Gotta confess, I didn’t see this coming:

But knowing some of the people involved, and even some recent history, perhaps I should have expected at least some Somali to take umbrage at the sense of entitlement the DFL feels re their votes.

Of course, I’d have to wonder if this endorsement happened after the vast majority of the local Somali population voted early.

Still – if the 5th CD and Minneapolis GOPs can keep this dynamic going – and I have confidence that they can – this could make the municipal elections next year a lot more interesting.

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:

Because to a WUPH, “business” means “something they pay money to that supports their lifestyle”: restaurants, bars, coffee shops, bookstores…

…which are, let’s be honest, things I also love about living in the city.  

But being a WUPH isn’t so much about the zip code you live in as it is about the zip codes you don’t live in:

Because behind every “All Are Welcome Here” sign is a person who really doesn’t like people who aren’t like them:

I mean, I get it – Minneapolis is a beautiful place…

…and has cool stuff to do if you have money and don’t mind (or mock any observation of) some of the risks of modern Minneapolis. I mean, I fell in love with the place once upon a time, enough to uproot my whole life and move there.

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…

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. 

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?

So, the housing permit numbers for the Twin Cities are in. 

And if putting people in houses is  your goal, they are…uh, not good:

Saint Paul:

And Minneapolis:

Was it rent control? Bidenomics?

Why choose?

This story by Fox9 is badly written, and there’s very little about the subject of the tweet.

But to the extent it’s true?  It’s exactly as predicted:

When government stops providing the order that justifies all those taxes, so they can raise families, run businesses, earn livings, they will take the task of providing that order into their own hands. 

And eventually, especially if the city takes the side of disorder, those people will be rough folks who don’t talk with cops or respect due process.

As part of the DFL’s “Most Secure Election System In The World (TM), the Minneapolis DFL held an early voting event over the weekend.

At the Midtown Global Market.

In the food court:

You should read the entire Twitter thread.  

And maybe it’s time to start picketing Steve Simon’s office…

Apologists for the government of the City of Minneapolis have pivoted to talking about crime dropping, we are told, from the three year average.

There’s a reason for that, naturally:

Here’s the city crime dashboard as of today:

The three year average is indeed high – it includes the tail end of the Walz/Covid crime wave of 2021.

But over the past year, to date?

• Murder is up.
• Robbery is up – sharply.

You’ll note that Minneapolis is now at 32 non-negligent homicides for the year so far. That’s up from 30 homicides in 2016. For the whole year.

It’s a shame the city doesn’t include a ten-year average space. It’d be interesting to see how the DSA/DFL coalition that runs the city would spin that.

Er…shot:

..,and chaser:

I’m sure Minneapolis will have ballot vending machines for at least a while in September and October.

The Sundance Festival is moving from Utah to…well, somewhere.

And Minneapolis wants in:

In a provided statement, Mayor Jacob Frey says Minneapolis’ cultural scene would be a perfect fit for the festival.

“With our thriving arts and entertainment scene, diverse cultural heritage, and passionate film community, Minneapolis is the ideal backdrop for the Sundance Film Festival,” said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. “There is no city that embraces the arts quite like we do – and Minneapolis already has a long history of supporting independent filmmakers and their art of storytelling. Sundance would be a welcome addition to our theater community, and we’re excited to throw our hat in the ring to host this world-renowned festival.”

Minneapolis’ bid is being backed by CEOs from Target, Best Buy, and U.S. Bancorp along with the McKnight Foundation and Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies.

There was a time this would have been a no-brainer. From the 60s to the 2000s, Minneapolis had one of the most dynamic arts scenes in the country; the biggest regional theatre community between the coasts; art and music communities that punched waay above their weight; others, from dance to literature far out of proportion to the city’s size; even a breakout film scene in the ’90s.

Almost none of that is true anymore. Austin, Salt Lake City, Boulder, Santa Fe, Raleigh/Durham, Boise, Nashville, even Atlanta have become much more dynamic. Most of them are much less expensive (not that that’s necessarily a huge factor for the tony Sundance crowd).

Minneapolis is like the high school football star come back to the 20 year reunion, working a job he hates and paying bills from his divorce from the head cheerleader. His day has passed. He might have another day, someday, but it ain’t today.

I hope the city gets it – but I’d be amazed.

Minneapolis introduces the Narcan vending machine:

Or, as it will be known by August of 2024, “A looted, empty, vandalized and broken vending machine”.

But it does bring up some other ideas for vending machines in MInneapolis – machines selling:

• Band-aids for mugging victims
• New catalytic converters
• Copper wire
• Rubber shoe covers (so you don’t get vomit, or worse, on your shoes while riding the train)

Keep giving us set-ups, MInneapolis. We’ll give you the punch-lines.

From the U of M, one of our society’s future leaders:

Rumors that it’s a DFL representative remain unconfirmed at press time.

To: Jason Chavez, Minneapolis DSA/DFL councilbeing
From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous Peasant
Re: Punching

Councilbeing Chavez,

You tweeted this on Wednesday:

Let’s talk about the term “uprising”.

