Remember 1998? 

Minnesota was doing so well that we could play a practical joke on ourselves.   

We were one of the most successful states in the union.  The combination of “good government” Democrats – naive, misguided but not actively malevolent – and a Republican Party that in retrospect still hadn’t caught up with the Reagan Revolution gave us a government that on the one hand did too much, but on the other hand kind of left things alone enough for them to work.  

Things were so good that we could elect a professional wrestler as governor.  

And things stayed good, or at least acceptable, until…

…well, sometime after 2010.  I can’t quite place it – sometime between Mark Dayton’s election and 2020 – that that ended.   Maybe it was the fourth tier of taxes, or the takeover of Minneapolis and then the DFL by the DSA, or Walz’s idiotic response to the pandemic.  

But in that time, Minnesota has gone from one of the good states to somewhere between “laggard” and “death spiral”.  

I’m not mongering doom – I think the state can be saved.  But the slice of time where that’s possible is flying on by.  

With that in mind?  It’s convention weekend.   

The DFL

The DFL’s convention is happening in Rochester.   And the only real question is, “will it matter”?  Klobuchar is going to win the nomination and, barring an epic October Surprise on fraud or corruption from the Feds, she’ll likely become governor.   More on that when we come to the GOP side.  

The Senate race – which is no longer a race – is more interesting.  Angie Craig yesterday announced she’s headed straight to the primary, after learning 75% of the delegates were pledged to Peggy Flanagan.   

In 2010, knowing the delegates were insane, Ken Martin stepped in and poured on the money to overthrow Margaret Anderson-Kellihers endorsement at the primary, with Mark Dayton.  Eight years  later, after the convention gave the nod to the Karen twins, Erin Murphy and Erin Maye Quade, as well as actual Communists Matthew Pelikan for attorney general, Martin brought in the money and the public union clout to jam down Walz and Flanagan as well as the relatively moderate Ellison in the primary. 

Peggy Flanagan is likely the weakest statewide candidate the DFL has endorsed in my memory.   She could be beaten – more on that below – and I suspect smart DFLs know that Craig would be a much easier sell outside 494/694.   

If it we were talking about Ken Martin and a DFL before, say, 2020?  No question about it, the statewide DFL leadership would yet again nullify the convention and jam down a more electable candidate.  

But the DFL has changed since 2018 – they took their defeats in 2018 and 2021 (on the police funding question in Minneapolis) as a signal get really serious about taking over the DFL.  And you can say two things about Richard Carlbom; no way, no how does he look like a young Hermann Gôring, and he’s no Ken Martin.   

I wouldn’t put it past the DFL, though. I know if I were a GOP Senate candidate, I’d much rather face Flanagan.  

The MNGOP

The Governors race appears to be a tossup between Speaker of the House Lisa Demuth and Kendall Qualls, although Mike Lindell has been doing well in Central Minnesota and has some strong delegate support as well.   I suspect Demuth will win the endorsement, and I’m going to guess it goes to a. primary.  I like both Demuth and Qualls (Lindell’s got a great story, but in the general he’ll make the GOP long for the good old days of Kurt Bills), and I think Demuth has the lead with delegates so far, but let’s be honest – the real key to this election lies with the Feds, and if they drop a huge string of indictments against key DFLers in October.  And the media will be doing its best to mute even that.  

And it’s a shame, because getting a Republican – any Republican – into the executive branch to check and balance the DFL’s depredations may be the only sustainable hope the state has to pull out of the tailspin it’s in.  

So fingers crossed for the Feds.  

For the Senate race?  

This is the first time I’ve harbored any genuine hope in a Minnesota senate race since the mugging they call the 2008 election – mostly because Peggy Flanagan is such a very weak candidate. 

The three contenders are Adam Schwarze, Michelle Tafoya and Royce White.  

I follow the Buckley Commandment – vote for the most conservative candidate who can win. 

White has his proponents – mostly among the “burn it all down” crowd pushed by “Action4Liberty”.   A4L has cracked the code on weaponizing ignorance of politics and, along with “Minnesota Gun Rights”, profits from defeat. I don’t see him getting the nomination, “rocks and cows” support notwithstanding.   He will , I suspect, have enough oomph to be a kingmaker or to deny any endorsement at all.  

It’s going to be be between Adam Schwarze and Michelle Tafoya.   Schwarze likely has the lead among the delegates, although Tafoya has been working the room pretty hard for someone who is generally considered to be headed for the primary.  

