Haven’t heard much about the southwest light rail line, have we?

There’s a reason for that. It’s hosed. Hosed perhaps beyond reasonable repair.And nobody in officialdom wants to talk about it – at least, not before the midterms:

The $2 billion Southwest Light Rail Transit Line the most expensive public works project ever undertaken in Minnesota. Besides that, it also holds the potential to be the state’s biggest boondoggle, a potential political scandal in the making in the midst of the 2022 election.

Fox 9 News reports the Met Council, the agency overseeing the project, has essentially clammed up, refusing to provide key construction updates on cost and completion date.

They don’t even have any idea when they will have any idea how bad it’s going to be:

An updated timeline and cost projection, once expected towards the end of 2021, will now come “sometime in 2022,” Trevor Roy, a project spokesman, told FOX 9. Met Council officials have long acknowledged that the rail line will exceed its original $2 billion budget and estimated 2023 opening. They are now changing tactics to renegotiate the project schedule after criticism from an outside evaluator.

Call me a cynic, but I think there’s a reason this story is coming out in January of an election year; so the media can say “we covered it! We’re not actually PR water carriers for the DFL!

Saddled with a senile President and a party that’s divided but driven by its radical left, Democrats are reaching for one of the few weapons they have left: the appeal to ridicule.

Last year, it was Ted Cruz being (wrongly, I think) accused of abandoning Texas during the infamous ice storm (on a trip that had apparently planned for some while and, being a legislator rather than governor, he had no actual role to play. Democrats and Never-Trumpers got a few yuks out of that.

This year?

Big Left thought Ron DeSantis had “disappeared”.

The only thing that disappeared was, apparently, whatever sense of humanity Tide Pod Evita might have once claimed (emphasis added):

The governor reportedly accompanied his wife Casey to medical appointments for breast cancer on December 29 as critics claimed he had abandoned his post, DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw told Fox News….DeSantis spokespeople jumped to the governor’s defense after Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) suggested that the governor was “inextricably missing” [sic] and ignoring his responsibilities over the last couple of weeks. The congresswoman retorted with that comment on Twitter after she was criticized for visiting Miami Beach on a leisure trip on Friday.

“Inextricably missing?”

If Lauren Boebert had said that, it’d have made Stephen Colbert’s leg tingly for two weeks.

“Hasn’t Gov. DeSantis been inexplicably missing for like 2 weeks?” she shot back on Twitter in response to a tweet from Team DeSantis welcoming her to Florida after National Review published photos of her seated outside Doraku Sushi and Izakaya in Miami Beach Thursday afternoon, raising a cocktail in one and checking her phone in another.

Oh, yeah – speaking of leaving their district during a crisis…

Sheriff Dave Hutchinson, to Fox9’s Mary McGuire:

Well, let’s get that reflected in statute, pronto! Everyone does it!

(Maybe he meant “everyone at the Sheriff’s Association meeting? We’ll never know – all cameras were reportedly barred. What happens near Alexandria stays near Alexandria).

And when they do, and a Henco sheriff’s deputy pulls them over and they come in with a .17 (which was what the .13 from his urine test likely was at the time of the accident), they don’t get a whiffleball home booking with not one second spent in a jail cell.

And if a Minnesotan with a carry permit is busted with over .04, they’re at very serious risk of losing their carry permit.

What happens to cops who lose their right to carry?

I’d love to ask the sheriff this question. I’m gonna guess I don’t get any chance to.

By the way – I’ll be talking with Rebecca Brannon on the show this Saturday about this story, including the blowback she’s gotten from local cops.

Yesterday’s announcement about my escalating impatience with threadjackers might seem to fall hard on a small segment of this blog’s comment section. That perception is accurate – but appropriate.

Still, I’m nothing if not fair.

Here’s one for all the Democrats in the audience.

Please defend Brandon.

It’s your thread. Go to it.

It seems the relentless watchdogs of government in the Twin Cities media are at loggerheads with the government over the Hutchinson case:

You might say that I’m a dreamer – but I remember news media that’d take government to court to get to the bottom of a story like this.

Provided they’re not a DFLer, I guess.

UPDATE: It gets worse. More at noon.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Senator Elizabeth Warren supports court-packing.  That’s really embarrassing for a Harvard law professor.  Even a night-school wonder like me, knows better. 

