This bit was making the rounds among the DFL repeat-bots yesterday, as evidence that Minnesota just loves them some DFL.

Unmentioned, and unpredicted during the interview: a 14:1 spending advantage, and a subservient media uncritically parroting the DFL’s messaging for it.

This is part of the DFL’s campaign to gaslight people into thinking they’re inevitable.

And – wow. The DFL just tossed their long-time messenger prof Dave Schultz under the light rail train.

There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.

Polls – and the current performance of the DeSantis campaign – shows that, whether from fatigue or bigger fish to fry, Covid just isn’t that big an issue for most people.

That’s a shame.

In the interest of making sure, to the best of my ability, that nobody forgets, here’s what Democrats were thinking…

…not one week into the pandemic, but in their unhinged hysteria 22 months later.

A third believed the unvaccinated should lose their children.

Of all the history – relevant and otherwise – that people barber on about while taking politics, the fact that this bit of the recent past is downright galling.

Minnesota DFLers are giving themselves rotor-cuff issues patting themselves on the back…

…over, uh, this:

Minnesota came in one slot of Texas. I’m old enough to remember when Minnesota was overwhelmed with New York City. Plus ca change…

But what is the rationale for this list, from always-Democrat-friendly CNBC?

I’ll add some emphasis:

To determine its rankings, CNBC factored in metrics across 10 categories, listed here in order of their weight: workforce; infrastructure; economy; life, health and inclusion; cost of doing business; technology and innovation; business friendliness; education; access to capital; and cost of living.

So – according to a list that ranks stuff HR cares about well ahead of stuff Accounting cares about, Minnesota beats Texas…

…by one.

Wheeeeeee.

Congrats, DFL.

A friend of the blog emails:

The Delano parade on the 4th is always a big thing. Lots of fire trucks, bands, small town celebration royalty, and usually, lots of politicians.

Now I know this fall is an “off year”, and I awas in a generally red leaning county, but there were no Democrats in the parade. US Rep Emmer, Mn Rep Joe MacDonald, and Mn Sen Bruce Anderson were the only politicians. 

No Amy, no Tina, no Tim, no Keith, no one locally. All of them usually have people in the parade because it’s one of the state’s biggest parades. 

Were they just that tired from spending that much money?

Back about 10 years ago, the management at AM1280 sent Ed Morrissey and I to a lot of county fairs to do live broadcasts. Ramsey, Anoka, Washington, Dakota, maybe some I’ve forgotten.

I also usually work Game Fair as a volunteer for the MN Gun Owners Caucus (join now, if you haven’t!)

And it was always a chuckling point – the DFL presence, if any, would be a wan volunteer in a sad little booth, wilting from the heat and humidity and lack of interest. Even in election years.

You’ll note that each of those areas have gone appreciably more DFL over the years – except for Ramco, which is largely a one-party county.

I think the DFL realized something back in the 2000s: the hoi polloi are meaningless to them.

Their votes come from:

• Groups whose community leaders are paid to be good DFL shills
• Dumb people who are panicked over non-issues (“the GOP War on Women”, “The Governor may ban abortion!”) into voting DFL.

Neither of those constituencies are reached by dodging horse plop on a 92 degree day in Delano.

Minnesota is getting its thoughtcrime registry.

First, some credit where it’s due. I actually found a relatively fair, well-balanced story on the subject.

Of course, I had to go to Grand Forks to do it.

The piece covers the registry’s background – including some of the fairly inspired quesistoning by Republicans Harry Niska and Walter Hudson:

The key moment that caught the most attention? An exchange during a floor debate when Rep. Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, asked House bill sponsor Rep. Samantha Vang, DFL-Brooklyn Center, if publishing an article on the theory that COVID-19 was a bioweapon that had originated in a Chinese laboratory could count as a bias incident under the new legislation.

Vang said it would be possible.

“With the rhetoric we have seen since the pandemic regarding accusing Asians of bringing in the coronavirus, that is bias-motivated,” the first-term representative said. “So that can be considered a bias incident.”

Now, the bad news.

Wags in some conservative circles floated the idea of flooding the agency with reports of progressive hate speech, of the type that run of the mill DFLers are constantly dribbling out.

No such luck. The lsw’s DFL sponsors saw the potential for the registry to be buried in “progressive” hate, and tightened it down. (Emphasis added).

