There are so many dismal statistics to frame Tim Walz’s reign here in Minnesota. 

But this one is among the most damning:

Minnesota is #45 among states comparing in and out migration. 

For every six people that move to Minnesota, ten are leaving. 

Florida?  For every 10 that leave, 27 immigrate.   Texas gets 15 new Texas for every 10 that leave. 

South Dakota is cleaning Minnesota’s clock. 

This is Tim Walz’s doing

Barack Oba…er, Kamala Harris has picked Governor Klink to complete her ticket. The precedent was clear to anyone paying attention – Walz was governor because he’d made his deal with the devil.  

Part of the deal appeared to be “making Flanagan appear to be a co-governor”; her name appeared below Walz’s on most campaign literature – but was longer, and usually colored such that her name “popped” harder than Walz’s. 

You can hear the Twin Cities media going Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee all the way to Chicago. Those of us who live here and pay attention – a painfully small Venn diagram, as the 2022 election showed us – know that, as Scott Johnson says,  Walz “casts the pale shadow of a man incapable of embarrassment and presents as an example of life imitating art, in this case the advertising art that created Joe Isuzu:

For those of you in my audience who aren’t from MInnesota, let’s go through a little of Tim Walz’s political record.

Congress:  Walz spent six terms as a US House rep from the 1st District – the largely rural southern tier of counties, at the time.  He ran to the commonsensical center to defeat the very moderate Gil Gutknecht; like Colllin Peterson, Byron Dorgan, Kent Conrad and Earl Pomeroy, he made moderate noises for his rural base.  He was a-rated by the NRA. 

And when Governor Dayton ran up to his term (and, likely, health) limit in 2018, Walz took that record – sans his NRA rating, which he dumped like it was a “3” when a “5” was batting her eyes at him:

Emerging As A Puppet: Tossing aside the NRA endorsement wasn’t enough to impress the DFL’s newly surgent “Progressive” wing, which pushed the overtly extreme Erin Murphy, backed with the equally gleeful extremist Erin Maye Quade at a convention where even Keith Ellison was too moderate (they endorsed fire-breathing socialist Matt Pelikan over the, I say again, too moderate Keith Ellison.

Not even picking Peggy Flanagan – literally the most extreme leftist in the Minnesota House at that time – was enough to slow the prog wave, although it was a start:

Of course, DFL chair Ken Martin knew the electorate wasn’t quite as demented as the DFL activist base – outside the metro, anyway – and put his foot down, He pulled his backroom deals, put the DFL’s money behind Walz/Flanagan, and dragged them over the line for a win in the 2018 DFL primary.

The precedent was clear to anyone paying attention – Walz was governor because he’d made his deal with the devil.  

Part of the deal appeared to be “making Flanagan appear to be a co-governor”; her name appeared below Walz’s on most campaign literature – but was longer, and usually colored such that her name “popped” harder than Walz’s. 

Unremarkable:  During those years, Walz’s most extreme urges were stymied by the GOP’s slim, often one-vote, majority in the Minnesota Senate.  Not that he didn’t try – but the worst instincts of his “progressive” regime got tempered by Paul Gazelka’s canny politicking – one might call it “rear guard action”, either in the military sense, or (to some) the “covering one’s ass” sense.  Take your pick. 

The Deluge:  And then came Covid.

Walz declared emergency power on Saint Patrick’s Day, 2020.   In an infamous press conference, he said Minnesota would have a bare minimum of 20,000 dead by July, if everything went perfectly – with 70,000 much more likely.  He seized emergency power, and shut down schools, churches, most businesses…

…but not big box stores, liquor stores, or “The World’s Largest Candy Store”, in Jordan, run by a major campaign contributor.   He declared broad swathes of Minnesota’s labor force “non-essential”.  He instituted a “snitch line”, which countless “Karens” used to report their neighbors for offenses against the Covid regime. 

He also repeated Andrew Cuomo’s catastrophic errors in handling long-term care of the elder;ly; the carnage in Minnesota’s nursing homes was epic, and inexcusable. 

But the death toll lagged his predictions – by about an order of magnitude.  And for a brief, weird moment, the media did the unthinkable – they asked questions . 

Including at a presser on May 11 – where a reporter asked if the Department of Health department would release the code for the model that had made the initial, alarming preductions .

And Walz’s spokesperson replied “No – because people might use it to get different results than we did”. 

Which, for those of us who passed ninth-grade science class, is the opposite of science. 

He held emergency power for seventeen months, for an emergency that in effect ended in the summer of 2020.

