Looks like Tina “The Butcher” Smith is in the money – literally:

That’s six figures worth of profit, in one week.

Nothing suspicious there. Or here, for that matter.

The fact that the media isn’t covering it isn’t so much “suspicious” as it is “predictable”. The Strib, MPR News and all the rest are nothing but PR flaks for the DFL.

But that’s what we’re here for.

Someone claiming to be MN State Senator Grant Hauschild posted this on TWitter yesterday:

This must be a Russian hoax. Hauschild,and the rest of the DFL caucus in the legislature, to say nothing of the Flanagan/Klink Administration, spent the whole first half of summer high-fiving each other over “fully funding education” (in between selfies of grinning legislators stuffing donuts and corn dogs in each others mouths).

Now, they never, not once, explained what that meant.

For that matter, the term has vanished from the DFL’s chanting points since about Bastille Day.

Weird.

To: Governor Wilhelm Walz, Co-Governor, State of Minnesota
From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous Peasant
Re: Hungry For The Truth

Governor,

You tweeted this yesterday:

And yet your administration and the DFL majorities in the Legislature told us that Minnesota’s economy was doing better than ever, that “Bidenomics” was not a bitter joke whose self-induced inflation was no way no how hurting poor and working class people worse than the general population, and that the actions of this past session were going to reduce poverty by 30%.

If any of that were true, food banks wouldn’t be seeing unprecedented demand – would they?

Think back on all the financial corruption scandals in recent Minnesota history.

The non-profit scandals that edged a couple of Minneapolis DFLers out of office ten-ish years ago.

The DHS Daycare fraud case – involving hundreds of millions of dollars.

“Feeding our Future” – $250M at least, probably more like $500M.

What do they all have in common?

They all involve the cozy relationship between the DFL and the Nonprofit/Industrial Complex which, when manifested in policy, turns into the systematic transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the political class. It’s done over the table, via taxes, and under the table via graft paid to the Nonprofit/Industrial Complex.

And if the DFL accomplished anything in the State Legislature this past session, it was institutionalizing that stream at the state level.

Based on data gathered, [Minneapolis resident, attorney and plaintiff Zachary] Coppola alleges in the complaint that violence prevention contracts are “replete with apparent conflicts of interest.” In one case, Coppola found that the founder and sole employee of Cause and Effect, an organization that has received multiple violence prevention contract awards, is a city employee.

The complaint states that many of the violence prevention programs are also improperly using federal public funds. The complaint cites the example of One Family One Community, an organization that has received at least $175,000 in funds from the city. The organization operates a lobbyist association named the Community Housing Development Coalition, which lobbies the city on issues related to housing, public safety, transportation, and human services. In other words, the city is “paying a lobbyist to lobby the city,” the lawsuit says. Coppola states through the complaint that “not only is this a conflict of interest, but all federally funded violence prevention contracts expressly prohibit the use of funds for lobbying or political activities, so this use of federal funds is illegal,” he alleges.

Not mentioned in Coppola’s complaint, Crime Watch Minneapolis posted in September that Trahern Pollard, who is the founder of We Push for Peace, an organization that has received over $2 million in funds from the City of Minneapolis for “violence interrupter” activities, has formed a new LLC through which he is pursuing to acquire the embattled Merwin Liquors in north Minneapolis at the intersection of West Broadway and Lyndale avenues north. Pollard’s new venture, TXT LLC, seeks to acquire tobacco and liquor licenses to continue sales operations at Merwin Liquors, a move Crime Watch and others have implied is a clear conflict of interest to his city-funded violence interrupter activities as well as a possible indicator that money being doled out under the city’s Neighborhood Safety program isn’t being properly tracked or measured for accountability or measures of success.

I used to joke about Saint Paul being “Chicago on the Mississippi”, while Minneapolis was “Berkeley on the Prairie”.

I’m starting to think “A Cold New Jersey” is better.

…or ever: Ryan Winkler is right.

And the Minnesota Federation of Teachers has gone full Brownshirt.

Notice that the “Resolution” says nothing about the Hamas Charter’s call for the extermination of the Jews “from the river to the sea”.

Weird.

Also – BDS is not “peaceful”. It’s just an unarmed form of belligerency.

The DFL wants to build a new monument to itself. .

Well, that’s not literally true. It’s a replacement for the State Office Building, on John Ireland and Constitution, southwest of the Capitol.

It’s currently slated to cost $730M. GIven government inflation and the inevitable cost overruns, I suspect the all-up cost will be $1 Billion if we’re lucky, $1.4 if we’re just another Minnesota government project.

But that’s not all:

Members of the House of Representatives will be able to wave to the adoring crowds from high above the state capitol grounds in St. Paul.