In its final form as a law, language calls for the department to “analyze civil rights trends … including information compiled from community organizations that work directly with historically marginalized communities.”…

In other words, they did for it what they did for “Feeding Our Future” money: made sure only the DFL Non-Profit/Industrial Complex could participate.

But what about safeguards?

Why, after spending a decade and a half obliterating all rational grounds for the “high trust society” that democracy needs to survive, we’re supposed to just trust ’em!

What officials do know right now is community organizations such as Jewish Community Action, the Coalition of Asian American Leaders, and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, will provide reports of bias incidents to the state…Putz said it would have been more of a problem if the human rights department were to take direct reports of discrimination from individuals. With nonprofits and other groups with a track record of documenting discrimination being the source of information, that won’t be a concern, he said.

Nothing says “trustworthy” like a (partial) list of non-profits that are also DFL farm clubs.

Senator Zaynab Mohammed – a “devout Muslim” who voted for chemical neutering and abortion after birth – should put your mind at rest (although hopefully not “at rest” enough to vote DFL) (emphasis added again):

Asked by Forum News Service whether spreading a lab theory on COVID would count as a bias incident, Sen. Mohamed said she trusted the judgment of Human Rights Department officials.

“Could that happen? Sure, maybe,” she said, but added: “They know exactly what they’re doing. They understand the goal of what this legislation is supposed to do.”

That whole idea of breaking CD1, 6, 7 and 8 away into a separate state is sounding better every day.

It’s faint – easy to miss in the din and blare of the DFL celebrating its just-finished legislative orgy, in the bleating of the news media, in the squawking of Governor Klink and honking of Lieutenant Governor Flanagan at a restaurant or parade.

But it’s out there.

Listen, and you can hear it: “The typical “independent” MInnesota voter is no more enamored of abortion on demand throughout and after pregnancy, at taxpayer expense, for all people of all ages who make it to Minnesota, legally or not, than they are of the idea of completely banning abortion”.

Because as the hangover from the DFL’s legislative orgy sets in, the DFL’s elected officials are telling you they know it, although not much more loudly than the whisper, so as not to offend their “progressive” overseers.

Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Sunday she supports allowing limitations on abortion in the third trimester of pregnancy wading into the thorny political debate of abortion procedure time frames.

“I support allowing for limitations in the third trimester that do not interfere with the life or health of the women,” Klobuchar told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union,” while also reaffirming her support for codifying Roe v. Wade.

So while every Democrat will wriggle away from the question “at what point in pregnancy would it have no longer been OK for your mother to abort you” like it’s a live hand grenade, you can see that they’re not aware that some people can and do answer it.

Metro progressive DFLers don’t hear it, of course – or will turn up the volume of their little show:

But Amy knows.

The rule changes in baseball this season got a lot of press.

But a rule change in basketball seems to have gotten less press.

Apparently, two field goals inside the three point line is now worth five points.

In related news, the Wooves/Linx “community” group has decared its “Inspirinig Women” winner for 2023:

The DFL did so much damage this past session, it’s hard to track all of it.

Rep. Hudson did a pretty good job of cataloging it – and why it matters (expand the tweet to see it all).

I’ll be talking about this extensively on the show this Saturday.

Humans: “My God, this is horrible. Those poor girls…“

DFL/Media (pardon the redundancy): “OK, who leaked the video?“

Well, no – I’m actually not exaggerating (thread):

The problem, Ms. Moriarty, is that nobody trust you or your office. Not even a fair chunk of people who would never consider not voting for the DFL.

We started seeing it alwt week, with EJ Dionne’s puff piece in the NYTimes.

And over the past few days, you’re seeing Public Relations via Goebbels 101 in action: repeat something over and over and over until the gullible and uncritical start accepting it.

It started last week – the DFL’s functionaries and pet media referring to this past session as a “Minnesota Miracle”.

Note the coy presentation below:

“Whatever you want to call it?” The DFL is spending big money and redeeming big political capital to try to push the idea that their legislative orgy was, not a Mafia-like twisting of “moderate” arms after spending $18 for every GOP dollar to win the Senate by 300-odd votes, but a “Miracle” of progressive governance.

