicans must go to the mattress over this issue.”

 

No dummy, it’s “mat,” as in wrestling mat, as in “take your opponent to the mat to pin him.”  Didn’t your high school have a wrestling team?

 

 But of course some idiot didn’t understand that 20 years ago and wrote the dialogue wrong in a movie. So now the internet thinks that’s the origin of the phrase. Or possibly that it relates to 15th century Italians who hung mattresses on the walls to deflect cannon fire.  Really?  You figure people today know so much about Renaissance warfare that they use it everyday speech? Ridiculous.

 

 How does society recover a lost idiom?

 

Joe Doakes

By doing more wrestling. 

(And I think it was Clemenza, not Puzo, that got the term wrong.   Which, if true, I think is hilarious).  

“Haha! The FBI says there’s no evidence that Taylor Robinson was a member of any group! That means the killing of Charlie Kirk was non-political!”
So here’s an incomplete list of politically or socially-with-plenty-of-politics-motivated spree killers, terrorists and assassins who *weren’t affiliated with any group*:

• John Wilkes Booth
• Charles Guiteau
• Leon Czolgosz
• Lee Harvey Oswald
• Luigi Mangione
• Richard Reid
• Elias Rodriguez
• Nidal Hasan
• Ted “Unibomber” Kaczinski
• Ryan Routh
• Dylan Root
• Vance Boelter
• Payton Gendron
• Anibal Hernandez-Santana
• Every rioter at the Capitol on January 6
• Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik,
• Thomas Crooks
• Mauricio Garcia
• Micah Xavier Johnson
• Ryan Palmeter
• Robert “Robin” Westman
• Anderson Lee Aldrich
• Audrey “Aiden Williams” Hale
• Omar Mateen

And, let’s be honest, Timothy McVeigh, who *had* been part of a group, of which he and Terry Nichols were pretty much the two remaining members.
The problem is, it’s a big country with a lot of people with mental health issues, and when you spend enough time and effort telling unstable people that “speech is violence” and that some inscrutable murky sinister evil force is going to “erase” you/destroy democracy/steal your future/commit “genocide”/are “Nazis” or “fascists” – people against whom we fought a life or death war two generations ago – eventually someone’s going to connect the dots and start shooting people.

And if you ARE part of a group whose goal is to destabilize society, having people who *aren’t* in your group do the dirty work is a feature, not a bug.

So don’t believe the hype.

Joe Doakes, ex-Como-Parker, emails:

Was the Biden administration THE most corrupt presidency in American history, or merely Top 10?

Whose was worse?

Joe Doakes

Thoughts?

I

I wonder if the DFL really thought this through?

We’ve seen what is possible, all right.  

Squandered surpluses.

Erased civil liberties – snitch lines, thoughtcrime databases, and a precedent of abusing emergency power.

Burned neighborhoods, including mine.

A productive class that’s fleeing the state.  

A per capita state product that was in the top 10 nationwide that has fallen to the middle and isn’t done dropping.

Catastrophic social division.

A collapsing Minneapolis  once called “the Athens of the 20th century”, now just another blighted city with nice lakes.

Educational outcomes that just keep getting worse and worse. 

Contempt for the rule of law – by prosecutors.  

The worst Covid aid fraud in the country.

An emerging reputation for corruption. 

Humiliation after his awful VP run.  At least Walter Mondale wasn’t an embarassment.

Eight years of sloganeering and double-talk. 

Yes, MNDFL.  We have indeed seen what is possible.  

I, for one, would love to get unburdened by what has been. 

Yep, the technical problems with this new iteration of the blog are if anything worse than the old ones.  I get kicked out, for crying out loud. 

I have thought about moving it to Substack or Medium.  The problem with both is that while I’d own all my own material, I wouldn’t have the same control that I currenly do.  Which may not be the worst thing in the world, but I’ve got 23 years worth of stuff – some of which I know I want to maintain control over, much of which is irrelevant anymore, and some of which I just…don’t…know.  

It’s not entirely that I’m a digital packrat, but I can see it from here.  

Working on it. 

Tim Walz is running for Governor again.  