The problem with the Supreme Court is not that it’s too small. The court is too large now, to get things done expeditiously and correctly: too many egos to sooth, too many agendas to accommodate, too many compromises requiring hair-splitting decisions.

The problem is not that the court is full of justices eager to overturn precedent.  If a case was wrongly decided, it should be overturned in the interest of justice.    

The problem is not that the court veers away from widely held public opinion.  Pandering to public opinion is Congress’ job.  And it’s mostly on volatile social issues where the Court has caused the worst problems.

The problem is Marbury v. Madison, a case decided fewer than 20 years after the Constitution was adopted.  That’s the case in which the Supreme Court gave itself the power to throw out legislation the Court felt was incompatible with the Constitution.  The court’s power-grab flatly contradicts the entire premise of a “enumerated powers” Constitution.  That decision set up the Court to make historically and horrifically bad law:  Dred Scott (struck down the Missouri Compromise which allowed slavery to spread to more states), Plessy v. Fergussn (upheld racial segregation); Korematsu (upheld concentration camps for American citizens); Roe v. Wade (upheld abortion on demand); Obergefell v. Hodges (struck down gay marriage laws nationwide).   

Adding more justices to a run-away court won’t rein it in from ruling on social issues.  A constitutional amendment is required.  And if that doesn’t curb their enthusiasm, perhaps removal from office?  A Harvard law professor should understand that.  

Joe Doakes

Bring on the mid-terms.

Minneapolis is, as of yesterday, at 93 homicides for 2021 so far.

The record, during the Murderapolis years, was either 95 or 97, depending on your source.

Context? Sure.

In 2016 there were 82 unjustified homicides…

…in the entire state of Minnesota. 30 of them were in Minneapolis.

Whenever the DFL used to win elections by lopsided margins, they’d drunkenly chant “We own this city!”

Yep, chuckleheads. You sure do.

…the bigger a figure in the Civil Rights movement he used to be.

Let’s say you had a couple bumps at a bar – like, say, 8 to 12 of them. And then decided to drive home.

You were carrying a gun, and a car full of loose ammunition.

You drove down the freeway, until you didn’t – you swerved off the road, rolled your car, scattering ammunition all over the place. You had to be extricated, in no condition for a field sobriety test. When you finally took a whiz test at the hospital, you tested at a .13 BAC – 50% above the legal limit,and a level that indicates you were likely at a .17 during the accident itself.

And you’re a civilian.

Do you think the county attorney is going to let you plead out to fourth degree DUI?

I’m referring of course to Henco Sheriff Dave Hutchinson.

Or course. you wouldn’t. At the very least, the County Attorney would put you through a legal wringer, and make sure you settled with charges that involved serious time in jail.

So – is it just county employee mutual backscratching?

Maybe.

Now ask yourself – would Rich Stanek, the previous Sheriff and the last elected Republican of any kind in Henco, have gotten the same treatment?

Remember how the media covered his adult son’s behavior. before you answer that.

Oh, yeah – the media. The only media actually covering this story are the conservative alternative media here in MInnesota:

So perhaps we call it “DFL Privilege?”

SCENE: Mitch BERG is looking for a new heat gun at a hardware store when Kirk THUNT, used car salesman and chairman of The Arne Carlson Project, an anti-Trump organization based in Forest Lake, walks around the corner.

THUNT: Merg.

BERG: Er…hi ,Kirk…

THUNT: You routinely refuse to condemn Donald Trump for trying to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when he was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.

BERG: I condemn, and condemned, the riot, the “storming” of the Capitol, and anyone who thought they could overtake the Constitutional process by force. All the talk about killing the Vice President is just baked wind; the Secret Service would have leveled anyone who tried. The electoral commission was alarmed – justifiably – but they finished their job. Democracy was never in danger, and everyone involved is in a world of legal hurt. The federal criminal justice system is doing what it does.

THUNT: The January 6 Commission just learned that Chief of Staff Meadows has text messages proving Trump was involved.

BERG: Maybe they do.

THUNT: Maybe? So you support the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.

BERG: The commission is an investigation – of sorts. Findings are not a conclusion. I’m not going to pretend I know enough to draw a conclusion, even if my conclusion matters to anyone. Let the investigation run its course.

THUNT: Huh. Let it run its course? So you’re right there behind the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.