So, they “won” the session. They got everything they wanted, and then some. . The GOP wasn’t even a speed bump (somewhat unforgivably, in terms of the bonding bill IMO).

Why would the DFL feel the need to pimp so hard for the public image of their “colossal achievement”?

Oh. That’s why.

Governor Klink is all about the stolid rural individualism:

“It’s a very Midwestern value: mind your own dang business.”

This from the guy who gave us the snitch line.

I’m not the world’s biggest Matt Walsh fan.

Not because of what he says. Mostly because he’s a podcaster whose podcast gets plopped onto radio with a little editing. It’s not necessarily great radio.

But radio purism aside, I watched “What is a Woman?” last week.

And the part that stuck with me, the part I didn’t already know?

Between hormones, surgery and other clinical charges, every single transition yields a total of $1.3 Million.

The return on investment has to be far better than Covid was.

With that in mind, I caught this the other day. It’s a thread – if you cllck into it, it should yield 5-6 related tweets:

“It’s a racket” would certainly explain a lot of the hamfisted way the DFL jammed the issue down this past session.

Briana Rose Lee is the chair of the Minneapolis DFL.

She tweeted this yesterday.

She spent the next couple hours defending her assertion to a mass of revulsion before, one presumes, Ken Martin cut off her Victory Gin.

Remember all the MNGOP leaders who partied ’til dawn when Paul Wellstone died?

No, you don’t. There were none.

Lee is 37. years old; she’d have been 2 when Ronaldus Magnus left office. She can have no impression what life was really like before Reagan ,so I take most of her opinion with a block of salt.

But I get the impression that Lee is one of those kids who, back in college, read The Gulag Archipelago and thought the NKVD were the good guys.

How dumb was the tweet? After doubling and tripling down that she was never going to do it, the tweet disappeared because it was dumb enough that even Ken Martin had to yank her leash:

But in a statement, DFL Chair Ken Martin said her tweet about Reagan did not “reflect the values of the DFL Party.”

“While there is nothing wrong with debating the policies and legacies of elected officials, mocking the passing of an American president is beyond the pale,” Martin said. “We expect better of leaders within our party, and we will continue holding ourselves to the high standard that Minnesotans deserve.”

Oh, yeah – Senator Jen McEwen, who actually is coming for your guns, agrees:

Gotta feel or Ken Martin: In the past couple years, he’s had to deal with:

• His staffer calling Navy ships “Murder Boats”
• A state representative candidate (who would to on to serve a term in the House) calling for the destruction of Hugo and the murder of its citizens
• Another staffer calling for Republicans to be guillotined
• Two cities destroyed by his voters
• Another staffer trying to go all Sonny Corleone on…a friendly MinnPost reporter
• Another comms staffer with a habit of tweeting like a sixth-grader who stole Mommy’s instagram password
• This.

Turns out there’s some dissent within the DFL’s ranks – between the “The only good Republican is a Dead Republican” set and the “Don’t tell the Hoi-Polloi the whole truth” crowd (read the whole thread), which exposes the full depth of the DFL’s internal squabbling…:

…although don’t get too excited: Democrats, being basically intellectual herd animals, will all fall in line and obey orders come election time.

As Dennis Prager notes, conservatives think leftists are wrong. Leftists think conservatives are evil.

This piece – about “Allies” who joined forces to make money off of DEI by capitalizinging on someone else’s jape, and went on to eat each other – is almost too perfect to be parody.

SCENE: Minnesota DFL Executive Meeting.

KEN MARTIN (Chait of the MNDFL): Next order of business.

INGE “LUCKY” CARROLL (A former guidance counselor at a school for monomaniacs, Inge is Head Meme-Buffer at “Minnesotans United for All Progressive Causes”). Our next plan is to start building safe spaces for hard drug use.

STACEY HINTON (Executive Director of “Keep All Racists Eternally Nonplussed”, a white progressive support group). Brilliant.

GRETEL STROMBERG ()Executive Director of “Minnesotans United for All Progressive Causes”, Stromberg is married to both a woman and a male illegal immigrant) Here’s the news coverage:

KEN MARTIN: Great piece. Fawning and morally bankrupt without going too over the top.

STROMBERG: Like Esme Murphy. .