The Floyd Riots:  Walz’s performance during the George Floyd riots was perhaps more controversial – mostly notably when Mayor Frey of Minneapolis asked where the National Guard was, after 2-3 days of rioting, and the Governor, essentially, asked why the Mayor hadn’t put a cover sheet on his TPS report. 

Some in emergency management said he followed the plan (although the response was botched at many levels). 

Speaking as someone who lives in a neighborhood hit hard by the riots, I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now.   The Guard appeared in token numbers on the Friday after the riots came to Saint Paul – four days into the violence – and didn’t appear in numbers sufficient to tip the balance until Saturday. 

The Governor may have done his job – maybe.  But he did it to the absolute bureaucratic minimum standard.  The only two leaders in the whole affair were Chief Axtell, and then-president Trump, whose threat to send the 82nd Airborne may or may not have spurred actual action, but certainly seemed to, whether coincidentally or not.

The Flood:  And then came the 2022 elections.   

The DFL did what it does best – scare suburban women into thinking abortion (protected in the MN Constitution for years, now) was in imminent danger.   They rode that to seizing the “Trifecta” – control of both chambers of the Legislature. 

It was a close fight – Keith Ellison and Julie Blaha nearly lost.   1,000 votes would have swung the Senate to the GOP; about 4,000 more, the House.  Scott Jensen was a weak GOP candidate at the head of a decreasingly potent state GOP – but Walz only won by 8 percent. 

But the DFL governed like they’d had a California-style mandate.

And the results have been wretched.  I’ll just brain-dump them here:

• He and the DFL squandered a $19 billion surplus.  The “surplus” was structurally down to $2B as of the last forecast, but it’s going to be a deficit – right after the election.  The money went to buying votes (“Feeding kids!”) and frau/ /
• The Metro DFL is a fraud machine, funneling hundreds of millions of dollars through the HHS and Education Departments.  Faced with the news, Walz said “it’s not my job, man”.  
• Much of the surplus also went to “fully funding education”.  But school districts are still complaining about money, teachers are striking all over the place, and reading and math scores are still falling.  Graduation rates improved, briefly – when they state removed most standards. 
• While Minnesota’s population is said to be holding steady, it’s mostly because of immigration.  Minnesotans in their productive years, or with fungible capital, are leaving and taking their businesses and their money.
• College students and young people are leaving Minnesota.  That the reverse of the trend that obtained for decades before, when generations of young people – myself included – saw Minnesota as a destination. 
• While he prattles about “One Minnesota”, he has “sorted” Minnesotans pretty relentlessly. 
• He made MN a sanctuary State
• He pushed drivers licenses for illegals
• He drove making Minnesota a “trans refuge” – signing a law that mandated disregarding of child support decrees for children brought to the state by noncustodial parents to seek chemical and surgical neutering (alone among all causes).
• Crime in the metro is about double what it was ten years ago – and while it’s down a skosh from 2021, it’s waaaay ahead of pre-pandemic levels.

When they think they’re among friends, the left proudly recognizes Walz as one of their own. 

The Rule Of The Brittle:  Walz succeeded Mark Dayton – who was a fairly opaque governor, largely because his health was so atrocious his rarely went to the office (unreported by the state’s compliant media)

Walz is healthier – but far more opaque.  Other than the stage-managed pressers during Covid, his only real communication is via his very active Twitter feed, which provides a constant deluge of photos of him cavorting about the state, usually in his “regular Joe” costume of a seed cap and overstretched T-shirt.   State Fair time is usually high season – as he and his entourage waddle about the fair, sucking down corn dogs as the cameras roll. 

Which is probably a good thing – because he doesn’t handle questioning well.   And he appears to know it – the only debate in the 2022 cycle was on a feeble TV station in Rochester.  And Scott Jensen got under his skin – which isn’t hard to do.   He has a long record of losing his cool when people actually question him. 

So his handlers allow none of that. 

Speaking of questions:

Why Walz?   I think most national GOP strategists thought Josh Shapiro would be the prime choice.   Pennsylvania may be the swingiest of the swing states; some day it’s the hinge pin of this election. 

While Minnesota is a 50-50 state (four DFL and four GOP reps in Congress), the DFL turnout machine dominates state races against a MN GOP that makes the Vikings look like overachievers. 

if the state is in play then things are very bad for the Democrat indeed.  This doesn’t seem to track the situation. 

I’ll entertain thoughts in the comments. 

As this is written, the Harris campaign is evaluating its VP choices.

