Rep. Ilhan Omar.

Is she:

• Anti-semitic.
• Allegedly corrupt.
• Allegedly a bigamist or an immigration fraud – one or the other. Or both.
• Member of a glam “power couple“.

Pick one.

The City Pages did.

Any guesses?

My MN House rep, Rena Moran, on Twitter yesterday:

The part Rep. Moran is missing, of course, is that Florida has over four times as many people as Minnesota has.

And that when you look in terms of fatalties per million people, it boils down (as of today) to:

• Minnesota: 276 fatalities per million
• Florida: 210 fatalities per million.

Now – does Rep. Moran truly not know the different between raw numbers and per capita numbers?

Maybe. Maybe not.

But the typical DFL voter, be they in the Midway or Wayzata, certainly does not.

I’ll cop to it – I’ve been pretty cynical about “hate crimes” lately. Let’s stipulate in advance – they do happen.

But Berg’s 20th Law – “All incidents of ‘hate speech’ not captured on video (involving being delivered by someone proven not to be a ringer) shall be assumed to be hoaxes until proven otherwise” – is a law for a reason.

Or, rather, many, many reasons – including this one from, what else, a poitician from the west coast:

Jonathan Lopez, who is Latino and was a recent candidate for Umatilla County commissioner, claimed he discovered the hate-filled missive in his mailbox on June 23, the East Oregonian reported.

On his now-deleted Facebook account, he shared a photo of the letter, which said that Lopez and other “Mexicans” were “not welcome here,” according to local news station KEPR-TV.

“Don’t waste your time trying to become anything in this county we will make sure you never win and your family suffers along with all the other f–king Mexicans in the area!” the letter said.

Lopez wrote in the post that he “holds no resentment for whomever wrote this,” the outlet reported.

Oh, I bet he holds some resentment for the writer – or at least the writer’s judgment…:

“Our investigation has shown that Mr. Lopez wrote the letter himself and made false statements to the police and on social media,” Hermiston Police Chief Jason Edmiston told the East Oregonian.

“The end result is a verbal and written admission by Mr. Lopez that the letter was fabricated.”

Edmiston said the case would be forwarded to the Umatilla County District Attorney’s Office for review on charges for initiating a false report.

“This investigation is particularly frustrating as we are in the midst of multiple major investigations while battling a resource shortage due to the current pandemic,” Edmiston told the outlet.

In a party where reputations and political capital are ever-more based on intersectional virtue-signaling and dog-whistling, politicians are gonna virtue signal and dog-whistle.

Well, presuming the guy’s a Democrat.

Because Mr. Lopez’s party is never mentioned in the article.

Weird, huh?

…that Kim Norton, mayor of Rochester, is simultaneously both the most authoritarian person in Minnesota politics and the most groaningly, er, ill-informed, incurious and tone-deaf.

But I will say…

..that if you think I’m inferring that message between the lines, I’m not going to argue with you all that hard.

To: President Trump
From: Mitch Berg, Irasicble Peasant and Scott Walker supporter
Re: Disaster Request

Mr. President,

This past week, Governor-For-Life Walz asked you to declare Minneapolis and Saint Paul “disaster areas”.

Make no mistake – they are.

But they are a disaster entirely due to generations of DFL policy, decades of mismanagement, and a week of seemingly assessing the situation during the various riots and seemingly selecting the stupidest, most self-destructive response.

• Standing idly by while looters ravaged East Lake and other areas.
• Evacuating the Third Precinct hours before the rioting re-started.
• Sending in a token force of National Guard, nearly a day and a half after Mayor Frey’s half-hearted request, and basically hiding under the table as that force and the few Minneapolis cops left along Lake got chased all the way to Nicollet.
• Responding days late with effective force.
• Giving the rioters “space to destroy” at their will.
• Trying to fob the blame on “white supremacists” when anyone looking at the graffiti can tell you it was the white, radical far-left – “Anti”-Fa – meaning “the children and nephews of the state’s and America’s leftist elite” – knowing that even if Minneapolis is burned to the last vertical stick and the earth is salted beheath the city’s feet, keeping the Minnesota DFL’s “progressive” wing fat and happy and unmolested is the real priority.

So – just as insurance companies won’t cover damage to your house if you take a sledgehammer to your walls and countertops, there is no way the taxpayers of the United States – or Greater Minnesota – should be on the hook for the Minnesota DFL’s stupidity.