KEN MARTIN: Yep. Now, we’ll be building these “safe spaces” at places like Summit and Chatsworth, and Crocus Hill, and down amid the condos across from the Guthrie…

( Entire group sits silently, in disbelief, jaws literally dropping).

KEN MARTIN: Hah! You shoulda seen your faces. Nope, we’re building them among the proles.

(Various expressions of relief)

KEN MARTIN: So – between legal weed and shooting galleries, and the schools teaching the next generation to be ignorant, uncritical , compliant and distracted by contrived grievances, the next generation should be really solid DFL voters!~

Round of applause as the scene fades to black.

The most active and on-top-of-it president ever…

…falls over while giving the commencement address at the USAF Academy.

Nothing to see here.

2022 was an upset and a good year at the polls for the DFL, largely on the strength of:

• Hysteria about abortion, whipped up after the SCOTUS overturned Roe.
• “Fully Funding Education” – a concept literally no DFLer could or would define.
• …that’s about it.

In terms of divisive issues that turn out Democrats in droves, the big kahunas of recent years? They can’t re-overturn Roe, re-legalize pot, re-sanctify stalking and Munchausens Syndrome, re-legalize same sex marriage – and they got literally everything they asked for in education, so the schools should be “Fully Funded”, whatever that is.

So – let’s do some predicting.

What will the the next issue the DFL uses to try to panic their herds of ill-informed, uncritical, gullible, emotion-driven hysterical voter base to the polls?

Leave ’em in the comments.

I made a series of notes to myself at the beginning of the session, re all the promises the DFL made in the wake of their “trifecta”

There were a lot of them.

Some of them won’t matter for a while, or won’t be measurable for quite some time. (Is the DFL really going to cut child poverty by 1/3 in the next year/)

But one can be tested today: “Did the DFL legalize Cannabis?”

And they did.

I’m a little surprised. While on the one hand a buzzed, stuporous electorate is a perfect DFL audience, I figured the issue was worth more to the DFL as a social wedge.

Of course, the law is full of gimmies to Big Pharma, and handouts to well-connected political insiders, and will benefit small producers not one iota. And as Colorado discovered, the taxes and regulation won’t actually affect the black market criminal sale:

Instead, in 2023, Colorado’s cannabis entrepreneurs face a perfect storm of problems: too much supply, not enough demand, plunging prices, heightened competition in other states, the allure of black market weed, a lack of cannabis tourism and more. That’s on top of the shaky economic forecast for the rest of the year, even though inflation is steadily slowing….Earlier this year, marijuana giant Curaleaf shuttered its operations in Colorado, along with California and Oregon. “We believe these states will represent opportunities in the future, but the current price compression caused by a lack of meaningful enforcement of the illicit market prevent us from generating an acceptable return on our investments,” CEO Matt Darin said.

There is ample evidence the DFL spent even less time thinking about unintended consequences than Colorado did:

The greatest effect is likely to get rid of the Marijuana parties that’ve sapped DFL votes in recent years.

There were so many promises. This’ll keep us busy for a while.

Democrat have been trying to wedge hunters apart from other gun owners for decades.

And they’re not happy that its not working.

“Jilted”

Oddly, that’s not the word the Strib used when Klink refudiated his “A” rating with the NRA. I’d use “stabbed in the back”, personally.

Anyway – welcome to the party, deer hunters.

PJ O’Rourke said it best: progressives in power are like crack whores with a stolen Platinum Card.

They certainly had their party this session – and ended things with a budget-signing yesterday that had Leni Riefenstahl sending a chef’s kiss from the great beyond:

The social media blitz of endzone-happy dancing, featuring gigabytes of the DFL’s one real product, the smug selfie, was worth of Kim Jong Un’s minions.

But the hangover is coming.

The first lawsuit to try to tamp down the Trifecta’s power-sodden overrreach is on the books:

The DFL admitted publicly they were targeting Northwestern and Crown due to their religion – and they didn’t care.

And it ain’t the last lawsuit you can expect to see.

Rep. Andy Smith, wannabe kommissar and ultraprogressive rep from Kim Norton’s side of Rochester, seems to see himself as a left-of-center Steven Crowder. Or at least, that’s how he comes across.

Here’s his ode to enabling Munchhausen Mommies:

He truly is one of Minnesota Progressivism’s intellectual thought leaders.