Inexplicably, Tim Walz is among them. 

He’s a brittle little man, who breaks down when prodded on debate stage. 

The state is stagnating:

He squandered a $19B surplus and is driving the state to a deficit (just you watch, this December) just in time for the nation’s economy to start spluttering toward recession.

Crime has held steady at catastrophic levels. 

“Haha, Merg.  If he’s so bad, how do you suppose he won re-election”

He hid from even the compliant media – the only debate was in Rochester, and he got hammered – and had his fluffers convince enough gullible hysterical suburban soccer moms that abortion was in danger.  He was blessed with a poor GOP opponent. 

The cons of a Walz choice:   it’l likely get plenty of DFL enthusiam going for the state elections, potentially contributing to DFL turnout in the House race. 

The pros:  it’ll put Klink on the national stage.  JD Vance will flense the piglet. 

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…

To:  Governor Tim “Wilhelm Klink” Walz
From:  Mitch Berg, former Rock, Cow
Re:  Your Heardland Credentials

Governor Klink, putatively a Veep candidate – is burnishing his “heartland” creds:

You know what it’s really not about?

Calling most of “your” state “nothing but rocks and cows”.   We’re really not about that. 

In theory, we’re not into being something different today than you were yesterday which was different than 2006…:

One thing you do still have is your “badthink” databvase. I bet I’m on it.

That is all.

What’s the next front in the specious war on “white supremacy?”

We’ll come back to that.

Redundant And Extraneous: Something I’ve always wondered about; why does Minnesota have a Senate, but the Senate just replicates each pair of House districts?

It give you all the disadvantages of a purely majoritarian unicameral legislature, which an added layer of bureaucracy which doesn’t actually protect the population from the tyranny of the majority.

I’ve often thought it’d be best to make the legislature more analogous to the US Senate, including the focus on blunting the power of the pure majority – either 2-3 Senators per Congressional district, or one per County.

And I’m not the only one.

Adversarial: The move to give Minnesota a minoritarian, deliberative Senate has finally gotten a mention out there:

That would shift power to lower-population counties, and make the Minnesota Legislature more like the U.S. Congress, with the House membership based on population proportionality and the Senate membership elected one per county, no matter how many people live in that county.

“The real problem is the representation in Minnesota,” [propoenent Allen] Lysdahl told the Becker County Board during the open forum period on Tuesday, June 4. ”It’s either very concentrated in some areas or very diluted in others.” The existing system is “pure majority rule,” he added. “It’s not conducive to good government — majority rule is like a lynch mob

It would help the legislature bridge the tribal divides that currently slop most legislation into our current, useless three-person junta. And it’d help prevent the orgy of one-sided spending caused by the Metro area’s stranglehold on the Legislature.

Smug Alert: So you know the DFL is going to hate it.

That’s right – the party that gave us ranked choice voting, ballot harvesting and season-long early voting windows, and has spent this state into decline and oblivion, is complaining about “rigged elections”.

Suffice to say, I support it. It will, of course, take a GOP trifecta, and a decisive one at that, to make it happen.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Classic literature instructs us:

*** 

Said the Mock Turtle with a sigh, ‘I only took the regular course.’

‘What was that?’ inquired Alice.

‘Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,’ the Mock Turtle replied; ‘and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.’

‘I never heard of “Uglification,”‘ Alice ventured to say. ‘What is it?’

The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. ‘What! Never heard of uglifying!’ it exclaimed. ‘You know what to beautify is, I suppose?’

‘Yes,’ said Alice doubtfully: ‘it means—to—make—anything—prettier.’

‘Well, then,’ the Gryphon went on, ‘if you don’t know what to uglify is, you ARE a simpleton.’

Minnesota Democrats know what it means and they are hard at it

I don’t like it.

Joe Doakes, no longer in Como Park

The problem with the flag – and to a lesser extent the license plate – is that they were designed by graphic designers, judged by people whose background was graphic design (filtered through politics), by criteria that make sense only in graphic design terms.

And while graphic design is one of many tools used to get ideas across to people, when applied for its own sake it’s an intensely myopic discipline. It certainly doesn’t help that so much of my own field has been dragged down by visual designers masquerading as problem-solvers.

Take all that and filter it through politics, and you get the same effect as when you filter science through politics; bad design and/or politics.

The Minnesota DFL destroys everything it touches.

Governor Klink – or his social media intern – turned the gas on the living room lamp down:

Biden may be a good man – signs say “no, not really” – but the “steadiness” of his “leadership” have left the Middle East and Ukraine in flames, and I’m not betting against bad things happening in Taiwan.