A project so wasteful and bloated that it’s been nominated for this year’s Golden Turkey award (vote here), the state’s lower chamber is moving ahead with a half-billion-dollar (with a “b”) project to construct a new office building for Minnesota’s 134 House members.

What is it with tinpot authoritarians and balconies?

Like Horse and Carriage, I tell ya.

My friend, advice columnist and author Amy Alkon, has been chronicling the orgy of antisemitism bursting out in the Los Angeles area.

She filmed this encounter over the weekend:

Let’s take Judaism, Antisemitism and the Middle East out of this incident. Let’s say this was a domestic altercation. A man Two men use their physical bulk and subtly aggressive invasion of personal space to force a woman out of the way? That’d be considered abuse in court, and justification for a restraining order and, likely, loss of child custody if the woman really wanted to put her back into it, legally .

When I was working in bars, if I saw a man behaving like this around a woman, I’d have called the bouncers in. And there’s nothing those bouncers liked more than having a pretext to pummel guys who were threatening the ladies.

Big Left – maybe 5% of the population – is trying to intimidate the 55% that passively or actively disagree with them into submission.

And the subtle threat of violence implicit is there, in this “man’s” delivery and in Big Left’s approach to every issue today – be careful, or you’ll get Swatted/a visit from “Anti”-Fa/doxxed – is waiting out there for everyone – especially if you try to rally in response.

I’ll be interviewing Amy on my show this coming Saturday.

The incredibly aptly named Representative Debbie Dingell lectures us on semantics:

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free“ means different things to different people in different times!“, says the font of wisdom, in rising to the defense of the loathsome modern Nazi Rashida Tlaib.

And she’s right, in a sense.

The phrase “the final solution” can mean a lot of different things; it can be the formula that gets rid of your Creeping Charlie, or solves your credit card debt. So, too, can the German phrase “Arbeit Macht Frei”, or “work will set you free” which, set free of other context, seems straight out of Horatio Alger

Except.

Except when you’re talking about people who wanted, or want, to remove Jews, from some corner of the world.

Then, they mean exactly one thing, and one thing only. And anyone who pretends otherwise is being disingenuous, precious, a useful, idiot, or lying like a sack of garbage.

And if Dingell is capable of being anything, it might very well be all four.

The GOP controlled US House did its job – passing aid to Israel along with a proposal to slash the funding bounty the IRS picked up during the pandemic.

Ryan Winkler did his job – pimping for Mother Government:

When it was pointed out that hampering the IRS and supporting the IDF were both blows for freedom against tyranny, and that criticizing government is a constitutional right and obligation, while stifling that right is the actual “extreme” view, Winkler…

….well, he Wilnkered:

Where to start?

Once you reject the straw man (no, not “All” laws. Just the stupid an tyrannical ones, by your indulgent leave), just because a law was “validly (sic) enacted” doesn’t make it good.

Jim Crow laws were “valid” – enacted by due process by an elected government. So,, in a sense, were the Nuremberg Laws – the Nazi Party took power until the color of German law.

And I’d ask WInkler if he’d be so sanguine if the IRS was sandbagging the Democrat Socialists of America rather than the Tea Party, but that – either that bit of oppression, or WInkler giving a straight answer to a question, both – are about as likely as Ray Charles getting a called third strike on Kirby Puckett.

I asked a question last week that no Twin Cities “journalist” can seem to being themselves to ask: if food shelves are running short, what could the half billion dollars embezzled by DFL-affiliated non-profiteers have done to help things?

Now, I was in the middle of a brutal week of work last week, so I missed a few other questions that were, in hindsight, begging to be asked:

• The DFL tells us, relentlessly, that Minnesota’s economy is just humming along. So – why is demand for food shelves do high?
• The Biden Administration tells us “Bidenomics” has the nation’s economic blender set to “puree”. So all of us who are seeing evidence like this to the contrary – are we just believing our lying eyes?
• If we’re providing “free” breakfast and lunch to every PreK-12 student in the state, that should take an immense burden off the state’s food shelf system. But it seems it’s not.
• And the biggest, best question of all – In a state clogged with entitled, preening people with little tin “journalist” badges, why is a schnook blogger and talk show host from Saint Paul the only person asking these questions?

If the people of Minnesota were to start asking these questions for themselves, this would be a very different place.

We’re told that Twin Cities food banks are having trouble keeping up wth demand:

Just curious if any Twin CIties “Jounalists” might have asked if perhaps the half billion dollars stolen from food aid programs by DFL/DSA-linked non-profits, and spent on cars, homes and other graft goodies, often in East Africa, might have helped with the situation.

Someone walks up to you with a baseball bat. They say they want to kill you.

Your response is “no, I don’t want to get beaten to death with a baseball bat”.

Looks like you have a standoff. A controversy. A conundrum.