Anyhoo, yesterday was his birthday:

I celebrated by tripling my monthly donation to the MN Gun Owners Caucus.

I invite you to do the same.

And anyone who wants to challenge him? I will give you whatever airtime it takes.

Good thing Rep. Phillips grew up with a silver foot in his mouth. If he’d had to succeed on his merits, he’d be living in a homeless camp by the Quarry.

Example:

Uh,, no. You got 1 out of 4. Roosevelt – the president who set the stage for Wilson’s “progressive” orgy – probably qualifies.

Lincoln didn’t promote slavery, so morally-consistent modern Democrats would not know what to do with him.

Jefferson would be a Libertarian; he’d hang out with Justin Amash and Rand Paul.

Washington? Someone who was given the chance at unfettered power, even declaring himself king, and demurred in favor of a constitutional Republic? Not a chance. He’d be a proto-Reagan conservative.

And JFK would get kicked out of today’s DFL. HHH was all but kicked out of the DFL of the 1970s, for crying out loud.

CD3 – please do better.

“Representative” Andy Smith, DFL-Rochester, is so annoyed by having to deal with dissent:

I’m not saying DFLers are all totalitarians at heart.

I’m just saying when they elect hamsters like this, their “hearts” are irrelevant.

UPDATE: Smith’s legislative priorities seem to be, in order: Taking selfies, getting his hair just perfect, jumping off things the Teachers Union tells him to jump off of, and eating donuts.

Throughout the media, it’s a universal truism: Smart people with personalities go into radio; people who get by on looks go into TV.

It’s conventionally-accepted wisdom throughout the world of mass communications.

I have exactly as much factual oomph saying that as former Channel 5 weatherperson and DFL senator Nicole Mitchell (DFL, what else, Woodbury) talking about the civil liberty law:

She’s referring to Schenck vs. United States – in which an anti-draft protester during World War One sued over having his civil rights trampled on by the Woodrow Wilson administration, often regarded as a toxically stupid decision, one which the SCOTUS reversed in defense of a Klansman’s right to free speech.

But you know what’s more toxic than that?

Let’s say, for purposes of argument, that society has the communal wisdom to abrogate rights “for the public good” without doing vastly more harm than good – again, just for purposes of argument.

Who defines “the common good?”

Traditionally, it was families, churches, and traditional social institutions that had stood the test of hundreds, sometimes thousands of years .

The DFL and Big Left have been tearing those institutions down, and replacing them with…

…themselves.

It’s as plain a statement as there is that the DFL wants your civil rights – all of them – to be political swag to be doled out as rewards, if at all.

You and your significant other each earn $60,000 a year. That’s a total household income of $120,000.

Your bills – housing, transportation, loan payments, food, everything you do – come to $10,000 a month. Your family budget is balanced.

You go out to the casino one night, and get the luckiest break ever; you walk out $80,000 ahead. 

You buy a bigger house, a newer car (and a bridge loan to finish paying off your old one), do some remodeling, put a couple of vacations and cruises and a whole lot of happy hours, on your capital one card. 

With the new mortgage, car loan, revolving credit and loans to pay for all the other goodies, your monthly expenses go up to $16,000 a month – requiring a $200,000 a year income between you and your significant other – who, remember, are still earning $120,000 a year between you. So when you’ve burned through that $80 windfall, you’ll be coming up $80,000 a year in the red.

Your options to avoid insolvency, foreclosure, and repossession are:

a. Downsize, quick – go back to a smaller house, cheaper car, etc.

b. Keep going back to the casino and hope for another big score, and hope your significant other isn’t too stupid to know what a longshot that is.

c. Browbeat your significant other into earning more money so you don’t go bankrupt, and hope he or she doesn’t leave you. As the significant other why they hate children if they don’t ratchet their income up, but fast.

That’s exactly what the state legislature and Governor Klink have done; the pandemic left the state with a one time windfall that they have spent, and much more. 

And you and I, the taxpayers of Minnesota, are the significant other. 

So what are they going to do about it?

Well, they’re going to hope that you’re a dumb spouse that thinks you can bank on casino winnings. But they are just going to hold out for option C, and demand you pony up more.

That’s exactly what just happened.

If this were a marriage, you would call the big spender an abusive spouse. 

So when you are the victim, what do you call the perpetrator?