But let’s focus on Klink’s other bit: how Trump is “fascinated with dictators”.

Governor Klink:

• Set up a snitch line
• Presided over setting up a “badthink” database with no public visibility whatsoever
• Classified people as “non-essential” – along largely political grounds
• Enriched his and the Democrat party’s donors while squashing small business
• Hid the math by which he justified his “emergency powers”…
• …which, speaking of which, he kept for a solid year after the “emergency” was over.

I’m no Trump fan – but Klink is the one who actually cosplays dictator in office.

If you live in District Six in Hennepin County – this area here…:

…you need to get out and vote Marisa Simonetti for Hennepin County Commission in the special election being held today.

She’s an unknown conservative who ran in the runoff three weeks ago, spent about $700, and got 33% of the vote with no name recognition, running against Mary Moriarty’s spouse and at least one candidate who spent $70K to try to build name recognition, in a runoff. That took her to the final round, today:

Her opponent is Heather Edelson – a sitting Legislator whose sole “accomplishment” was writing a bill that would have banned gas powered lawn mowers in the state. “Lawncare Barbie” has name recognition – and literally nothing else.

Simonetti’s a dark horse – but given the tiny turnout in these special elections for county races, anything is possible.

So:

• If you live in the area in the map above – basically all of Henco south of 394 and west of 169 – get to the polls. Bring your family. Extort your kids. Whatever it takes.
• If you don’t live in this district, make sure any family you do have in the area turn out and vote for Simonetti.

This would really shock the world.

So let’s do it

I had Marisa SImonetti on my show the weekend before last. She’s a conservative candidate for Hennepin County Commissioner. She’s running for the District Six seat:

In the intervening weeks, she came in second in the run-off election to run against Heather Edelson to represent the southwestern part of Hennepin County:

“Heather Edelson?”, you may say. “Have I heard of her?”

Why yes. She was in the MN Legislature, defeating Dario Anselmo in the 2022 election. Her sole “accomplishent” was writing legislation that would ban gas powered lawn mowers. Because that’s the issue – unpleasant noises in bucolic Edina side streets – that keeps working Minnesotans up at night.

She wants to leave the legislature and bring that amazing freaking talent to the Henco Board.

Now, Edelson (and her record of stunning, courageous achievements) have a ton of name recognition.

But Simonetti got over 30% of the vote in the qualifying round. And with enough name recognition, and enough pissed-off people of all parties bum-rushing the polls next week, we could really shock the world, here.

Which is where you come in.

If you live in the district: Get to the polls. Bring friends and family. These county special elections are normally snooze fests; if people turn out, it’s winnable.

If you live outside the district? Call your friends who live there. Get them out to the polls. Drive them. Ply them with cigarettes and liquor, I don’t care.

I’ll be interviewing Simonetti on my show on Saturday.

Let’s send Heather back home, to listen to gas mowers all day long.

As the Minnesota state legislature, led by the no-way, no-how insane Nicole Mitchell, meanders toward passing a “safe storage” bill, I went out to try to take the community’s temperature on the issue.

I started out at a Menards. There was a line of people in various gang colors, lined up waiting for new safes to be rolled out of the back room. The attendant, Lars “Schmidty” Schmidt, said they were down to just a couple left, and the truck with more wasn’t due until Tuesday.

Things were getting a little edgy, so I went to a Cabela’s.

It’d be a little threadbare to say “I was shocked”…

…but I was.

I kid you not, the line of gang members trying to buy gun safes to comply with the “safe storage” law ran out the door.

This is where the story gets a little dicey – honestly, i can hardly believe I saw this.

One guy was driving away with his new safe when two youths walked up to him in the parking lot, stuck a gun in his face, and jacked the pickup

And then as they were driving away with the new gun safe, another car blocked them in, and three guys got out and carjacked them. They drove off with the safe, leaving three other gang members outraged, perplexed, and with no way to keep their firearms safely locked up.

All of this is as true as I can make it.

A friend of the blog sends this email:

Saw this article this morning & thought you might have fun with it. I
could see a headline like “White colonialists invade Native American
land and destroy culturally sensitive structures”. The article
mentions that the land belongs to the Leech Lake band and the
structures involved belonged to Native Americans

The friend was right.

Not only was it a story of cultural oppression, but…:

Foresters for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources used dynamite to blow up two enclosed wooden deer stands state officials say were permanently left on state land against state law.