Someone else steps in and asks “How about we compromise? Will you settle for a traumatic brain injury?”

It’s the middle way, after all. The guy with the bat might even say “sure, I just wanna hit you, hard!“

You might respond “No – in fact, I don’t want anyone hurting me in any way. At all”

And the buttinski responds “Why won’t yiou compromise?”

Who’s right?

You?

The guy with the bat?

Or the person striving to find the middle ground between the two of you?

If your response is “I’m putting my foot down; nobody is hitting me with a bat for any reason at all“, and the other to ask “why do you hate the guy with the bat?“, does that change anybody’s mind?

Point being, sometimes the middle path, the compromise, is not the most moral path forward.

Who on earth does Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) think she is…

(Language NSFW)

…Amy Klobuchar?

SCENE: In a drab back room at MNDFL headquarters on Plato Boulevard, two DFL communications staffers, Evan BRYANT (Macalester 2021) and Moonbeam BIRKENSTOCK (St. Thomas 2018) are pecking away at their iPhones, poring over their social media plan for the week.

BIRKENSTOCK: Chairman Martin says people are starting to get tired of crime?

BRYANT: Where?

BIRKENSTOCK: Oh, rednecks in Fridley and Bemidji, mostly.

BRYANT: Yuck.

BIRKENSTOCK. I know, right? But their votes still count…

BRYANT: For now

BIRKENSTOCK: LOL, right? Anyway, we need to put out something that shows the administration and the Attorney General are engaged on crime.

BRYANT: Let’s do this:

BIRKENSTOCK: Oh, that’s good.

BRYANT: But someone just left a comment.

BIRKENSTOCK: (Reading a reply on Twitter). “So how about rampant violent and property crime, and half a billion in fraud committed by DFL constituents and contributors?”

BRYANT: Hmmm – tough one.

BIRKENSTOCK: I got it. Tweet out this photo of Lt. Governor Flanagan feeding Ellison and Governor Walz corn dogs at the State Fair!

BRYANT: I’ll caption it “#OneMinnesota”.

BIRKENSTOCK: Brilliant.

BRYANT: And on message!

And SCENE

I personally don’t care much one way or another about legalizing cannabis.

But as I’ve heard from people running ma and pa cannabis, THC and CBD product shops, the DFL’s cannabis law is full of carve-outs to big pharma, and has regulations that are pretty sure to smother most small businesses. Tales

But the DFL was buying votes, so no biggie.

All that was foretold, has come to pass:

IRRR is funded by mining industry taxes — about $25 million a year — and was created to diversify the economy by promoting economic development and job creation in 13,000 square miles of northeastern Minnesota. It provides loans and grants to a variety of public and private projects, including broadband development and manufacturing facilities. 

HWY35 is led by Jack Mitchell, who is president of Besa Group and Mitchell Hospitality in Kansas City that grow, manufacture and sell cannabis in Missouri. Another principal in HWY35 is John Hyduke, the chair of a Minneapolis-based marketing company, Modern Climate. Mitchell and Hyduke are also the leaders — vice chair and chair, respectively — of a newly formed trade association called the Minnesota Marijuana Association, which has tapped former Mining Minnesota leader Frank Ongaro as its interim executive director. Other board members are with companies from Missouri, Nevada, Maryland, Colorado and Minnesota. 

Portions of a shuttered plant in Grand Rapids that used to make oriented strand board would be turned into HWY35’s planned facility, according to the staff presentation to the IRRRB. In addition to the state loan, the project would be part of a tax increment financing district approved by the Grand Rapids City Council and would also be supported by private investment that would equip a growing and manufacturing facility to produce oils for edibles and other THC products.

So – the state giving money to out of state companies to do a job plenty of Minnesota companies would love a shot at?

There are questions. Layers of them, in fact:

Giving the DFL money and power is like teenagers car keys and booze.

“Unruly teens” in Chicago attack a Tesla during one of their periodic galavants around their “room to destroy”. Police were reportedly standing nearby.

The Tesla driver used some of that torque for self-defense:

The cops no doubt have the guy’s license plate, so there’d be no need for them to chase and arrest the guy if they do want to prosecute him. Safe to say the “kids” will suffer no consequences.

Still – flit about, find out.

Given that justices Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett were appointed and confirmed via the same process that has covered for over 200 years…

… can someone tell me how our “junior senator” trying to popularize this kind of garbage isn’t a bigger threat to our system of government, the January 6 ever was

(…since it sounds like “sobriety” is in short supply in government circles)

Dave Hutchinson. Dan Wolgamott. John Thompson (not a DWI, but certainly over the legal limit of entitlement and rage). And now DFL legislator Briona Curran – who, it could be fairly said, was a little buzzed the other night:

Perhaps Ken Martin and Co-Governors Klink and Flanagan need a new motto.