Schwarze has all the things that delegates and activists love – a former SEAL, impeccable conservative credentials, and a vow to abide by the endorsement.  He’s also got next to no name recognition outside party activists, and will have to buy some by November.   

Tafoya has some cons – a stance on abortion that is simultaneously too accomodationist for many GOP activists and identical to Donald Trump’s position (12 weeks), and a “path to citizenship” stance on immigration that is a poor sell at the convention but likely not a problem in Maple Grove.  She’s also got name recognition, is raising serious money, and has at least some polling showing her close to the margin of error against Flanagan.  

I’d pay money to see either of them debating Flanagan or Craig.  

So – who is the most conservative candidate who can beat Flanagn or Craig?

But I have a hunch if the GOP ticket has a major chance of turning things around in Minnesota, it might just start here:

I have no idea if any of this is true – but if I were writing this as a movie, then the Republicans in the legislature, knowing full well that the law enforcement apparatus in the state reports to Keith Ellison and that one might as well report fraud to the state’s cattle herds as the Attorney General, bypassed state authorities completely and went to the Feds.   

And as the extent to which the DFL-dominated executive branch is riven with crime becomes known and more and more DFL officials are frog-walked to Leavenworth, even the densest “soccer mom” in Eden Prairie stats to realize the depravity they’ve been abetting and repents at the polls this fall. 

A guy can dream.  

I’d love to know what Peggy Flanagan is, er, “thinking”:

“Avenge” what?

The DFL has controlled the executive branch for 15 years, and most of state government the past eight.  Flanagan has been in power for eight years.  

Avenge…what?  Her regime’s actions?

I presume she’s talking about “avenging” Metro Surge – the federal operation that negated Minneapolis’s “sanctuary” status and went after the sex traffickers and drug wholesaling that made Minneapolis and other “sanctuaries” home.   And while you can disagree with some of ICE’s methods – and I do – the bulk of the disruption to the city was caused by the masses of leftists with Main Character Syndrome, organize by professional progs to spend their days roaming the city with their @#$#^ whistles and vuvuzelas making the city sound like a roaming Chuck E. Cheese. 

Avenge yourself.  

Please, MNGOP.  You could win this one. 

 

This is what’s been bothering me.  

We’re heading toward an election that might be the MNGOP’s best chance to move the needle in executive offices in a very long time.  The DFL’s fraud problem should by all rights give the GOP a shot at governor, if the GOP can pick a solid candidate (and the straw polls so far say we just might).  

And on the surface Richard Carlbom, the new chair of the DFL, doens’t appear to be the glib money master that his predecessor, Ken Martin, was.  (And don’t you dare let anyone say he looks like a young Herman Göring).

Here’s the problem.  Remember 2012?  

The Voter ID Amendment – which is an 80/20 issue nationwide, and even wins a majority of Democrats in public opinion polls- should have been an easy winner.  

But Carlbom engineering a campaign that emotionally logrolled ignorant, emotion driven Minnesotans into tying voting “yes” on same sex marriage to voting “no” on voter ID.  

And the morons did it.  

And he’s doing it again, with the ICE thing.   

Joe Doakes, once of Como Park, emails:

Rioters broke into an FBI vehicle and stole an assault rifle bag, the kind used to transport an M-16 fully-automatic military-grade assault rifle.  Assuming it’s not just an empty bag, the streets of Minneapolis just got a lot less safe. These are the people Democrats are encouraging and supporting.

Joe Doakes

 

I’m waiting to hear how Big Minnesota Left tries to spin this as protected speech. 

Governor Walz appears to be losing his mind:

Because it’s all Trump’s/Joe Thompson’s fault, of course. 

By the way – watch for a concerted campaign by Big Left – or even just Walz’s crowd – to paint him as the victim in all this:

I try to stay on an even keel, to give people the benefit of the doubt. 

But I’ve never wanted to see someone hauled out of the Capitol in handcuffs – or, given this video, maybe a straitjacket – this badly in my life. 

I started hearing blips last week that Governor Walz was going to get defenestrated from the Governor’s race.  The big donors that run the DFL were worried he’s going to be a drag on the ticket.  

It got a little more official last night:

Reports say Amy Klobuchar may get in the governor’s race. 

