Governor Walz released his plan to address, rampant fraud in his executive branch.

Long story short: transfer more money to the political class.

Bill Glahn, a policy fellow at the Center of the American Experiment who has closely tracked the case, said the proposals mainly consist of “hiring more bureaucrats.”

“That so many different state agencies are involved points to part of the problem: too many cooks, too many fiefdoms, and no central location where the buck stops,” Glahn wrote in an article this week. 

That should solve things.

How certain is the DFL that at least a plurality of Minnesota voters just aren’t very good at logic, civics or critical thinking?

Sure enough that they’re treating the $17 Billion “Surplus” a big win for progressive governance, and proof of some divine mandate:

What it actually is, of course, is a combination of:

• BIllions of dollars in federal Covid stimulus dollars
• The normal Minnesota DFL overtaxation…
• …with receipts driven up by inflation in the cost of the goods being taxed
• All that taxation and inflation going on over an epipandemic surge in stimulus-swollen consumer spending

Mark my words – and I have marked them myself, with “to dos” on my calendar on the first Mondays ijn December of 2024 and 2026: the following will happen:

• The DFL will turn that “$217.6 Billion in Surplus” into permanent spending
• The economy will slow into recession (as even the DFL’s cheerleaders in their bespoke press are starting to observe).
• Without the Covid stimuli, and with the economy contracting, tax receipts will crash again.
• The state will have a multibillion dollar deficit by 2026, probably 2024.

We’ll check back on this.  Oh, yes we will. 

Close on the news that two of downtown Minneapolis is nicer office towers are going up for auction, to avoid foreclosure?

The Hilton, one of downtown‘s premier hotels, and site of the NARN‘s first big surprise triumph (the 2004 debate party between George Bush and John Kerry, where we expected and planned for 100 attendees, and got more like 700)

Yeah, things are looking up downtown, aren’t they?

To: Minnesota Peasants. Er, Citize…Subjects. Let’s go with Subjects.
From: Minnesota State Government
Re: Take Comfort

Your paycheck is worth 8% less than it was last year.

The price of food and gas is waaaay up.

Your rent is going up. Lots.

The cost of borrowing has more than doubled.

The schools are failing – and your government blames you for it, and for everything else.

But don’t trouble your hearts, simple peasants. Because while you may suffer, your government is doing just fine.

Because while peasants like you come and go, State Government is forever.

And in that, you should take comfort.

Signed
Minnesota State Government

“But our money is for a good purpose, so…”

The DFL ran the table in the last election.

If they want something passed, they will likely pass it (exceptions exist, and we’ll be talking about them).

Marijuana legalization should be a slam dunk. There’s no need for the party to mobilize its base to get out and pimp for bread and circuses…uh, I mean weed.

And yet they’re doing this:

Seems odd, doesn’t it? Coming up with weed merch for a measure that was a campaign “promise”?

Fearless prediction: the DFL will draw up a weed bill – or amend it onto an omnibus that won’t pass with certain amendments, including weed, included. The DFL will blame the GOP, and use it in two years to get the strung-along weed-voter dupes to trudge to the polls again in 2024.

It’s finally Election Day and we can all breathe easier now that we won’t have to see Angie Craig’s alternating rictus grin/contorted face of rage multiple times a day on television, social media and other media. But will we see Craig going forward? While I sincerely hope not, it’s difficult to know. So let’s hazard a few guesses on how it will play out today and in the coming days.

Governor: Tim Walz deserves to be tossed out on his well-padded posterior, but I suspect he and Peggy Flanagan will survive. Scott Jensen ran a decent campaign but it’s difficult to overcome all paid advertising from Alida Messinger and the free advertising from the Esme Murphys of the local media.

Secretary of State: Steve Simon is a smooth operator and Kim Crockett is not. Should those traits matter? No, but they do. Simon wins.

Attorney General: We have had the DFL Lucys pull this football away before. Recent polling suggests Keith Ellison is in trouble and that Jim Schultz is leading. Do you believe it? I don’t, but I sincerely hope I’m wrong.

Auditor: If the Republicans are allowed to win a statewide office, it will likely be this one. Republican Ryan Wilson has run a fine campaign and you can’t spell blah without DFLer Julie Blaha. The auditor has limited power but a committed auditor can at least turn over a few rocks the DFL would prefer to keep stationary. Wilson wins.