The governor who, at best, ignored well over $1B in fraud, set up a snitch line and a badthink database, squandered a $19B surplus, ran one of the most club-footed Covid responses in the country, and supports censoring people like me, wants another go-around.

Even some DFLers have had enough…

…although if Walz doesn’t get the nomination it’ll be because someone to his left beats him.

It’s the law.

SCENE:  Cat SCAT is out patrolling for Republican lawn signs to rip down when he sees Mitch BERG weed-whacking his row of barberry bushes.  It’s too late for BERG to evade. 

SCAT:  Hey, Nazi. 

BERG:  Oh, great…

SCAT:  Shut up.  We’re flying flags at half staff nationwide for the Nazi Charlie Kirk, but we didn’t for Melissa and Mark Norton. 

BERG:  Hortmann. 

SCAT:  I fact check you.  Norton.  

BERG:  OK.   So as with so much of what’s wrong in Minnesota, it’s Governor Walz’s fault.  

SCAT: I fact-check you and prove you false. 

BERG:  Because…

SCAT:  I’m a fact-checker.  

BERG: OK, so how about this:

During the afternoon news conference, Trump said Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz never asked him to have flags at the nation’s capitol be placed at half-staff after Melissa and Mark Hortman were fatally shot. 

That same morning, Minnesota lawmaker John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were shot several times at their Champlin home in a politically-motivated attack.

What Trump said:

“Well if the Governor had asked me to do that, I would’ve done that. But the Governor of Minnesota didn’t ask me. I wouldn’t have thought of that, but I would’ve if somebody had asked me. People make requests for the lowering of the flag. Often times you have to say no because it would be a lot of lowering, the flag would never be up. Had the Governor of Minnesota asked me to do that, I would’ve done that gladly.”

The flags at the Minnesota State Capitol were placed at half-staff after the shootings.

BERG:  Which fits with Walz’s pattern of not really paying attention to the administrivia of running a state – like sending in the National Guard during riots, or paying attention to the tsunami of corruption on his executive branch’s watch, or , well, this. 

SCAT:  LIke I always said, Walz forgot and Trump didn’t do it for him because he’s a Nazi.  

BERG:  Huh.  So what you said earlier…

SCAT:  I never said anything earlier. 

BERG:  Ah.  Gotcha. 

And SCENE. 

Joe Doakes, once but no longer of Como Park, emails:

Suppose you are playing a game and your opponent cheats. You point it out and he denies it. You insist you saw him cheat and he admits doing the act but claims that wasn’t cheating.  When you show him the rule book, he asserts those rules don’t apply to him. You insist he follow the rules and he declares you are a fascist so he’s justified in murdering you to win the game.

 

What should you do?

 

If you refuse to play, he will win by default.

 

If you continue to play by the rules, he will win by cheating.

 

 Somehow you must convince him to play by the rules. Game Theory suggests the best way to do that is tit-for-tat. When he cheats, you cheat and offer to quit cheating when he quits cheating. When he cheats harder, you cheat harder and repeat the offer.

 

 Yes, that means stooping to his level. It means betraying your principles because cheating is not who you are.  Game theory is not about morals, it is about tactics. It is not about salvation, it is about winning.

 

 Eventually one of two things will happen:  he will quit cheating and the game will be played by the rules; or the game will end,  probably in violence.

 

 The theory applies to the simplest games and to the most complex. Life is the most complex game of all. Conservatives have been playing by the rules but the Left is cheating. 

 

What should we do?  

 

Joe Doakes

I suppose “amicable-if-possible divorce” isn’t an option?

I can’t pretend this is a comprehensive list.  I don’t think humanity can measure this level of stupidity. 

But I gotta try. 

I’ll save the worst for last. 

Well, gosh, “Kalvan”, I think the difference might be that literally the entire state of Minnesota including the entire GOP closed ranks around the families’ survivors, and the GOP repudiated everything to do with the guy when it turned out that even though he was nuts, he was a nut who spouted some right wing chanting points. That, and the fact not a single significant person said “Well, political murder is baaaaaaaad, but when you jam down abortion mandates and kid-transing and gun control you gotta expect some blowback…”

Can you see the difference, “Kalvan”?