This is, of course pretty brilliant for the DFL.   Rumor has it they want to run on an “Anti-Fraud” platform next year.  Klobuchar hasn’t been implicated – so she’ll make that a little less incongruous.  And if she loses, she keeps her Senate seat, and if she wins, Walz appoints her successor.   

The only two risks?  

• The GOP getting its act together and running a well-funded, universally supported candidate that can deliver the right message with enough force to get past mid-Minnesotans Fudds and their attachment to two generations of the Klobuchar name, and
• The Feds bringing in a lot more indictments that make, er, other parts of the ticket squirm a little.  

I’m thinking “B” is more likely, but I’ve love to be suprised. 

Watch this video.  

How far away do you think Minnesota , and America, are from this?

SCENE:  The headquarters of the Democrat Farmer Labor Party, in Saint Paul. Chair Richard CARLBON is convening a meeting of key Democrat activists, including Tim WALZ, Keith ELLISON, Moonbeam BIRKENSTOCK, Avery LIBRELLE, Inge “Lucky” CARROLL, And Evan Micah BRYAN.  

WALZ:  Damn.  This damn fraud damn scandal is damn causing a damn lot of damn trouble. 

CARLBOM:  We’re not on camera, Tim. 

WALZ:  Doh.  I’m a knucklehead.  This fraud scandal is causing a lot of trouble.  

BIRKENSTOCK:   So what do we do?

CARROLL:   Rebrand “finding fraud” as racist?

BRYAN:  We have been doing that.  It’s not working quite like it used to.  

ELLISON:  We can tell the media who’s boss. 

CARROLL:   On it.  

CARLBOM:  No bad ideas, folks.  But I think I’ve got it.  

(The room hushes)

CARLBOM:  We run as the anti-fraud party!

WALZ:  Damn yeah damn we damn tell people damn damn damn damn

(BIRKENSTOCK rises, takes Walz’s hand, leads him from the room)

BRYAN:  You mean, go at all these allegations of seven years of fraud while we controlled the executive branch and most of the Legislature by saying we were always the party that fought fraud. 

CARLBOM:  Yep. 

ELLISON:  But what about the Somalis?

CARLBOM:  Pfffft.   We throw them under the bus.  

LIBRELLE:  Isn’t that a little bit cynical?

CARLBOM:  It’s a lot cynical.  That’s what I do.   We burn one group of immigrants, we bring in another group of migrants.   Palestinians are hot right now.  

(Nods and murmurs of assent around the room)

CARROLL:  Hm.   Kind of Orwellian.   

CARLBOM:  Of course it is.  And it works.  It’s always worked before.  Minnesotans just aren’t that smart.  

(Muted assent around the table)

BRYAN:  People are pretty stupid.  

CARLBOM:  That’s our unofficial motto.  OK.  Make it happen!

and SCENE

This fall and winter – when the Minnesota fraud story finally broke nationwide – has been a long time coming. 

As has been a broad realization, at least among modestly independent media, that the Twin Cities media is exactly what we’ve been saying it is for the past 20-odd years:

“The Minnesota Star Tribune masquerades as a newspaper,” New York Post columnist Miranda Devine posted on X. “It’s actually a Democrat front, hiding news, twisting facts, lying outright. One of the worst in the country.”

Additionally, the paper’s CEO is Steve Grove, who served as Gov. Tim Walz’s former commissioner of employment and economic development, which has sparked criticism from some who say that the paper is hesitant to pin Walz to the fraud crisis. 

Fox News Digital spoke to several locals who argued that media outlets either didn’t cover the scandal thoroughly enough or, in cases where it was covered, Walz’s oversight role was downplayed.

“The Minnesota Star Tribune has proven itself to be nothing more than communist fish wrap,” Republican House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, who represents Minnesota 6th Congressional District, told Fox News Digital. 

 

A free, independent press – the one they envisioned when they wrote the First Amendment – is one of the things that makes self-government above the “tribe” level possible.  

Maybe we’ll get one of those in Minnesota someday.  

$18 billion in potential fraud since 2018 – and he’s fairly confident at least half of it isn’t hypothetical at all.   

So it’s likely the minimum is nine billion billion dollars – among 14 Medicare/Medicaid programs alone.  

Put another way – the entire ruinous projected six billion dollar deficit projected by the end of the decade, and half of another, all defrauded from the state and nation’s taxpayers in the past seven years.  

I don’t want Walz to step down. 