CD-2: While there are 8 congressional districts in Minnesota, apparently only the 2nd is being contested this year. We’ve seen dozens, maybe hundreds of ads featuring the odious incumbent, Angie Craig, and her rival Tyler Kistner. It’s been a nasty race and Craig has serious money behind her. She’s vulnerable because of redistricting, but it’s not clear to me that Kistner has made the sale. A left wing veteran’s group has also run some stolen valor ads in the final weekend that may affect the outcome; I have not been able to determine if their claims are accurate, but if Kistner loses, that last-minute attack might make the difference. As an aside, I really wish we’d seen Republicans make more of an effort in CD-3, where it’s been entirely too easy for Dean Phillips.

Elsewhere: Control of the House and Senate are at stake and the deep unpopularity of the Democrats will almost certainly mean Congress will be in Republican hands in 2023. A few guesses on races in other states:

Wisconsin: while the population and demographics of Wisconsin are similar to Minnesota, Wisconsin is not a blue state. Milwaukee and Madison are lefty enclaves, but their overall population is less than 40% of the total population, while the Twin Cities are about 60% of the total population here. As a result, it is easier for Republicans to win. Ron Johnson, the incumbent Republican senator, is a bit on the crusty side, but he’s a smart, effective campaigner and looks to be a good bet to win against his opponent, Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes, a gladhander in the Hakeem Jeffries/Barack Obama style, but less effective. In the governor’s race, Republican challenger Tim Michels is also a bit crusty, but the fluke incumbent governor, Democrat Tony Evers, is an ineffective milquetoast. Look for the Republicans to win both. (more…)

Gotta tell you something that bugs the bejeebers out of me.

Governor Walz’s campaign motto in both elections has been “One Minnesota”.

Now, if you’ve studied History *and* German, that slogan sounds all too close to “Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer” – “One People, One Empire, One Leader”. It was the motto of…uh, a regime 80 years ago that left behind some apocalyptic historical, social and political baggage.

In 2018, the slogan was merely annoying – one of those things the kids today refer to as “Microagressions”, which is another way of saying “something that people normally suck it up and chalk up to the cognitive dissonance of human communication”.

But after four years featuring the most incredible peacetime seizure of government power in history, and a long spate of politicized violence, not to mention a campaign of “othering” dissenters from the current ruling party as “Fascists” – the same, morally and personally, as the Godwins Law convicts in the second paragraph up above – it’s not hard to wonder if “One Minnesota” is a warm, fuzzy inclusive thing, or a warning that you’re either *with* “One Minnesota” or you’re against it; an invitation, as Elvis Costello put it, “shut up or get cut up”.

The President’s speech in September, referring to half the country as “Facists”, is exactly what regimes do when they want to draw a wide, exclusive “with us or against us” line through society.

I thought about that while reading this blood-curdling story about the Russian war crimes in Bucha – where they “cleansed” the city of Ukrainians accused by their regime of being “Nazis” and “Fascists”.

Today it’s Ukraine – but it’s the same dynamic that happened in Iraq in the 2000s, and Rwanda in the ’90s, Northern Ireland in the ’70s, China in the ’60s, Greece in the ’40s and ’50s, Finland (ffs?) in the 1920’s, even Kansas before the CIvil War; if you were on the wrong side of the “Us vs. Them” line when “Them” came through town, you and your family…died. Horribly. Then and there, bodies dumped in the street as a warning that we’re now living in One Iraq/Rwanda/Ulster/Greece/Finland/Kansas.

Given the rhetoric we are seeing today – I’ll charitable and say “on both sides”, but my heart’s not really in it – a slogan like “One Minnesota” is just too…redolent. That’s a good word.

You indiscriminately refer to your opposition – political, social, whatever – as “Fascists”, “Nazis” or whatever mortal enemy, against whom your society fought a life or death battle in living memory, that your culture recognizes.

Something causes the gloves to come off. Angry tweets – aimed at people who’ve had that label from that mortal enemy piled onto them – turn to angry words, to angry actions…

…and eventually, to mass murder.