I keep asking progs who parrot this to tell me – what evil things did Kirk say?

And I’ve gotten a few back – every one of which was ripped completely out of context, context which is available out there.  

I don’t love the whole “get people fired” thing, personally.

But forget for a moment that progs have been going after conservatives’ jobs (also shooting them) for years. It’s not the government “censoring” people. And maybe, just maybe, “it’s good someone I disagree with died” is an “opinion” that deserves some opprobrium.

And in the responses to that one:

Make you first shot count, Sparky.

Is the point that “pageant winners are promiscuous?”

And the mangling of the whole doctrine of “submitting”

Is this a Richard Carlbom burner account?

Now, most of the above are dolts, rage farmers and Don Lemon.

But these? These (read the whole thread) are elected DFLers:

Make sure you scroll down to check out Ilhan Omar’s contribution, on Mehdi Hassan’s podcast.

And Richard Carlbom, executive director of the MN DFL:

So “Hey, Fascist, Catch” was an ingenious hipfake.  Got it.  

It’s been a depressing week for observing humanity.  

Apparently having an open, honest debate with people who disagree with you rates a death sentence.   

Even some Democrats realize things have gone too far:

As this is written, the shooter is still apparently at large.

But who knew – when the leaders of a party full of mentally unstable people chant that their opponents are “Nazis” and “Fascists”, people my grandfathers’ generation spent the best years of their lives killing and trying not to be killed by, that someone in that mass of unstable weirdos would take it seriously?

And the giggly, tingly, school-girly response by so many Democrats, including prominent ones, to Luigi Mangione should be a bigger warning; their inventory of nutbars who think homicide is OK is nowhere near exhausted.

And no, it’s not a “both sides do it” thing. 

The nation needs the same level of commitment to rooting out left wing terrorism today that we put into eradicating the Klan 60 years ago, or the mob in the ’80s.  

We won’t get it, but we’ll need it.  

The one silver lining?  The Democrats’ ill-gotten right to throw out “January 6!” like a badly-trained parrot is forever null and void. 

I don’t wish anyone trouble with their jobs.  

And that includes the poor saps who work at the Strib’s printing plant. 

Well, worked.  Or will have worked…:

I mean, the schnooks in the plant don’t set the editorial policy.  They’re not the ones painting Ilhan Omar’s toenails in the boardroom, or telling Rochelle Olson what hit pieces to write.  

So I’m sorry about the jobs, guys ‘n gals. 

But if it’s another step on the Strib’s road to extinction?  That’s a silver lining.  

The paper will be printed in Iowa – presumably the day before it reaches the newsstands (or wherever you get paper papers these days – I dunno).  

Next stop Mississippi.  

Anyway – turns out the late Nick Coleman may have been right about something.  I wasn’t rooting for the demise of the Strib back when he was accusing us bloggers of doing that. 

But I sure am now.  

Yeah, I hate it too.  

I’ll be changing the template again soon.  I don’t like it.  

Stay tuned.  

Piglet wants to have a special session to try to jam down the DFL’s pet gun bans.  

Even the DFL knows it’s doomed:

They never had the votes; the House is tied, and would depend on at least one GOP “compromising” with the DFL, and not a single Republican in either chamber has made a final vote against gun rights in over 25 years.  

In the meantime, the Senate – which is tied today, and even with the one vote majority the DFL will likely retain after the special election to replace Nicole “the Catburglar” Mitchell, there are 3-4 “moderate” DFLers in very purple districts – Afton, the Arrowhead, Moorhead – who are clearly not thrilled about their prospects if they get saddled with a Metrocrat gun grab proposal.  

Some might remember 2002, when every “moderate” outstate DFLer who’d voted against carry permit reform got crushed, flipping the House to the GOP and paving the way for “Shall Issue” permitting and making Tim Pawlenty’s first term a lot more pleasant. 

So – if the votes aren’t there, why do it?