Neighbors in the area say the demolition was unsafe and unnecessary. Agency officials on Wednesday said the action didn’t follow “DNR policy or reflect good judgment” and that follow-up measures are likely.

…dynamiting deer stands can not be good for the environment.

Just a quick point before we get started.

The “I’m just asking questions’ school of opinion journalism – whether Rachel Maddow or Tucker Carlson or anyone in between – is a particularly toxic practice. “Asking questions” that aren’t intended to elicit the truth is pointless at best; doing it as a substitute for seeking the truth or, worse, to deny or obfuscate it, is much worse.

We’ll come back to that.

The Premise: I try not to attach too much news significance to “features” columns. It’s entirely possible that columns like this Strib article from MPR alum Laura Yuen has no ulterior motives.

But go ahead and read it, and tell lme – if the piece were part of a DFL attempt to curry sympathy for Mitchell, to soften public attitudes as the DFL heads into an election with their House majority on the line behind a raft of legislation that may or may not have enduring popularity in the third and fourth tier suburbs, how woulld it be any different?

What Nicole Mitchell did is bizarre, tragic and unlawful, if the police narrative of her breaking into her stepmother’s home prevails. The state senator’s apparent failed heist of her father’s ashes and other belongings likely spells the end of her political career.

But the emotions behind it? I understand them.

In case that opening graf left you in doubt about Yuen’s sympathies, she follows with this list of center-left dog-whistles and signaled virtues:

Trauma after losing a loved one can make a person act out of character, if not out of their mind. An Air National Guard officer, former meteorologist, lawyer, single mom and staunch defender of children’s rights, this promising first-term DFL legislator had everything to lose.

The piece goes on to discuss the crazy things that follow from grief and, it needs to be said, family issues. It isn’t not worth a read, as far as that goes.

Stil – while nobody expects features columnists to be clinically detached – “journalistic” – about their subjects, I think it’s significant that Yuen buries the facts that Mitchell changed her story, not just under questioning but on social media, using her very large publid figure megaphone.

And then (emphasis added):

Until this point, Mitchell has always struck me as a superhuman, measured in both achievements and decency. (We both worked at MPR News, and I wrote a column about her and fellow meteorologist Rob Kupec after they were sworn into the Senate.) Mitchell might deserve a second chance in politics, but it would be easier to make that case if she apologized for the actions that led up to her arrest.

Hold onto that word, “Superhuman”.

Anyway – we’ve established grief can do crazy things to the psyche.

The Possible: And it’s not necessarily a features columnist’s job to examine all the other possibilities.

But since Yuen ends with a hypothetical…:

She could start by saying she’s in grief. That she’s embarrassed by what she’s done. That she’s going to step aside while she receives professional help to heal.

And as a culture, we need to allow for people to talk openly about debilitating grief, the kind that makes a hard-working, respected legislator risk it all when she acted on the worst decision of her life.

….so will I.

It’s possible that grief pushed Senator Mitchell past the bounds of normal behavior.

Also entirely possible: Yuen isn’t hte only one to think of Mitchell as “superhuman”.

Does Mitchell believe it herself?

I’m not “Just asking questions”, here.

Mitchell is a lawyer – who publicly contradicted her statements to the police, on Facebook:

Did she do this – violate a tenet of criminal defense that every first-year law student knows – because she was crazy with grief? Or because she figured she was superhuman and could do it?

It’s probably a little trite to say “I’ve suffered plenty of grief in my life, and I never burgled any relatives” – but that’s at least in part true because neither I nor most anyone else figures that’s the right thing to do, and nothing we’re grieving about is worth that kind of trouble.

Did grief make Senator Mitchell irrational? Or is Senator Mitchell’s version of “rational” different than yours, mine or Yuen’s?

I”m going to suggest the data supporting each conclusion are about equal.

Upshot: I’m not saying that Yuen’s piece is a part of the DFL’s PR effort, to try to pitch Mitchell’s alleged behavior as sympathetic as the DFL sneaks her into the Senate to finish jamming down their agenda.

But if it were, would it be any different?

Fearless prediction: Mitchell will appear on Esme Murphy for mimosas, toenail-painting and affirmation.

Senator Mitchell (DFL Woodbury) was arraigned for First Degree Burglary in Becker County yesterday.

I’ll cop to the fact that I honestly hope someone who has attitudes about civil liberties and rights like she has, has a short political career.