But after the rhetoric of the past few years, escalated over the past few months, it’s not hard to see it happening in a place like

Berg’s Seventh Law (“When a progressive issues a group defamation or assault on conservatives’ ethics, character, humanity or respect for liberty or the truth, they are at best projecting, and at worst drawing attention away from their own misdeeds“) was written long before I first read Saul Alinski’s “Rules for Radicals”, so I didn’t know that Alinski’s Rule 4, “”Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules”, is more or less the same idea.

The most tiresome, and omnipresent, meme of this election is “a vote for Republicans is a vote against Democracy”, combined with labeling any call for scrutiny of election laws and processes on any level as “election denialism”.

It’s a way of “othering” people – for, in most cases (shaddap about Marjory Taylor Greene – for defending a system of self-government …

…that is under constant attack by the left themselves.

It’s time to start calling out:

• Electoral College Denialists
• Minoritarian Senate Denialists
• Enumerated Powers Denialists
• Checks and Balances Denialists…

…as the threats to self-government that they actually are.

Yesterday was a big day in polling for MN Republicans.

Top of the order – Real Clear Politics’s polling summary shows Scott Jensen behind, still – but the second most-improved of the GOP hopefuls:

That’s over the previous two weeks – and it was the best performance of a number of underdog Republican gubernatorial candidates. As Dan McLaughlin said:

In the gubernatorial races, the Wave Surfers are Christine Drazan, Kari Lake, Joe Lombardo, Stitt, Derek Schmidt, and Tim Michels. Maybe you could persuade me with one more poll to slide Scott Jensen into this bracket.

And its been 16 years since that’s been said out loud.

Later in the day? I suspect some interns were soundly thrashed when the news came out:

Wilson up five over Blaha, with plenty undecided, but Biden underwater in Minnesota and momentum apparently moving the other way? Fingernails will be chewed. But it could be worse.

And the big news:

GOP Attorney General candidate Jim Schultz up by nearly double the margin of error, with barely enough undecideds to swing the race to Ellison if they all joined him (ignoring the MOE for a moment).

As to the Governor’s race?

Survey USA, which had Jensen down 18 points two months ago, currently has him…

…down eight.

I’m not going to claim SUSA is biased in the same way I showed the Star Tribune Minnesota Poll was. Clearly the methodology differences between SUSA and the Trafalgar Poll a few weeks back are pretty immense, and it’ll be interesting, to say the least, to see how this shakes out over the next week.

The DFL is getting nervous about crime; their line has morphed from “We ARE tough on crime!” to “The other guys are no better”.

Dane Smith’s editorial parrots the execrable Paul Krugman; both of them are utterly, unforgivably wrong.

“Red” states with crime problems have one or more of the following factors in common:

1) They have one or more large cities, usually Democrat-controlled. Tennessee has Memphis. Louisiana has NOLA. Alabama has Birmingham. Even in Minnesota, if you leave out Minneapolis and Saint Paul, the violent crime rates are almost European level.

2) Scots-Irish culture, exacerbated by centuries of poverty driven by the servitude culture that led to “white trash” culture. Dueling, honor killing and violence as an accepted part of life are still fairly routine down south. They were even MORE routine when the South was Democrat. They were, in fact, routine before the US was a nation. It’s why parts of rural South Carolina and Louisiana are as dangerous, *per capita*, as Chicago.

Krugman and Smith ignore a couple of vital facts.

1) Yes, *Conservative* policies *do* curb crime. 30 years ago, New York City was one of the most dangerous cities in America. They elected Rudy Giuliani, who replaced social justice mewling with law enforcement – and made NYC a place you could take your kids to. He wasn’t the only one; Jersey City elected Brett Schundler 30 years ago, and nine years of his very conservative leadership turned Jersey City from a crime-riddle hellhole to the jewel of the Jersey side (for a while, anyway).

2) Why do neither Krugman nor Smith point out that places like the rural, hard-red West have crime down around European levels? “But empty land doesn’t have crime problems”, some innumerates may reply – but we’re talking *per capita rates*. Still, they make a point – cities have pathologies that lead to crime. And they are overwhelmingly blue. Correlation? Causation? I don’t know – and it’s for certain Krugman and Smith don’t.

