In California, fast-food restaurants must now pay $20/hour. Newsom has celebrated this as a major achievement.

But Newsom’s restaurant group can, and does, hire people for much, much less.

PlumpJack Cafe in Olympic Valley – which is among a group of eateries owned by a company Newsom founded in 1992 – is hiring a part-time busser who “will aim to assist the food server … to ensure guest satisfaction during all aspects of the dining experience,” according to a ZipRecruiter posting.

The job listing states the salary for the busser is $16 an hour plus tips.

But a food service worker would make more working at a McDonald’s than at the high-end restaurant and bar thanks to the new $20 fast food minimum wage that went into effect Monday.

Fast food restaurants under Newsom’s law includes any place without table-side service that has more than 60 locations around the country – which seems pretty oddly specific, targeting McDonalds and skipping Chilis…

…or the PlumpJack group, where you can get a steak for $90 with tax and tip.

Some animals are more equal than others…

…and I give you the Minnesota DFL:

To: DOJ/DHS/FBI/Deep State
From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous Peasant
Re: McCarthy Called, He Wants His Scare Back

Feds,

Just a quick detour into music history:

OK – with that out of the way:

I mean, I‘ve been predicting this since 2009 – not that it was a huge reach.

Anyway, Ms. Federal Agent, it’s b-E-r-G. Not “U”. I’ve never actually met a Burg. And yes, that dress makes your ass look fat.

That is all.

A friend of the blog emails:

I was always afraid the activists had too much control, [the FOB’s spouse] was confident that the state wouldn’t do something this stupid. But, it is getting talked about in mainstream media now. It’s probably really going to happen, isn’t it? 

The FOB is talking about the “Plan” being pushed by “advocates” to replace I94 between the downtowns with a “boulevard”.

Normally at this point, of course, I’d say it’s just another racket to transfer money from the taxpayers to the non-profit and consultant “advocate” class. They can write puff-piece reports and squalls of PR material on the indirect public dime, build entire careers out of yapping about vaporware projects.

But the people who love to play with the levers and buttons and knobs of government have gotten their hands on this, so I’d say the odds are pretty decent that a lot more money will be spent on this.

The obvious question is, what happens when an untstoppable money-squandering force (the drive to gut 94) meets the immovable money-squandering object (the drive to put a deck over the freeway to rebuild Rondo)?

They can’t both win…

It appears the Vegetable In Chief has browbeaten Netanyahu into letting Hamas live to rape, burn and mutilate another day:

Very discouraging news out of Israel today that the IDF is pulling its forces out of southern Gaza, supposedly to “rest, regroup, and re-supply” after four months of hard fighting. Let us hope this is true, but one can’t help but suspect that this move may be in response to demands from the Biden Administration that will inevitably lead to a permanent cease-fire which will amount to a Hamas victory, because Hamas will have survived a hard Israeli punch but will now have time and room to rebuild. (Axios is now reporting that Biden delivered an ultimatum to Netanyahu.)

Biden appears to be well on his way to making Jimmy Carter look like a foreign policy titan:

When I heard the news of the IDF strike that killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen, my first instinct was that the aid workers were set up by Hamas through false or deceptive intelligence sent to the Israelis. We know Hamas uses civilians as human shields and welcomes civilian casualties as a means of propaganda, and foreign civilian casualties are the best propaganda of all. Maybe an Israeli officer was hasty and had a twitchy trigger, but I doubt it. In any case, it gave the feckless and craven Biden Administration the excuse it needed to break with Israel (as I predicted it eventually would), in the biggest betrayal of an ally since Munich in 1938.

I have never been more ashamed to be an American.

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

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

Minnesota used to significantly outperform the rest of the US in germs of gross and per capita GDP growth.

Today?

[Since] 2019 — the last pre-COVID year — Minnesota’s real GDP growth has ranked 36th out of the fifty states, coming in at 4.0%, less than half the national rate of 8.1%.