BERG: Again, no. I am saying I believe the left has glommed onto it as a way of deflecting, eternally, away from their many very deliberate attempts to undercut out democracy, and the riots that they supported from 2015 to 2021.

THUNT: Deflection? So – you are a big fan of the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.

BERG: I’m pretty sure I said exactly the opposite, several times. My “crime” with you seems to be the fact that I haven’t wet myself with outrage over Trump, with regard to this episode or any other during his administration. I was a Trump non-fan back when you were watching The Apprentice. I’m intellectually honest about the things he did right and wrong, but if you’re looking for…

…on cue from me, you’ve got the wrong guy .

THUNT: So you dismiss concerns about the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.

BERG: For the fourth time in 90 seconds – no. I do think Big Left uses January 6 the same way a certain European socialist leader used this episode. But we’ve got a whole new set of problems to deal with, as a nation and, frankly, as a Republican.

THUNT: So you don’t think the GOP is forever rendered toxic by its association with Trump, meaning you support the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when he was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.

BERG: Er, Kirk? I’ve just explained that every single point you make is bulls**t. And yet every time you take a breath, you tell me I support the…what is it you say?

THUNT: You are a hypocritical supporter of the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.

BERG: And again, I am not.

THUNT: Denial means you are an enabler of the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.

BERG: That’s false.

THUNT: Disagreement means you are a supporter the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.

BERG: Once you got on the green, you only had to use your putter twice, right?

THUNT: Nonsensical responses mean you support the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.

BERG: Look. The heat gun I’m looking for.

THUNT: Using heat guns means you support the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.

(But BERG has already left the room)

…when Nobel Laureates were smart people.

No more.

Jussie Smolett was convicted of lying about being hate-crimed, three years ago, by a roaming band of Trump supporters. In downtown Chicago.

Most of the lefty commentators who proclaimed the case a damning indictment of American society were – “unexpectedly” – silent over the weekend.

And they may have been the smart ones.

Ja’Han Jones – a writer of sorts for MSNBC who is described as a “futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics”, meaning pretty much someone who partied with the right people in college – warned conservatives about what we “should realize before they relish the Jussie Smollett verdict“.

Nonetheless, the strange, seemingly ever-changing details in the case have provided nearly three years’ worth of material for comedians and online commentators. Some of it has been quite funny, in fact. 

Of course, there’s not a lot of there in the piece, which concludes:

Even more comical, in my view, was the predictable conservative outrage over Smollett’s allegations. Conservatives took to social media in 2019 to express outrage over the dropped charges. How dare someone make such a heinous claim about followers of their dear leader, they screeched. Violent, masked white guys who shout Trump slogans and use chemical agents to attack victims? 

Many on the right shamed those of us who knew such a claim was totally plausible — and then the Jan. 6 insurrection happened.  

And that’s it!

Of course, Berg’s Seventh Law applies. I’m sure there were conservatives that, after a decade and a half of watching hoax after hoax, and retraction after retraction of narrative-based claims of hate crimes, indulged in a bit of schadenfreud at a verdict that, had it not been on a case tried in crazy-blue Chicago, was utterly predicable to anyone with two brain cells to rub together to get some sparks.

But Jones is projecting, of course; it was everyone on the left – not just hoi polloi in comment sections, but an unbroken phalanx of blue-checks – who were dancing and cavorting about the usual chanting points; gut-shot to white cis-hetero privilege that this “hate crime” represented, the spotlight it still showed on the hatred that, they’d tell us, still roils beneath the surface of every honky.

Berg’s Twentieth Law – assume widely-publicized “hate crimes” are hoaxes until proven otherwise, which I obeyed in every particular even before I watched Smollett’s “alibi” crumble like a donut fresh out of a microwave – gave way to Berg’s Seventh Law; when the left accuses you fellow conservatives of moral turpitude, it’s almost invariably projecting.

Smollett’s verdict brings me no joy; we have a society that actively enables this sort of narcissistic showmanship, and uses it to further tribalize a society that doesn’t need any more.

…that your credit card company overbilled your automatic payments, and you opened your statement to find that your credit card balance was -$1,000. You had literally paid them a thousand more than you needed to.

Is that extra thousand dollars something the credit card company can – or should – then put into more coffee for the break room? Or executive bonuses? Or a new monitor for their accounting department? Or tack it onto someone’s salary, forcing them to keep overbilling you?