Remember – Richard Carlbom runs the DFL.   He’s the guy who took a bunch of chanting points and turned it into a social media logrolling and gaslighting campaign that not only got gay marriage passed (which may have been inevitable anyway) but took down the Voter ID amendment, which I’m pretty convinced we’re paying for today.  

I expect this “special session” is mostly an attempt to get a bumper crop of video to wrench out of context to play for the gullible uninformed voter that is the DFL’s stock in trade.  

That, and fundraising. Lots of fundraising. 

SCENE:  The basement studio of AM1280 The Patriot.  Mitch BERG is hosting his weekend talk show.    Unbelievably, across the table is Richard CARLBOM, chair of the MInnesota DFL party.  Why did he agree to an interview?  Search me. G-MONEY, the producer, is through the glass window in the control room, adjusting levels.

BERG:  So Mr. Carlbom – you’re advocating a “special session on guns”.  Since the House is tied and at least some outstate DFLs are going to be very uncomfortable trying to jam down gun bans, this would seem to be more of a DFL fundraiser than a special session.  Your thoughts?

CARLBOM:  F)ck that cynical sh1t…

(G-MONEY, the producer, frantically hits the dump button).  

BERG:  Er, you can’t talk like that on the radio.k 

CARLBOM:  Talk like what?

BERG:  You can’s swear on the radio. 

CARLBOM:  I didn’t.   I’m just talking like all the real Democratic men. 

BERG: OK.  So – special session or fundraiser?

CARLBOM:  Well, one f)cking thing you conservative a$$h0l3s miss is…

(G-MONEY frantically smashes the dump button again)

BERG:  Y’see, you did it again?

CARLBOM:  Did what?

BERG:  Swore on the radio.  That’s a no-no. 

CARLBOM:  It’s just the f)cking way all of us m0th3rf__ing authentic big-d1ck Democrat p1ss working f3lch men Cl3v3l4nd St34m3r men are f3lch d1rty s4nch3z w4d (G-MONEY hammers the dump button; steam starts pouring from the delay box). 

BERG:  You’ve been a political flack your entire career.  (Looks up at the call board). We’ve got an anonymous caller on the line – Ken from DC, you’re live and on the air…

CALLER:  Mr. Carlbom, has anyone ever told you that you look like a slightly younger Herman Göring? 

CARLBOM:  Ken?  Ken Martin?  Is that you?  

(But the line has gone dead). 

And SCENE

So, it’s been quite a year.  

Around inauguration time, I had a job that I really enjoyed, with a few side hustles – a band, my show, and this blog (not that I’ve made any money from it in a long time – partly by choice).  

In February, I got laid off.  As part of my scrambling to keep my bills covered, I signed on at Hot Air – where I write 3-5 posts a week, and make a little money.  

Then came July.  I started the month unemployed – and ended with a day job (details not needed) and another longer-term bet with a startup.   Plus another band (more info to come later).  

So I’m cranking out 12 hours a day – and generally loving it.  But it’s taken time away from the time I’d normally spend tinkering with the blog (which hasn’t been much in a while). 

“So Merg – why not go over to Substack?”  

I might.  There’s a part of me that can’t imagine anyone paying anything to read what I write, but who knows?  It’d certainly cut down on the maintenance woes that are increasingly dogging WordPress.  

A 23 year old habit, rapidly pushing 24, is hard to change.  And let’s be honest, I’m kind of a stubborn guy.  

But yeah, this fall when we get our first cold rainy non-outdoor weekend I may just pull the trigger.  

I’m not saying this is going to win any elections by itself. 

But you might pick up a lot of votes with a sustained, continuous effort to show Minnesotans…

…just who MNDFL chair Richard Carlbom really is. 

I mean, what Minnesotans won’t love the fact that their dominant party is led by a Hermann Göring lookalike with the rhetorical chops of an eighth-grader with a concussion?

I’ve been running this blog under its old design template for (checks watch) 16 years, now.  Not just the visual design (more in a bit) but the code that runs the whole thing in the background.  I’ve been patching it and updating it for literally a decade and a half – longer than most blogs last in any way shape or form – but the wheels were slowly coming off.  