3) “Red” policies DID work, already, in Minneapolis. In the late ’90s, the city went from being among the nation’s most dangerous to a fairly safe one for close to a decade and a half, ENTIRELY due to diliegent law enforcement, including cracking down on career criminals. (Were there excesses? Absolutely. That’s the hard part – given a choice between public safety and ethical police, CHOOSE BOTH, NO EXCEPTIONS .

4) Whatever you can say about “red” law enforcement, “blue” law enforcement has been a failure…EVERYWHERE. In large part because they believe, in Lisa Bender’s words, that public safety is a “privilege”.

So – if a Democrat says it, and it’s about crime in particular, it’s a lie. There’s no way to pretty that up.

Smith and Krugman are trying to deflect the gullible. Do not let it work.

Surprise, surprise – the Strib endorses Co-Governors Flanagan and Walz.

Rather than posting tiresome pullquotes from the article, go ahead and post your own versions of “Strib” quotes in the comment section. I’m sure it’ll be more entertaining.

…if Keith Ellison is really this dim…

…or if he’s just counting on his voters being that clueless.

My money’s on “B”.

As polling results (and, I suspect, internal polling) show the GOP statewide slate is showing promise, two things are happening:

First: The DFL is throwing everything they can find against the wall. Look for a raft of abstruse “Campaign Finance Board” accusations – the political equivalent of “Karen” demanding you wear a mask while out walking. It’s impossible to run a campaign without violating some rule or another, and everyone involved knows it; the charges are there purely to logroll the gullible.

Second and less predictable? Donald Trump, looking to burnish his record as a kingmaker, has bungee-corded into the state with a raft of endorsements. Earlier this week he endorsed Kim Crockett and Scott Jensen.

The bad news? It gives the DFL another framing point to use to try to seize control of the message.

Jensen’s campaign is reacting, I think, appropriately:

“…ultimately, we only care about one endorsement: the support of Minnesota voters. We are continuing to barnstorm this state, engage in meaningful conversations, and work every day to earn the votes of Minnesotans by fighting Walz-Biden inflation, ending our crime epidemic, protecting parental rights, and funding students, not broken institutions,” Jensen said.

A source close to a statewide candidate told me yesterday that it was not the news they were hoping for: they were just starting to get the conversation in their statewide race focused on issues rather than personalitymongering; Trump’s endorsement may have complicated that.

The good news, maybe, possibly, if you’re a GOPer who’s forgotten what contending in an opinion poll, much less winning an election feels like? Trump, burned by a couple of bad calls in primaries, is likely saving his last-minute bungee endorsements for candidates who’re going to burnish his record. Which means – I’m guessing here, but not without some reason – that the GOP’s internal polling is looking more like Trafalgar and less like Survey USA.

Sixteen years ago, Rochelle Olson and the Strib put out one of the yellowest bits of reporting there has ever been – a hatchet job against CD5 GOP candidate Alan Fine, who was up against Keith Ellison in his first run for Congress. A month before the election, Olson wrote a piece about an incident where Alan Fine was arrested for domestic abuse – somehow, without finding room to mention that there was no physical evidence, that he was never charged, that Fine eventually got custody of their son (which doesn’t generally happen for men with domestic abuse raps) and that in fact his soon-to-be-ex had been arrested for abuse later.

On my show, she said “there just wasn’t room” for all that extra information; I pointed out how she or her “editors” could have easily fit the relevant information into the story with room to spare.

Anyway, the old Rochelle is back.

Sunday, the Strib ran a piece, headlined:

Bad Republican Draft Dodger Pounces On Good Democrat.

Well, no. That wasn’t the title. But close enough. Here’s the real thing:

GOP opponent who never served criticizes Gov. Tim Walz’s exit from National Guard

The rest of the story doesn’t get any better.

Joseph Eustice, a 32-year veteran of the guard who led the same battalion as Walz, said the governor fulfilled his duty.

“He was a great soldier,” Eustice said. “When he chose to leave, he had every right to leave.”

Eustice said claims to the contrary are ill-informed and possibly sour grapes by a soldier who was passed over for the promotion to command sergeant major that went to Walz.