Seems absurd, right?

Well, that’s what the DFL is doing with the news that the budget has a “surplus”:

They are Capital One, and they are looking at that overpayment and drooling like a wolf tracking a pack of sheep.

Better idea, Ms. Lucking: have the waves of overpaid, largely deadwood administrators that the schools have been hiring with previous waves of “surpluses” that got turned into permanent education spending, to (judging by the results) negative results, look those students in the eye and tell them what f****** good they’ve done.

We’ll wait

But I digress.

The surplus is a mirage, of course; it includes federal “Covid Relief” money that hasn’t been spent (yet), and other temporal fruit of a distorted economy. It isn’t permanent…

…any more than that overbilling from Capital One.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Richard Fernandez at The Belmont Club asks whether the Lesko Brandon administration is strolling into our next quagmire.

We canceled pipelines and oil leases at home, to signal our virtue on climate change.  The price of gas at the pump, and natural gas for home heating, is going up.  We’ve called on Saudi Arabia to pump more oil for us but we’ve also  removed sanctions on Iran, which is funding Houthis in Yemen, who are attacking Saudi oilfields.  The US could back the Saudis with arms sales or troops so they could keep pumping the oil we want, except Progressives insist the Saudis are repressing the Yemenis so we must not help them.  Can “no blood for oil” be far behind?

We’ve caused a world-wide oil shortage and are about to stumble into another war in the Middle East with conflicting policy goals and no clear mission.  But all the Left wants to talk about is Kyle.

Joe Doakes

Well, and Orange Hitler.

Who is hiding under youer bed.

Ooogabooga!

Madame Vice President [1] on the Rittenhouse verdict:

So – the woman for whom giggling about putting black men in jail for simple weed possession was pillow talk with Willie Brown, and who came out in favor of prosecutors hiding exculpatory evidence in death penalty cases, has been…

…sorry. Couldn’t finish that with a straight face.

[1] Keep checking back on this.

…get the impression that the members of the power-clique known as “the Squad” – AOC, Ayanna Presley, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar – got the way they are because they were the “Mean Girls” in Junior High, and either never grew out of it or recovered that inner character flaw when they got into power?

Not sure why that occurred to me…

To: Senator Klobuchar
From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant
Re: Whoah, There…

Senator Klobuchar,

Thanks for taking a clear, principled stance on controversial issues like…

(checks notes)

…repealing Daylight Savings Time.

It’s a time for leaders to lead. But don’t fly too close to the sun.

That is all.

People filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Data Practices Act (DPA) requests over the past few years have wondered how it is that Governor Walz leaves such a light state-documented electronic trail.

Could he just be old fashioned? Or, like Paulie Cicero in Goodfellas, maybe he just never does business electronically?

Well, no:

Because information is privilege. And privilege is power.

…that if I voted for Donald Trump, it would usher in a post rule-of-law society.

And they were right!

To: Democrat Strategists
From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous Peasant
Re: Election results

Dear Dem Strategists:

How to rebuild? Here’s a thought:

And more riot talk. Lots more talk about riots.

Keep up the good work.

That is all.

This was seen on the outskirts of Brandon, MN.

It was, perhaps, inevitable. And hilarious.

But watching central Minnesota “progressives” react has been fascinating. They want the BCA on the case, tracking down the miscreants!

Civility suddenly matters, I guess.

Last Friday, heading into the closing weekend of the Virginia Gubernatorial contest, a group of ‘white supremacists” showed up “in support” of GOP challenger Glenn Younkin, in full Charlottesville regalia, lest anyone miss the reference. .

There was something a little fishy, though:

After they were thoroughly busted, the “Lincoln Project” – the group of “never-Trump” “republicans” that seems to always work toward Democrat Party interests [1] – admitted they were behind the stunt:

“But wait! Macauliffe and/or his staff weren’t involved!”

Yes they were.

Ben Shapiro noted last week that Macauliffe’s campaign has boiled down to “Trump!”, which is odd considering Trump isn’t in the race.

Is it a stupid, desperate stunt, intended to deflect attention away from Macauliffe’s catastrophic performance this past few weeks, along with the fact that he’s tied to the coverup of sexual abuse claims in Loudon County?

Sure.

But it’s worse than that.