The gross GDP growth comparison is bad. The per capita numbers, even worse:

Minnesota’s recent performance is relatively poor. As Figure 2 shows, between 2019 and 2023, Minnesota’s real, per capita GDP growth ranked 39th out of the fifty states. Again, with growth of 3.1%, Minnesota’s real, per capita GDP growth was less than half that of the United States, 6.6%.

The Walz regime will respond, no doubt, as it always does; with a selfie of “Lieutenant” Governor Flanagan feeding Governor Klink a pronto pup.

Capital, productive citizens and the college kids who are the productive citizens of the future are fleeing. Businesses have been moving their non-white-collar operations out of MInnesota for decades.

A significant chunk of the far-left clacque that runs politics in the metro are Marxists, either overtly or under the hood.

And an amazing number of them subscribe to the “Labor Theory of Value” – the idea that labor, as opposed to the other three factors (Capitol, Management and Land) is the dispositive factor of production.

I have been challenging adherents for years – test the theory by taking a group of fast food workers, plopping them on a vacant lot, and seeing if a Hardee’s springs up around them.

It’s an absurd test – exactly the one the theory deserves.

I used to say nobody had taken the challenge.

But it appears that, at least indirectly, someone just might.

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?

Hennepin County’s population – which is mostly Minneapolis – is down. And while that is not the only factor depressing home values for the first time since the 2008 recession.

This is affecting the funding of (what we will still refer to as) public services in Minnesota’s largest county and city.

In fact, the demographics of Minnesota as a whole are a little troublesome.

The annual “natural change” in Minnesota’s population (births minus deaths) is not enough to compensate for the number of people moving out of the state. In the little over three years from the last census (April 1, 2020) to July 1, 2023, Minnesota saw a natural increase in residents of about 40,400. These gains were wiped out by the net domestic outmigration (people leaving Minnesota for other states) of 46,000. If not for the net “international migration” of 34,600, Minnesota’s overall population would have fallen over this period.

Young people are leaving the state – which is a huge change from when I first moved here, when the Twin Cities were a destination to a lot of recent grads stepping out into adult live.

But hey, maybe protecting criminals while jamming people into ticky-tack multi unit boxes will fix the problem:

That’s the problem with progressive politics. Reality always wins.

“Pregnancy Resource Centers” attempt – and succeed with gratifying regularity – at convincing women and couples considering abortion to carry their children to term. In many/most cases, they offer post-birth financial and emotional support.

It’s in stark contrast to Planned Parenthood, which aborts the fetuses, collects whatever money they can, and sends the patient on their way.

In other words, heretical desecration of the secular religion’s most holy sacrament, abortion.

Erin Maye Quade, DFL Senator from Apple Valley, wants only to feed more flesh into the maw of the One True Faith:

“I would love to eminent domain all 98 of these crisis pregnancy centers and turn them into affordable housing for people who do have children,” said Sen. Maye Quade. “I would love to turn them into food banks and diaper banks and formula banks. Like, these are things that actually support people having children when they decide they would like to have children, and everything that crisis pregnancy centers are doing is not that. None of it is that.”

It’s downright disturbing, the hatred the pro-infanticide mob feels for these centers:

Honestly, Apple Valley – what’s your problem?

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”.

Lieutenant Governor Flanagan has a unique (?) approach to sports gambling:

I might just have to take enough interest in college hoops to keep track of how her bracket does.

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.

The NYTimes embraces the Deep State…

…that just doesn’t exist.

And apparently “railroading cops into kangaroo court for politicized prosecution to earn favor for a “woke” prosecutor”…

…isn’t polling well in CD2.

To: Governor Walz
From: Mitch Berg, middle aged obstreporous Caucasian
Re: Conversation

Governor Klink Walz,

Last week, you said that “old white men need to learn how to talk about abortion“.

“I think old white men need to learn how to talk about this a little more,” Walz told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “And I think the big thing is: Listen to women. Listen to what they’re saying. We’ve seen that when we listen to them, they’re speaking loudly and they’re speaking at the ballot box.”

OK – one life-hardened caucasoid to another, let’s do.

So let’s establish this: human rights don’t interfere with other rights. If something interferes with a human right, it’s not a right. An infringement, an entitlement, even a moral duty? Perhaps. But rights don’t interfere with rights.