Now, I really need to follow my. own counsel here; Berg’s 18th Law applies. We don’t know all the facts, and our media will be pretty worthless at getting those to us accurately anyway, especiallly since she’s one of their own – both as a media person and a Democrat.

So I’m jumping to no conclusions, here. Pinky swear.

Still – it’s been in the news. I’m gonna talk about it.

You Have The Right To Remain Silent: She doesn’t seem to have done herself many favors before arraignment; for someone with a JD, she seems to have missed the whole “don’t talk to the cops without an attorney present” thing:

I’m nothing if not a pollyanna: It all could be a huge misunderstanding. It’s a crazy world.

But, while I am no attorney, that seems to be a dumb thing to say to cops, when dressed in black, outside a place you have allegedly entered without authorization, dressed in black, before 5AM.

We’ll come back to that.

Anything You Say Can And Will Be Used Against You: Now, she was represented by counsel at her hearing. After which she (or someone claiming to e her) posted this on social media:

Now, I lost my mother to Alzheimers two years ago this week – after years of adventures including a ten hour drive to try to find her (long story). I’m nothing but sympathetic to relatives of Alzheimers patients.

But, uh…

• “Prompted me to check on the family member” – at 4:45 AM? Dressed in all black? And telling the cops you know you did something wrong after you were Mirandized?
• “have come and gone from countless times” – at 4:45 AM? Through, it is alleged, a basement window?
• “Startled this close relative” – at 4:45 AM, while allegedly dressed in black and entering the home through something other than a door? I don’t wonder.

Did her defense counsel know she was posting this? It seems…ill-advised, but again, I am no expert.

Speaking of the close relative:

The stepmother said in an interview that she’s afraid of her stepdaughter and applied for a restraining order against her. She also said that while most of her husband’s ashes were buried, she sent Mitchell a miniature container with some of them.

Is the stepmother genuinely afraid of Mitchell? Or suffering from delusions while suffering from dementia? Experience notwithstanding, I’m no expert – but either way, it seems that entering the woman’s house (allegedly) at 4:45AM, dressed like a ninja, through a window, might not be an optimal choice.

Senator Mitchell is of course innocent until proven guilty. But it is difficult to see how a DFL with any integrity, as opposed to lust for power in a Senate where Mitchell is the margin, keeps her in office. While she won her seat by a 18 point margin, having her in office is a problem.

So last week, the DFL introduce this amendment to existing state statute on “reasonable force” self-defense in this bill.

And the amendment includes some curious bits of language:

A Kiss Is Just A Kiss

Minnesota law allows the use of “Reasonable” and non-lethal force (that’s another statute altogether) in some circumstances: when you’re:

• A cop doing legal cop things (or helping a cop do cop things, or carrying out a legitimate citizen’s arrest
• Helping someone defend themselves against an assault
• Resisting trespass
• Grabbing a prison escapee
• Restraining a child or student, under some circumstances, if one is a parent, teacher, guardian or lawful custodian
• If you’re a school or employee or bus driver, to protect students
• If you’re a common carrier and need to 86 a troublesome passenger (with reasonable care for the passenger’s safety)
• Restraining someone who’s mentally ill or otherwise developmentally disabled from harming themselves
• If you’re an institution and need to restrain a patient from harming themself or someone else.

So far so good.

But the DFL wants to add an exception to the law:

Subd. 4. 

Use of force not authorized; reaction to victim’s sexual orientation. 

Force may not be used against another based on the discovery of, knowledge about, or potential disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, including gender identity and expression, including under circumstances in which the victim made an unwanted nonforcible romantic or sexual advance towards the actor, or if the actor and victim dated or had a romantic or sexual relationship.

So if I read this right – lawyers in the house, please sound off – it sounds like someone who takes a non-forcible pass at someone is fair game for a good slap – but not if they are or are “perceived” to be transgender, in which case it’s off limits?

Again – not being lawyer, I’m unclear on this, but is it currently OK to slap someone who makes a pass at you, if they’re “cisgender?” Or merely gay?

And that’s just the beginning.

Liquored Up?

When booze is involved, things get a little weirder, at least to this non-lawyer: Booze is no defense, except as an aspect of crimes whose elements include a particular state of mind:

An act committed while in a state of voluntary intoxication is not less criminal by reason thereof, but when a particular intent or other state
of mind is a necessary element to constitute a particular crime, the fact of intoxication may be taken into consideration in determining such intent or state of mind

Unless that state of mind involves a crime against a transgender person:

It is not a defense to a crime that the defendant acted based on the discovery of, knowledge about, or potential disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, including gender identity and expression, including under circumstances in which the victim made an unwanted nonforcible romantic
or sexual advance towards the defendant, or if the defendant and victim dated or had a romantic or sexual relationship.