This is a less-polished episode from a campaign that’s been going on since 2009 at the very least, from Obama and Biden’s cabinets (ptr) all the way down to failed “fact-checker” Dog Gone, who used to promise in this comment section that there was a wave of white supremacist terror that’d dwarf 9/11 coming up, any day now.

Tne notion that, notwithstanding the fact that actual “white supremacist” groups have been shrinking by roughly an order of magnitude roughly every generation, that white American society is building a militant arm that is just acheing to go out and take over. Every event of recent history, and even distant history, is bent to support that narrative – from the very founding of this nation to the Minneapolis riots to Emmanuel Goldstein…

…schwoops. I skipped narratives, there.

I mean, not like the narrative was ever subtle, but how stupid do you have to be to miss it?

This is just another chapter in the left’s attempt to slander half of our nation.

The fact is was.a flailing and incompetent attempt doesn’t make things better.

[1] Perhaps it should be called the Tom Horner Project?

 A recent experience (last night, actually) in the northern suburbs, but repeated elsewhere with alarming frequency.

My family traveled to our friendly local neighborhood Culver’s for dinner. We arrived at 6 p.m. We could see people sitting in the dining room and customers at the counter, so we assumed the restaurant was open for dine-in.

We got to the door and saw a sign mentioning that the restaurant would be closing at 8. This is a typical scenario — we are all getting used to labor shortages causing a variety of businesses to curtail their hours or even close on certain days. But as we attempted to enter the restaurant, the door was locked.

At the time of our arrival, four other groups were converging on the location. I knocked on the door, hoping one of the workers would hear it. They didn’t, but a customer did and came to the door to talk with us. “I think they’re closing the dining room,” the customer said.

A woman on the outside said, “but the sign on the door says they are closing at 8. It’s 6. Why are they closing?”

Another potential customer said, “this is ridiculous. It’s not 8. They should change the sign.”

“Perhaps they think they’re in Nova Scotia. It’s 8 there,” I offered. That got a chuckle out of yet another customer.

After a moment, a manager who appeared to be a year out of high school appeared at the door. “We’re very short staffed so we’re closing the dining room because we can’t provide the expected level of customer service.”

The woman who had noted the sign on the door said, “well, if you aren’t open, you should have a sign on the door.”

“I’ll go get a sign for the door,” the manager said. Then, reading the faces of the customers he was turning away, said “do you want me to get the general manager? I’ll go get the general manager.” He walked back in to the restaurant, but by then all of us decided to take our business elsewhere.

A few observations:

• As a rule, it’s never optimal to maintain a level of service by providing no service at all. I would guess the people who departed without a meal last night would have spent between $150-200 at the restaurant. Turning away customers is always a bad idea.
• At the same time, what could the manager do? He was trying to protect his workers, who were clearly getting swamped. If the workers who are willing to show up get abused, they will quit. The poor kid was caught between Scylla and Charybdis. 
• I have never worked in a restaurant — a desultory semester of work-study in the college cafeteria is my closest experience to that. I have family members who have spent many years in the hospitality industry and they have many, many stories to tell.
• Many restaurant jobs are entry-level work and the pay is generally not great. I see plenty of signs around town with fast fooders offering $15/hour or more, but most locations find themselves short-staffed anyway. People respond to incentives, and most of the incentives are pointing away from the hospitality industry. That could be changed, but the folks who could drive that change are responding to different incentives.
• Our MSM supremos are trying to spray paint the turd. A WaPo columnist tells us to lower our expectations. It’s just this pandemic and that lying son of a bitch, Trump! They would never hurt you. You know that.

Yesterday, The DFL-controlled Minnesota House announced that it will be conducting it’s 2022 session under the same, Covid-addled rules that they used last session.

Committee meetings via zoom, State office is closed to constituents, etc., etc.

But not everything is closed:

Clearly, all those masks stop the spread enough to do the important stuff, I guess:

The right constituent can still get face-to-face.The right constituent can still get face-to-face.

I’ve taken a certain amount of flak over the years for saying things like “Democrat pols can say anything they want, because they know their voters just don’t think that critically”, and “the Democrat base are essentially intellectual herd animals”.

That seems…tart. Uncivil. Uncomfortably inflammatory, for a guy who tries to keep things as measured and “civil” (whatever that’s worth, these days).

But it’s accurate.

And we know this because Big Left tells us it’s accurate:

But the headlines above aren’t revelation. Just confirmation.