It usually connotes a group of subjugated, beaten-down people, “rising up” against their oppressors.

Good examples of uprisings that fit some variant of that definition:

• The Boston Tea Party – indigenous people rose up against colonialism
• The Sobibor Uprising – people escaped from colonizers who had started the job Hamas is trying to finish.
• The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising – actual genocide victims attacked actual practitioners of genocide.
• The Storming of the Bastille – Musical theatre fans attack critics

Each of these uprisings have a few things in common: the people doing the uprising were being actively oppressed by those up against whom they rose; the targets of their attacks were the actual oppressors; tax authorities, the SS, the monarchy.

In May of 2020, people who considered themselves oppressed (we’ll accept that for sake of argument) “rose up” and destroyed…

…hundreds of businesses, extremely disproportionately owned by immigrants, people of color, people in the neighborhood. Oh, the Third Precinct got destroyed – after a couple of days of generalized looting and arson, seemingly almost as an afterthought, to give the “uprising” some window-dressing sense of political virtue other than “looting and burning cafes owned by first-generation Americans”.

I may be just an obstreporous peasant, but I think “downrising” might be a better term.

That is all.

The city of Minneapolis just released the dispatch report re the Officer Jamal Mitchell shooting.

A good guy with a car [1] apparently rammed shooter Mustafa Mohammed, who was apparently attacking a bystander on a scooter, possibly breaking his leg and immobilizing him:

According to the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) report, before police arrived on the scene, the driver of a Subaru came across the Suspect, Mustafa Mohamed, outside the apartment where he’s reportedly just shot two people. 
ossibly breaking his leg.

The witness says after he hit him, Mohamed reached into his waistband and pulled out what was possibly a gun, and started firing. Police arrived shortly thereafter.

I’d bet a shiny new quarter Moriarty charges the good samaritan driver, but I don’t think anyone’ll take the bet.

[1] whose name is clearly visible in Fox9’s video on the story.

Block a freeway? Burn down a neighborhood? Jack a car, rob a store, shoot up on a train, b**w a john on a bus, attack someone on a train platform?

Mary Moriarty’s got your back.

Exercise your first amendent right to demonstrate for Mary Moriarty’s enemies, whoever they are, wherever you are?

You’re a threat to democracy:

Mary Moriarty is the real authoritarian – or “fascist”, as the kids are calling ’em these days.

UPDATE: Here’s Londregan’s attorney, Chris Madel’s response.

And let me tell you…

…it may be the best press conference I’ve seen since Norman Schwartzkopf’s wartime pressers. More drop-mic moments than a “Freddie Mercury” night at a karaoke bar.

Wish we could get this guy to run for Senator or Governor, if he’s GOP.

As if ther’s not enough to talk about today already.

It didn’t take a legal expert to know that the charges against State Patrol trooper Ryan Londregan were unsustainable.

Mary Moriarty had to spend a million bucks [1] to find that out.

Which, we found out during the weekend news dump, she apparently did:

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said Sunday that she will dismiss murder and manslaughter charges against state trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of motorist Ricky Cobb II last summer.

Moriarty told the Star Tribune that her unexpected decision comes in response to a prosecution expert’s new analysis of video from the scene and recent statements by Londregan’s defense attorney.

But rest assured, progressive base – it’s not because she doesn’t want to stick it to a copper:

“We could theoretically prosecute this and just let the jury decide,” she said. “However, we ethically can’t do that because we don’t believe at this point that we can disprove that affirmative defense.”

“This is not a situation of us backing down,” Moriarty said, adding that the killing last week of Minneapolis police officer Jamal Mitchell did not influence her decision.

“It is a situation of recognizing that, given all the barriers that are put in place in these types of cases and the new information that came up, we just can’t ethically go forward.”

Londregan’s attorney was refreshingly un-lawyerly in his comments:

“It’s about goddamn time,” [Attorney Chris] Madel said. “That’s going to be about my only on-the-record comment.”

Everything Mary Moriarty touches turns to crap.

Almost-and-hopefully-future Attorney General Jim Schultz spoke for many of us:

Actualy justice, of course, would involve Mary Moriarty filing for unemployment, and possibly lawyering up to face litigation for the damage she’s caused.

Yet she will win re-election with 85% of the vote, unless an actual political opposition erupts in Minneapolis.

Berg’s 18th Law is still well in effect, and will be for another day or two.

But while no details have been released yet about the killer of Minneapolis officer Jamal Mitchell, I’ll wager a shiny new quarter that he/she:

• has a long rap sheet
• has multiple unprosecuted arrests in Hennepin County.
• Will have been prohibited from possessing firearms.
• when the above is made public, this case will disappear from the media.
• BLM will be utterly silent on the murder of a black cop.

Any action on that bet?

PS: It’s days like this I miss the “Reverend” Nancy Nord Bence. By this time, she’d have already posted some bit of hilariously inappropriate and unjustifiable social media bilge that (further) humiliated her and her organization.

I miss the comic relief.

Today’s leftists: “We should be more in touch with nature!”