So here’s the question: at exactly what age did your, little Timmy Walz’s, right to live supersede Darlene Walz’s “right to choose”? And why then?

At birth? You were no different at 40 weeks than you were at 36. So you weren’t a human at 36 weeks – unless you got delivered by caesarean, in which case you were? Babies delivered at 36, even 30, weeks survive routinely and without much drama to become fairly normal children.

Doesn’t seem logical.

You were no different at either of those points than you were at 26 weeks, really – and today that 26, even 24, week old baby has really good chances of surviving.

All of the options above have scientific and logical issues.

So – when did you become human?

Not some abstract “clump of cells” in some generic “woman”. Tim and Darlene Walz.

When?

I’ll save a seat for you on my show Saturday.

“Hey, Republicans – that’s just a great line to take in an election year”.

Coulda said the same thing about Slavery in the 1860 election, couldn’t we?

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.

One of the few saving graces to Minnesota’s legislature – even when it’s not dominated by the DFL – is that it is part-time. It meets for a couple of months a year, and then the members go back about their business.

Which, for most DFLers, means back to job somewhere in the non-profit-industrial complex.

But that’s just not good enough:

Currently, the Constitution of the State of Minnesota says the Minnesota Legislature cannot meet for more than 120 “legislative days” per biennium. Additionally, the legislature is required to adjourn in May every year. As such, the Minnesota House and Senate do not typically meet from June through December. However, occasional, short-term “special sessions” can be called by the governor for certain situations when the legislature is not in regular session.

Therefore, the Minnesota Legislature is typically referred to as a “part-time” or “citizen” legislature. The vast majority of state legislatures in the Union do not operate on a full-time basis. Only a few states, such as California, New York, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, run full-time legislatures.

Should HF 4598 be passed into law, voters would be asked if the Minnesota Constitution should be amended to remove the requirements that the Minnesota Legislature only meet for 120 legislative days and adjourn in May. Specifically, the proposed law would put a constitutional amendment on the ballot proposing this change. The registered voters of Minnesota would decide whether to keep the legislature as it is, or change it.

Currently, the legislature meets for 120 days out of every biennium, barring special sessions.

Assuming they’ll take plenty of time off, assume they’ll triple their “work” year, and at least triple their salary.

And, sooner than later, their taxation and spending.

…that the DFL knows its voter base believes its own press and has no critical thinking ability whatsoever:

So – we’ve got a straw buyer problem, but DFL county attorneys would pursue charges “because the penalties aren’t high enough”, so the DFL demands more penalties to the camera, but then leads his entire ghouish, creepy, Orwellian caucus in voting against a bill that’d do just that.

We’ll need a whole lot of Minnesotans who are tired of being treated like gullible children to turn out this November.

If you’re a working or middle-class taxpayer in Minnesota, the DFL wants to show you:

They took $17 billion dollars extra from you, and gave you $260 back, maybe. But they want to give illegals a Universal Basic Income.

This is a complete inversion of anything plausibly close to “Justice”.

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.

I should put together a bingo card of sarcastic, grifting proposals so outlandish and bizarre that they couldn’t possibly exist in nature, and see how many of them the DFL proposes in the legislature.

One of mine might be “state subsidies for teacher strikes”.

Hand me the dauber. Got it.

Walter Hudson asks a great question:

Once I get Juan and Goncalvo to cough up the money…

…I think it’s time to guy that 1960 Les Paul Standard.

What are you doing with your cut from the illegals?

I think this’d be what the kids today call “saying the quiet part out loud”…

…except it’s really saying the part they keep yelling at the top of their lungs, even louder, really.

Senator Erin Maye Quade thinks parents shouldn’t be bringing their children up with any sense of basic morality when it comes to sex:

That’s right – just cast them out into the world, and let the teachers and Planned Parenthood do the teaching for you.

Which will help keep the meat coming through the doors at Planned Parenthood, who most generously supports her political career (and, one suspects, will be providing amply for her when she one day “retires from politics”).