So, is there a crime, currently, where the state of mind is an element of the crime, where intoxication can be considered as part of the defendant’s state of mind, that would not be affected by a victim’s perceived gender?

Someone help me out here.

And finally:

If You’re Not A Biologist, Is It Really “Manslaughter?”

Among several other motivations, manslaughter is when one…:

intentionally causes the death of another person in the heat of passion provoked by such words or acts of another as would provoke a person of ordinary self-control under like circumstances, provided that…

That appears to this non-attorney to refer to someone reacting to some form of extreme stressor, like crying child, or…:

(ii) the discovery of, knowledge about, or potential disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, including gender identity and expression, including under circumstances in which the victim made an unwanted nonforcible romantic or sexual advance towards the actor, or if the actor and victim dated or had a romantic or sexual relationship

So – is killing someone in the heat of the moment a lesser grade of manslaughter than killing someone of ambiguous gender?

Is it just me, or is that really weird?

The Governor’s “State of the State” was last night. And Berg’s 24th Law was in full effect:

Progressive politicians can, and routinely do, say anything they want, regardless of honesty or even factuality, confident that their audience, while theoretically “educated”, has no capacity for critical thought”.

The gaslighting was, as with all things Walz, pretty ovewhelming:

Better schools.

Safer streets.

Governor Klink says this with a straight face, counting on “his” voters being too gullible and uncritical to know he’s whizzing on their legs and calling it “rain”.

When I saw Angie Craig jamming Mary Moriarty into the wood chipper last week…

…. I figured there was a reason.

And MPR apparently thinks so as well:

Most congressional districts in the nation and in Minnesota are considered either firmly Republican or Democratic. That’s not the case in the 2nd District, which comprises much of the south metro area, but also stretches deep into rural south-central Minnesota. 

The combination of near-urban, suburban and rural voters makes the district viable ground for both parties.

The district’s Republican Party Chair, Joseph Ditto, said 2024 is his party’s best opportunity in years to defeat Craig, who won the prior three elections by close margins. 

Of course, the DFL money and media machines will be working overtime to put lipstick on the metaphorical progressive pig that Craig is once she goes to DC:

Craig has a massive fund-raising advantage. Craig has raked in more than $3 million for this race so far. That’s more than five times as much as her Republican challengers raised combined.

Craig had more than $2 million in the bank to start the year.

Outside groups have also indicated plans to play heavily in the district, one of relatively few targeted races in the country.

In a district where independent voters will prove pivotal, Craig is promoting efforts to reach agreement with Republicans on issues ranging from combatting fentanyl smuggling to stopping congressional pay raises. Five press releases in March alone use “bipartisan” in the headline.

We’ve been used to Craig rolling out TV ads driving offroad in a Jeep, to try to burnish her “not like those DFLers” cred.

I fully expect to see a new one with her at the range with matching AK47s in each hand.

This is your brain on crack:

This is the DFL’s brain on DFL ideology:

You have no agency re your behavior until you’re in your thirties, but you can choose to have yourself neutered when you’re 8.

I suspect there’ll be a bill in the next session, if the DFL maintains the majority, banning logic of every kind.

Wait – didn’t the DFL in the Legislature spend most of April and May of last year doing the endzone happy dance celebrating having “fully funded” education?

I do believe they did.

So – what is up with this?

Now, when you asked a DFL legislator or an EdMN partisan what “Full Funding” meant, the “answers” should have come with a side of blue cheese for all the word salad. It was gibberish. And that was just the ones that didn’t ignore the question entirely.

As we see now, pretty much intentionally so.

Joe Doakes, formerly from Como Park, emails:

I keep getting campaign text messages.   “Hey, Joe, the country is going to the dogs. Text Senator . . .”

No, I won’t text.  I don’t live my life on my cell phone, it’s there for my convenience, not yours.  But there’s no escape.

“Text STOP to unsubscribe.”

“STOP”

“You texted STOP.  Are you certain want to unsubscribe from these important messages from Senator?”

“YES DAMMIT”

“Okay we have unsubscribed you.  If you want to receive these important messages from Senator in the future . . . .”

“Hey, Joe, the country is going to the dogs.  Text the Committee to Reelect Senator . . . “

“I already texted STOP”

“That was a different list. Are you certain you no longer wish to receive these important messages from Senator?”