Eustice is indeed listed as a “Command Sergeant Major” (CSM) in the 125th Field Artillery, the Mankato National Guard unit in which Walz served.

Olson’s article refers to one “Command Sergeant Major” whose stories are dogging the Governor – Tom Behrends, whose story first came out four years ago.

But there are a total of three. Rochelle Olson and the Strib didn’t seem to think that was worthy of a mention.

And while CSM Eustice blames “sour grapes” by someone who maybe got passed over, all three of the men who’ve gone on record against Walz were Command Sergeants Major – the same rank Walz held before accepting demotion on retirement. And one of those exceptionally senior NCOs was in fact the CSM of the entire 34th Infantry Division – two levels of hierarchy above Walz. There weren’t many positions to move up to in the MInnesota Guard.

That retired divisional CSM is Command Sergeant Major Doug Julin – the senior NCO in the entire 34th Infantry Division:

Command Sergeant Major (Retired) Douglas L. Julin most recent assignment was as the Division Command Sergeant Major of the 34th “Red Bull” Infantry Division, headquartered in Rosemount, Minnesota

If Julin is upset about not being promoted, one wonders exactly how.

But Julin is upset:

Julin said he spoke with Walz directly in 2018 after Behrends sent a letter to the media about Walz’s military record. He said he expressed his frustration and concerns to Walz, who said he appreciated Julin talking to him about it, but “that was about it,” Julin said.

Julin told Alpha News he doesn’t really take issue with Walz using the CSM title after not completing all of the requirements to earn the rank. What matters to him most is how he walked away from his troops.

He wanted to share his story ahead of the election because he believes Minnesotans deserve better.

“Why should we be quiet? He uses the military to promote himself when he abandoned his soldiers,” he said. “He let the soldiers down. How can you be entrusted to be the governor of Minnesota when if something is not to your liking, you quit or you serve yourself and not others?”

Olson’s piece studiously avoids mentioning Julin, or the other retired CSM, Paul Herr – who spoke with Alphanews over the summer:

And apparently Olson and the Strib are counting on readers not investigating their claims, and just gullibly accepting their assertions as fact. CSM Eustice said:

Somehow, the Strib, Olson or the editors apparently found room to mention Jensen’s draft record (he became eligible for the draft as the Vietnam War and conscription were both winding down) and repeatedly chanting Jensen “didn’t serve” – like the vast majority of men in his age bracket whose numbers weren’t drawn in the waning days of the war.

Oh, yes, this will be a subject on Saturday.

Rep. Omar:

So, Rep. Omar – are you condemning the regime’s actions?

Because by your logic, the women of Iran are fighting against being forced to don the hijab…

…which you call “Islamophobia” when Americans say it.

Just want to be clear, here.

That’s a direct quote from Mayor Frey, from a presser yesterday.

I could shred that statement myself, using facts and stuff

Or I could let Keith Ellison do it, far more delightfully, starting around :12 seconds into this video:

When Keith Ellison‘s BS detector explodes, spewing shrapnel about the room, you know you’ve got a problem.

No reporter in Minnesota has covered the Feeding Our Future scandal like Bill Glahn. (Few have tried, but that’s another issue all together).

With that in mind, rather than trying to recap all the facts we know, I’m just going to attach this video of Glahn talking with John Hinderaker at the Center of the American Experiment:

It’s easy to see why Big Left has been swerving the hate machine toward the CAE lately.

One day, he’s launching snitch lines, open-ended “emergency orders” and sending mask inspectors out to restaurants (once he’s allowed them to open).

The next?

Well, hey, that’s an improvement, isn’t it?

The DFL really does depend on voters being low-information, having no critical thinking skills or historical context (even since 2018), but being pretty darn impressed with themselves…

Keith Ellison – a year ago this week – op-edding to endorse the “Defund” Amendment in the MInneapolis city elections:

Keith Ellison today: “I’m so a law and order, I make Dirty Harry look like a soy-boi cuck; just ask Mike Freeman!.

No, really. Check out his latest TV ad:

It is is the most artlessly blatant campaign lie I’ve ever seen.