I want him to get hauled out of the Capitol kicking and screaming by FBI agents.  

And I want to be there videotaping the whole thing.  

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Nobody seems to know exactly how much money the Somalians stole, but Bill Glahn at Powerline blog posted this:

That’s a lot of Simoleons.  Can we get it back?  And send them back, while we’re at it?

Joe Doakes

a) no, and b) in most case no, they’re citizens and/or born here.   

Governor Walz’s strategy seems to be to try to blame the whole thing on Trump.  I’m just curious to see if Minnesota voters are gullible and stupid enough to fall for it.  

Even money.  That’s being optimistic.  

Tim Walz and Keith Ellison are running for unprecedented third terms as Governor and Attorney General – even though both had expressed interest in other, higher offices (and Walz actually ran for one off them, sort of). 

Steve Simon is running for a first-of-a-kind fourth term as Secretary of State, notwithstanding the fact that many were seeing him as a governor candidate not long ago, and a fourth term as SOS has just got to be a career-ender.  

I gotta wonder if it’s because none of them have a choice; they all know where too many figurative bodies are buried to leave now?f

How open is the state’s ruinous new “family leave” law to Minnesota businesses?

The Legislature has barely begun to count the ways.  

Representative Marion Rarick is counting:

There is literally nothing preventing an entire extended family from chucking daily life on the company dime for six months – on the honor system.   

I know businesses that have already left Minnesota due to this provision.  

Why, it’s almost as if putting a bunch of Sandy Feists and Andy Smiths into a room with unlimited authority was a terrible idea.  

So I’ll admit it – I gave Mayor Frey about a 51% chance of beating Omar Fateh last week.   

But I figured that if Frey did win, the results would look a lot like the 2021 “Defund the Police” initiative vote; 

• Progressives, especially feckless young white ones, voting for the radical change
• People who had something to lose from that radical change – people in North Minneapolis who already live with crime, and people in Linden Hills and west of the Lakes with something to lose – would vote against. 

And lo and behold:

The blue precincts went Fateh; the tan (?) ones, Frey.

And who’d thunk it – Fateh took the urban-life theme parks like Marcy Holmes and Northeast below Broadway, and the toffs in Kenwood, and the wannabe starving artists in Whittier.  

The North?  Linden Hills and Nokomis?  West of the Lakes?  All Frey.  Even Longfellow thought Fateh was a radical too far.  

Color me amazed.   

Perhaps mores – the defeat of Katie Cashman leaves the DSA unable to override the mayor’s veto for the first time in years.    That’s gotta smart.  

After their debacle in 2021, the DSA said they’d be back in force for 2025.  They weren’t gonna let that happen again.  

And yet here we are.  

I’m sure they’ll be back again.  The next election is always the crucial one.  

But if this was indeed the perigee for leftism in Minneapolis (and I remain to be convinced), and the city is going to have to deal with slow decay rather than flaming implosion – well, that’s a slightly better grade of crisis, isn’t it? 

Tim Walz was unable to cajole, emotionally manipulate or bully the MNGOP into a very special session on guns, to help him never waste the crisis of the Annunciation School shooting last month.  Go figure – the guy who is a walking symbol of tyranny and whose wife gets tingly at the smell of burning rubber wants to gut the amendment that makes being a tyrant risky. 

So he’s going to take the show on the road.

The “town halls” will no doubt follow the DFL’s format for these things perfected during the Obamacare “debate”; attendees will be screened for loyal membership in the DFL.

But I think a little tailgate party outside might be fun.  I haven’t organized anything like this in a while; I’m a little overdue.  

If the Governor starts scheduling these things in the Metro – and there’s not snowball’s chance on a Dominican beach limbo party that they’ll be anywhere but the Metro, Duluth or Kim Norton’s Rochester – it might be fun to have a little tailgate party outside.  

Hm.  

Check back. 

The Governor is clearly trying hard in his campaign for third term.  He’s actually putting out tweets involving things other than being fed corn dogs by Peggy Flanagan.  

But I saw this, and I gotta say, I’m nervous:

If you’ve been watching the Walz administration, this is a sign to start watching for stories about fraud in the MN Department of Transportation. 

I’m joking.  But with this administration, and this DFL, jokes become reality all too often.  

Hence the Berg’s Laws.  

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. 

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.

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.  

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

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?

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.  

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

 

Joe Doakes