“YES FOR CRYING OUT LOUD HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU”

“You realize that engaging in antisocial behavior affects your social credit, banks will consider you a reputational risk to close your accounts, a Red Flag order will be docketed against you and the IRS will be calling shortly? Do you still want to unsubscribe from these important messages from Senator?”

***

My folks had an old black Bakelite rotary dial phone sitting on a little table near the dining room.  I miss that.

Joe Doakes

Minnesota, 2024: The DFL says 46 days of early voting and “no excuses needed” mail in voting doesn’t make voting (for the DFL) easy enough; demands more:

Given that young adults are least likely to own a car, and many 18- and 19-year-olds do not even have a driver’s license, it can be very difficult for them to reach early voting and Election Day voting sites,” Pursell said as she explained the parameters of the legislation, which is being backed by Secretary of State Steve Simon.

The House Elections Committee voted to place the bill on the general register on a party-line voice vote. The bill has no companion in the Senate. No Republicans in the hearing expressed support for the bill, which one member said amounts to a fiscally irresponsible “unfunded mandate” for counties.

Minnesota, 2030: The Minnesota DFL, claiming early voting and polls that come to you if you’re a prog kid at Gustavus is still not easy enough, proposes to simply enter votes for all newborns for the rest of their lives, on birth (or when they would have been born, if the mother “reproductive freedomed” the baby).

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, for people who love to control other people:

And right back atcha – happy first day of session to all you DFLers who treat it like an orgy!

So, Erin Murphy is the new MN Senate Majority Leader, replacing Senator Dziedzik (whom I wish the best in her ongoing battle with cancer).

What this means is that the old “Labor” coalition that ran the DFL and often Minnesota has been demoted to the back seat. Dziedzik’s father was a long-time Northeast MInneapolis politician who was a perfect metaphor for the coalition; blue-collar, from Northeast or the Iron Range, pretty much your typical Perpich voter.

Murphy represents the, uh, great leap forward for the DFL: Metro, public employee union, and not one degree behind The Squad in terms of perfect “progressive” credentials.

Anyway, here we are:

By the way – has anyone noticed that, if you left all anthropological terms out of the rhetoric, the “improvements” the DFL is making are the same kind of thing a farmer does to take care of a herd of livestock?

As opposed to free people?

Since roughly the 2020 election, I’ve simultaneously:

• Thought something was amiss about the elections; if not Chicago-style ballot stuffing, at least a world of irregularites with the “legal” changes due to Covid – mail in balloting, and the collusion between the DOJ, the Biden campaign, big media and big tech to “shape” the Hunter Biden story, among others
• Told some of the more extreme election skeptics, especially on the air, “That’s an interesting theory, but until Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani bring an actual case with evidence to court, rather than beclowning themselves, what do you expect we’re going to do about it?”

Three points.

Imperfection

The first point? I made that a few weeks back, when I talked about why I don’t necessairly think “a judge and jury say so” is completely invariably the dispositive last word on any issue. Long story short – judges and juries make mistakes. And that’s ignoring the fact that some prosecutors play fast and loose with the rules, some defense attorneys have no idea what they’re doing, and some judges just want to make their @$%$#& tee times.

Sometimes it gets caught.

The legal system isn’t perfect, but it beats most of the alternatives.

Which may or may not be good enough.

Second: In a separate, seemingly unrelated topic: in Minnesota, most judges are elected. But the candidate pool is intensely circumscribed because, as a lawyer once told me, running a campaign against a sitting judge in front of whom one will one day have to appear in court is pretty much a one-way trip toward spending the rest of your career chasing people who bounce checks.

Judges, by inference – who are charged with being our society’s stentorian impartial guardians of justice and fairness and due process – apparently have the egos of a bunch of middle school “mean girls”.

Reading between the lines: the reputation and social standing of practitioners among other practitioners is as much a part of the judicial system as due process and gavels and the literal letter of the law.

Socially Rigged

So – did the social pressure among lawyers, judges and everyone else in the legal profession that we discussed above affect the election, or the way the courts approached questions about it?

I don’t know. But this article, among others, certainly seems to brag about the power of the Legal Mean Girl caste to bring Big Law into line. Certainly Big Media isn’t going to report on it.

Let’s just say I can be convinced.

The Strib ran this story:

Fact-Check: Governors Flanagan and Klink tell us that Minnesota’s…er, “One Minnesota’s” economy has never been better.

And Brandonomics, we are constantly told, is breaking records.

So, clearly, the myth is busted.