As they point out whenever they win an election, they “…own these towns”. Paying federal tax money to ameliorate the stupidity of Walz, Frey, and generations of DFL politicians before them is throwing good money after bad.

But I’m nothing if not a uniter. So I have a suggestion.

Tell Minneapolis to start rebuilding with whatever’s left of the $500,000 Mayor Frey charged your campaign for the nonexistent “security” at your rally at the Target Center last year. You know – the one where mobs of leftist droogs (including at least one City Council member) attacked your supporters out in the streets (usually five or six of thugs, and their soi-boifriends, ganging up on an old guy, or a woman, usually from behind), all but cheered on by the Mayor. There is no way any of that “security” money got spent. Tell the DFL to use that.

Please don’t let Real America down on this. Please, please tell the Governor-for-life and Mayor Frey to go f*** themselves. Preferably in as many words, preferably on national TV. Until there are consequences for their, and their party’s, crimes against their positions and the people they govern, nothing will ever improve.

That is all.

The Senate GOP – the only real bit of power the opposition has in Minnesota – is finally going to ask the question that it seems nearly nobody in our media will.

Why didi the DFL politiclal “chain of command”, from Mayors Carter and McDreamy up through Governor Klink, allow two of the Twin Cities poor, blighted but slowly recovering neighborhoods to get torched, looted and bludgeoned almost beyond recognition?

Republicans specifically want to know the details of what led Minneapolis police to abandon the Third Precinct police station. Additionally, they want to know why the National Guard was not a visible presence on the ground in Minneapolis until the weekend, four days after the violence started.

At the press conference, Gazelka did not directly answer a question about whether there will be subpoenas issued for the hearings, but a top aide clarified that the Senate Judiciary Committee does have subpoena power, and they will be involved in these hearings.

Democratic senators will be part of these hearings as well. It sets up for what is likely to be a spectacle at the Capitol, with Republican Senators, most of whom are from greater Minnesota, grilling top state and even city officials over the basic question of what happened.

The DFL’s evasion controls are set to “emergency”:

Susan Kent, the DFL Senate leader, responded to Republican plan to hold hearings, saying that Republicans should be just as focused on criminal justice reform as they are on the destruction of property. She noted that these hearing come after a recent special session, where no police reform proposals were agreed upon, during which the Senate held a single, informational hearing for criminal justice reform.

“It is deeply discouraging and troubling to see Senate Republicans prioritize hearings that completely fail to address racial disparities within our criminal justice system,” she said, adding: Minnesotans statewide are asking us to do our jobs and take meaningful action. The one informational hearing they held on weak proposals doesn’t cut it. It is now abundantly clear they were never really interested in passing critical legislation.”

And I’ll agree with the suburban doyenne Sen. Kent, at least halfway; we should examine the “racial disparity”.

Why is it always the black neighborhoods that the hordes of white “anarchists” and “anti”-fa and other members of the DFL’s direct action force flock to to burn and loot?

Democrat run cities are crime infested hell holes.

It’s not even a controversial premise.

Which isn’t to say the “fact checked industry – which exist primarily to uphold, or at least try and prevent the destruction of, leftist narratives Dash isn’t going to take a run at it.

From WaPo:

And let’s just say that the “ Independents” aren’t too far to the right to be Republicans, either.

Is there anything about today’s American left that isn’t built on exploitation, violence and lies?

This is Senator Tim Kane, father of an “Anti”-Fa thug who punched a 17 year old girl at a Trump rally, and who came within an electoral miracle of becoming the Vice President of the United States:

Now, there are a few reasons he might say something like this:

1. The Babylon Bee hired an impersonator, and this is satire beyond parody or reason.
2. He’s really that stupid.
3. He knows better, but he believes his audience actually is that stupid.

Thoughts?

May 14: Ken Martin, chair of the DFL, makes a bold prediction and a really dumb statement:

Fast forward nearly a month: as of June 12, Wisconsin’s death rate per million is half that of Minnesota. Its active cases are a solid 40% lower than Minnesota’s.

And that was after Wisconsin started out “leading” Minnesota in both categories.

The problem?

I don’t suspect it’s that Ken Martin believed anything he wrote in his May 12 tweet (least of all about the useless and idiotic Steve Sack).