Also today’s leftists (in this case, Briana Rose Lee’s understudy): “ZOMG! POOP! IT’S FREAKING POOP!”

The Minneapolis Left wants an urban life theme park, not a city.

So – why did the ever-so-decisive Minneapolis City Council delay its “minimum wage” hike against Uber and Lyft to July?

To help the soon-to-be-unemployed drivers?

To give the companies a reasonable chance to adjust?

HAH. Naïve peasant!

It’s to save the DFL from itself!

The Minneapolis City Council, in voting unanimously on Thursday to delay enactment of minimum pay rates for Uber and Lyft drivers for two months, offered a lifeline for Democratic legislators embroiled in their own divisions over the issue.

Legislative leaders, who are trying to craft their own compromise that would increase driver earnings but keep Uber and Lyft in the Twin Cities metro, are increasingly concerned that the polarizing ride hailing issue could upend the remainder of the legislative session, which hangs on a one-vote majority in the Senate.

The council has come under immense pressure to reconsider their minimum rates since the wide-ranging effects of Uber and Lyft pulling out have become more clear: some 10,000 drivers likely losing income without unemployment benefits and tens of thousands of convention-goers, commuters, bar hoppers and people with disabilities needing to find different transportation.

Senate Majority Leader Sen. Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, and House Majority Leader Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis, met recently with a half dozen members of the City Council to request the delay and remind them of the stakes of a deal, as well as the city’s significant legislative agenda at the Capitol, according to several people present or briefed on the conversation.

So they found an issue where out-radicaling each other isn’t bringing them votes.

Weird. It can be done.

BTW, if I were the CEOs of Lyft or Uber, I’d tell the CIty Council to go pound sand unless they all came to my headquarters on their knees to kiss my butt on live television.

Minneapolis is “among the best cities for first time home buyers”:

Also on the list, Mariupol, Beirut, Kabul, Damascus…

History doesn’t repeat – but it rhymes.

The world’s major powers are rattling their sabers as they spar in secondary theaters.

The economies are in the hands of people who love to tinker with the levers and buttons of the Big State.

And young intellectually over-stimulated but underendowed bobbleheads are romping and playing:

Everything old is new again.

Guy gets ambushed by girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend in a Minneapolis apartment hallway.

Gets shot 15 times.

At 5-12 foot range

With a .45 ACP.

And lives to return fire.

And then performs first aid on himself until the cops arrived.

And, three years later, tells his story:

And whatever your stance on self-defense, this is an amazing story.

You may not win along with it, but that’s your fault for denying reality.

Speaking of denying reality: we warned MInneapolis about the inevitable end results of rent control, high taxes and onerous regulations (aka “everything the Met Council does re housing and transit policy”).

And yet every $%#$%$@# time their chickens come home to roost, they act surprised and angry:

The comments in that thread are lit, by the way; every metro housing advocate’s inner Lenin is showing.

The Minneapolis City Council’s vote on minimum wages for independent contractor drivers has driven Lyft out of Minneapolis, and Uber out of both cities.

A friend of the blog emails with an initial reaction very close to my own:

The Minneapolis City Council doesn’t actually understand a lot. They want affordable options, but they want people to be paid high wages. It doesn’t always work that way.http://apnews.com/article/minneapolis-uber-lyft-ridehailing-minimum-wage-d60db6a2e2580dc1d93c438a8cffa5ee

That being said, Uber and Lyft were never affordable here in the Twin Cities like they are elsewhere. That is likely because the market here doesn’t support it like it might in cities with higher density populations. 

This article mentions that “Seattle and New York City have passed similar policies in recent years that increase wages for ride-hailing drivers, and Uber and Lyft still operate in those cities.”

Yes, well, the cost to use those services was lower to start with because they actually could make money there. So, they are likely still making money even if passengers are paying more to ride. I would bet those services were barely making it here as it was. It’s not hard to drive most places, it’s not even particularly expensive. The downtowns of MSP are mostly dead anyway, so who is using Lyft and Uber at this stage anymore? As far as I can tell, the council’s stupid ordinance just gave them the excuse to pull out. 

That was pretty much what I thought; it was yet another case of a prog city council demanding the world violate the laws of economics to give them what they want.

But wait. There’s more.

It’s the current DFL – so one must always check to see if there’s an ulterior motive involving transferring wealth from taxpayers to the DFL’s non-profit/government complex.

And of course there is:

There you go – Soviet-style ride sharing.

Because the DSA needs to make sure they get a cut of all that ride-share money.

Metro Transit posted a “code of conduct” a few weeks ago, to much derision. “All window dressing and lip service”, the wags said.

So Metro Transit added their interveners.

Looks like we still got lip service and window dressing. Perhaps we call it “lip dressing”:

So – not only is the collapse of social mores being encouraged by the aggressive lack of consequences, but we get to transfer tax dollars to more bureaucrats and their employees while we do it.

I call that adding insult to insult to insult to injury to injury .

Gang carjacks an SUV, goes on a Tarantino-ready crime spree:

The only real question: what ethical and moral gymnastics will Mary Moriarty go through to make sure none of them serves a moment in prison?