I couldn’t schedule posts, for starters – which in theory shouldn’t be a huge inconvenience now that I’m not carefully following traffic patterns, like I was in the 2000s.  

But I’m very much driven by two diametrically competing forces – 23 years of habits (writing something just about every morning, and having the stuff appear when I want it to) and serendipity (wanting to write whenever and however I want to, and have it appear, again, exactly when I want to).  

Anyway – I’m hoping that updating the template to something that was built after the George W Bush administation will fix some of the technical bugs.  

As to the visual design bugs – oy.  I’d forgotten how much of that is involved in spooling up a WordPress blog.  I’ll be working on ’em as I go, here.  Enjoy the incongruence while it lasts!

Joe Doakes, no longer of Como Park, emails:

Governor Walz plans a special session of the legislature to help Democrat fundraising efforts.  

 

He doesn’t say it that way, of course.  He says it’s to pass gun control legislation in the wake of the most recent shooting. Knowing Republicans are unlikely to agree, Democrats plan to continue using the atrocity to dun their supporters for donations. 

 

“If nobody had guns, nobody would get shot.” Sounds simple, right?  But its First Order Thinking. It’s simple alright, too simple.  It ignores human nature.  

 

Second Order Thinking asks: “Take away ask the guns and what will Bad Guys do? Sit quietly painting landscapes?  Bake cookies, write music, go sailing?” No. 

 

Google “knife attack.” The Bad Guys will not sit quietly, they will substitute a different tool to do their evil, like the mass stabber at the Michigan Walmart. But this time, there will be no armed citizen to stop them.  

 

Take away knives and Bad Guys will use clubs.  Take away clubs and Bad Guys will use the very stones themselves, as Cain slew Able. 

 

The problem is not the guns, knives, sticks, or stones.  The problem is the Bad Guys. And Democrats have no intention of solving that problem.  

 

It’s too profitable. 

 

Joe Doakes 

Until we control human nature, weapon “control” will always fail. 

And trying to control human nature has led to imponderably greater evils than we’ve seen.  

Focus on the Family’s counseling site:  www.focusonthefamily.org/tragedy

Or call 855-771-HELP for a call back from a counselor.  

And here’s today’s music list:

SCENE:   Mitch BERG is having an Old Fashioned at a bar in northern Wisconsin.  Engrossed in a conversation with the waitress, he doesn’t notice Avery LIBRELLE has walked in, wearing a “MEAT IS MURDER” t-shirt.  

LIBRELLE:  Merg!

BERG:  Of, for…the second time this week, how ya doing…

LIBRELLE:  Shut up.   It’s the guns, stupid. 

BERG. So I’ve got a question for you, Avery.   Whenever a spree killer can be tied, however tenuously, to the right, the media and people like you get veeeery serious about dissecting connections to “extreme” ideology.  Like Vance Boelter…

LIBRELLE:  Extreme pro-life MAGAt!

BERG:  …but when it’s someone like the Covenant or Annunciation shooters, whose manifestos were like Gen-Z leftist movie screenplays, full of hate for Christians, Jews, conservatives, Trump…

LIBRELLE:  It’s the guns and only the guns!   And how dare you blame all transgender people!

BERG:  Where did I mention transgender people?

LIBRELLE:  You did. 

BERG: (Turns to stenographer sitting at next stool) Please read back the converstation starting with “shut up”:

COURT REPORTER:  OK.  Starting from where Mist…er, Mizz…er…(looks to BERG with look of inciipient panic)

BERG:  Don’t worry. Just read. 

COURT REPORTER:  OK.  

LIBRELLE:  Extreme pro-life MAGAt!

BERG:  …but when it’s someone like the Covenant or Annunciation shooters, whose manifestos were like Gen-Z leftist movie screenplays, full of hate for Christians, Jews, conservatives, Trump…

LIBRELLE:  I could have sworn I heard you call for the deaths of all transgender people.   

BERG:  You’re thinking of Mayor Frey…

LIBRELLE:  Shut up.  Why are you bringing a court reporter with you?

BERG:  Seems I need one lately. 

And SCENE.