It opens with…

…Mike Freeman (?!?!?) talking about the Ellison’s crime-fighting chops – which is a little like getting your coaching skills recommended by Les Steckel. The ad name-drops Freeman – without (if I recall the ad correctly) mentioning he’s the Hennepin County attorney who’s been letting robbers, carjackers and shooters go free, over and over.

The ad claims Ellison has “…never lost a criminal prosecution” – which is true, in the sense that I didn’t f**k up my bathroom plumbing when I replaced it – because I’m not a plumber, and I hired someone who was to do the job. Keith Ellison contracted the job to outside counsel…

…because his next statement, “he added criminal prosecutors”, is technically true and still a lie. The criminal division at the AGO was tiny, and is now a little less tiny. Which was why he had to farm out the Chauvin prosecution!

Ellison‘s ad is further proof that DFLers think they can count on their voters – or swing voters – being too gullible and uncritical to look past the lies.

Experience shows it’s not a bad strategery. Frankly, if he’s wrong I think it’d shock the world.

So let’s shock the world.

A third National Guard Command Sergeant Major – the top non-commissioned officer in a battalion of 500-800 soldiers, all of them very long-term soldiers/guardsmen with impeccable credentials – has come out against Tim Walz:

I need to find these sergeants and get them on the air, since I don’t suspect the Strib, the TV stations or MPR will.

The “Feeding Our Future” (FOF) scandal just keeps getting better and better.

Let’s sum up where we are so far:

1. 48 people were indicted on Thursday by the Feds.
2. Governor Walz claimed that Ramsey County Judge John Guthman, had ordered the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) – on pain of a contempt charge and potential jail time – to resume payments to the non-profit, as a result of litigation between FOF and MDE.
3. Guthman responded with a rare and complete rebuke of the Governor, saying that MDE and FOF had reached an agreement that FOF’s various deficiencies had been fixed, making the litigationi moot. That was one round of lies by Walz.

Then, yesterday, this came out; its an extended thread from Fox9 producer Seth Kaplan, and I urge you to read the whole thing:

Money shot:

There was never a mention by Judge Guthmann of criminal contempt and jail time being a possibility. It was always civil/financial contempt and penalties. There is a footnote on page 6 of the June 24, 2021 order reading: “The court’s order does not include a jail sanction so there is no need to address purge conditions.” It also reads “imposing financial and penal consequences for constructive civil contempt of court.”

So the fraud occurred on the administration’s watch – and when caught, Walz tried to throw a judge under the bus. The judge grabbed Governor Klink by the lapels and got his head wedged in there just a little further.

The media will memory hole this but good. But it’s got to be getting harder and harder to do.

Keith Ellison presided over, and in someways encouraged, the greatest outbreak of lawlessness, and certainly the greatest collapse in the rule of law, in Minnesota history.

But never let it be said he doesn’t know who his real enemies are:

After this past two years, your attorney generals real targets are the law abiding gun owners of Minnesota.

Perhaps the biggest story of all dropped last. US Attorney Andy Lugar released indictments against 47 (and later, 48) suspects in the Feeding Our Future scandal – the scam funneling $250 million in federal COVID relief into, it’s alleged, the pockets of a series of local non-profits.

he 48th indictment was allegedly a woman who was just about to head to Ethiopia on a one-way ticket – one who’d had the distinction of being the only one of the indicted who’d actually fed anyone.

The indicted include major donors to DFL candidates up through Ilhan Omar – and some key staffers for (as far as we know so far) Jacob Frey and others.

Beyond that?

This all took place on the watches of Keith Ellison and, especially, State Auditor Julie Blaha – who listed her main qualification for the job as “teaching kindergartners how to count”, four years ago. She may just be out of her depth.

Strong hunches bordering on fearless predications:

• The Twin Cities media will try to move along to a new news cycle ASAP.
• More DFL connections will become apparent, for those who are looking for them.

It was a very bad day for the DFL. I needed that.

As the DFL’s day continued, the DFL’s push to wrap themselves in law and order took a solid hit when a couple of dozen county sheriffs endorsed Jim Schultz for Attorney General:

This has got to terrify the DFL. There may be more bodies buried at the AGO than even in Steve Simon’s State Department. Expect a tsuanmi of Sorosbucks to try to right the DFL’s ship in this race.

And that could get even worse for Ellison, given the next story that dropped yesterday…