With all respect due, I humbly suggest:

One Point Six Minnesota.

Thoughts?

To: Twin CIties Media
From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous Peasant
Re: Comforting The Confortable While Afflicting The Afflicted

Minnesota Media,

The Klink regime – in this case, politruk Flanagan – have been making this claim in various degrees ever since the election:

Questions someone might think of asking the Administration:

1. Where do they get this 33% number?
2. They expect this number to be measured how?
3. And measured by when?

Given the administration’s, uh, innumeracy, it’d seem to be important.

That is all.

Governor Klink apparently came to love the way he got to govern while he had “emergency powers” [1]:

Of course, none of it is “done”.

It’s mandated. It’s on paper.

Businesses have scarcely started paying for “Paid Leave”, or absorbing the impact of the unfunded mandate.

“Affordable Housing” is exquisitely unaffordable.

Public transportation? They’re throwing around plans for trains. That’s about it.

It’s the sort of performative posturing that we’d call “virtue signaling” if it were talking about social hot buttons.

Since it’s about spending and building, we’ll need a new term.

Bureauvirtue signalling?

[1] Or at least the twerp who handles his social media.

Over the past couple of days, it seems every vapid progressive mouthpiece has adopted the term “boy math”.

In context, I guess it means “math I disagree with, but can’t say why, so I’m going to insult it”.

Case in point:

Progressive girl math is dumping trillions of dollars into an economy, and expecting prices not to rise, and then saying increasing the minimum wage and raising taxes is the answer.

Alternate definition of “boy math”, apparently. math done with reason and accountability?

Citing the rise in meth-related crimes and low revenue, Target is closing nine stores in Nebraska, Kentucky and Montana.

Just kidding. They’re in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and New York City:

Target is closing nine stores in major cities across four states, claiming theft and organized retail crime have made the environment unsafe for staff and customers – and unsustainable for business.

The big box chain is part of a wave of retailers – both large and small – that say they’re struggling to contain store crimes that have hurt their bottom lines. Many have closed stores or made changes to merchandise and layouts.

Of course, the hecklers are out in force; “crime can’t possibly be that bad…”.

It’s not clear that crime is growing significantly more serious. But as economic fears grow amid inflation and rising borrowing costs, shoplifting often comes with the territory, industry watchers say.

Somehow I suspect that’s not the reason these small businesses in Oakland were bucking the narrative:

Target was not the only retailer to raise concerns about retail crime today. Approximately two hundred Oakland business owners closed up shop for a couple hours Tuesday morning and held a demonstration to bring attention to crime plaguing the area.

Target was not the only retailer to raise concerns about retail crime today. Approximately two hundred Oakland business owners closed up shop for a couple hours Tuesday morning and held a demonstration to bring attention to crime plaguing the area.

If there were just some sort of connecting thread…

SCENE: Mitcn BERG walks into Wendy’s for one of their Caesar Salads – a low-carb treat if there ever was one.

BERG sees Avery LIBRELLE, standing at the counter, talking with an exasperated but polite looking COUNTER PERSON. BERG tiptoes up behind LIBRELLE.

BERG: Hey, Avery.

LIBRELLE: Uh…Merg…

BERG: The DFL is basically a racket that slaps a veneer of participatory democracy on top of a process where Ken Martin uses abstruse party rules to enforce the whims of the plutocrats who prop the party up.

LIBRELLE: That’s absurd. Only a wingnut would say such a thing.

BERG: A wingnut like the deputy chair of the Minneapolis City DFL?:

LIBRELLE: (Stares blankly off into space)

BERG: Caesar and a diet Coke.

COUNTER PERSON: And what does he…er, she…er…

BERG: No idea. (Drops a tenner)

And SCENE

The US Senate just changed its dress code, to allow Senator Fetterman to wear his trademark slovenly hoodies:

Now, other than the traditional case of “showing respect for the seriousness of the job you’ve [oh, Lord, we’re talking about Fetterman, aren’t we?] entrusted with”, I don’t care all that much about dress codes. But that respect is kind of important – and slowing the collapse of that respect, for the Senate and all institutions, is a pretty important mission these days.

But that’s another post.

At any rate – when the Democrat caucus says “Jiump”, Tina Smith is there to say “off what, and how high?”

If Senator Fetterman starts urinating on the plinths around the Capitol [1], Smith will be there to dismiss social norms on bladder control as “patriarchy”.

So much that feels like parody but, sadly, is not, in this tweet from Senator Fateh:

• Omar Fateh, of the party that insists “we’re not socialists, we’re Democratic Socialists, at a meeting of Socialists.
• At Macalester.
• And…that crowd.

When I said the left hates Lauren Boebert because she could beat all their men at armwrestling, you can see what I mean, now. Right?