The problem is that Martin can count on his DFL voter base – bovine herd animals with the critical thinking skills of a Teen Vogue reader – to know the difference, or care if they can.

The Daily Caller published transcripts from the Chicago City Council’s “meltdown” during the riots.

And it’s not pretty. It’s the sound of modern “progressive” urban government getting its ass smacked by reality.

A couple of the excerpts are of particular interest (emphasis added by me):

“A war zone.”
Lopez said his district had turned into a “war zone” as gang members were taking neighborhood security into their own hands. “It’s just like a war zone right now … The gang members are now getting involved, walking around with AK-47s, threatening to shoot, I hate to say it, black people,” Lopez said, whose district, the 15th Ward, has a large Hispanic population. Lopez previously said in a May 31 tweet that members of the Latin Saints gang were “engaging and chasing looters” in his ward.

Huh.

So – gang bangers in a city with rigid, comprehensive gun control, have “AK47s”?

Weird.

“There aren’t enough cops.”

“Right now and I’m sure I echo what everybody else has said, there aren’t enough cops. We’re getting overwhelmed in this thing,” Burke said on the call. The mayor agreed. “It’s hard to fathom that we have 13,404 [officers], the highest headcount that we’ve had in probably a decade, and given the volume of looting, it feels like we’re a tiny police force,” Lightfoot said.

“Private citizens, they’re going to become vigilantes, they’re going to protect themselves, because the police aren’t reachable, there’s not enough men or women to respond when the call is made but the call doesn’t get answered,” Burke added.

Wait – you mean if government doesn’t do one if its few legitimate jobs – preserving order – then people will do it themselves?

My brother died one month ago today.  No funeral – they were illegal.  Covid. It was SCIENCE!

Then the Covid rules changed: we could have a 10-people funeral.  That wasn’t enough for both our side and the widow’s side of the family to attend.  No funeral.  SCIENCE!

Then the Covid rules changed again: we could have a funeral, 25% capacity, social distancing, masks for all.  SCIENCE!

We’re burying my brother tomorrow.  Afterwards, we’ve rented a picnic shelter in the park to eat box lunch, watch a tribute video and share memories.  Well, some of us are.  The picnic shelter is open on three sides but has roof and one wall so it’s considered a “structure.”  There’s a 10-person limit in the picnic shelter.  The rest of us must stand outside and take turns rotating through, with masks, and social distancing.  Because Covid, you know.  It’s SCIENCE!

I can’t help noticing the crowd at the George Floyd memorial.  Capacity, social distance, masks – whatever happened to all that Science? 

Maybe it’s like rock, paper, scissors: Fire burns Science; Fire wins.  Instead of following the rules like a good little boy, I should have burned down a Black neighborhood. 

I’ll keep that in mind.

Joe Doakes

Well, torching any low-income or immigrant neighborhood will actually do…

Campaign contributions for exemption. Nice.

There is speculation that the revelation that the “World’s Largest Candy Store”‘s getting rated as “essential” because their owner is friends with and a donor to Waltz created optics that were starting to hurt Walz, and between that and the fact that Minnesotans are actually acting less sociallyi-distant than Georgians (who opened up to great calumny a few weeks back, and aren’t dying off in droves) led to yesterday’s modest, token relaxation of the shutdown.

We certainly see what it takes to get the governor’s attention.

Why is the Minnesota Health Department treating its “model” like it’s a state secret?

Perhaps because it’s entirely possible it’s not so much predictive as coercive.

“Unexpectedly”, Minnesota’s neighbors – well, at least the ones run by people who came up through the world of business, rather than public employment or the non-profit/industrial complex – are kicking Minnesota’s passive-aggressive tush at dealing with Coronavirus.

You could look at it in terms of deaths per million (South Dakota is 1/3 Minnesota’s rate; North Dakota, half). You could look at it in terms of ICU utilization (all are doing all right, but it’s interesting to imagine how much better the lower-density states would be doing but for the ravages of Obamacare on rural healthcare).

Oh, yeah – and testing?

Which Governor Walz, for about the tenth time in six weeks put out there as the dispositive factor in re-opening, notwithstanding the fact that Minnesota’s bureaucracy is no better at un-flattening the curve with tests than it is at managing its budget?

Oh, what do you think? Numbers as of yesterday.

North Dakota 54,330
South Dakota 22,009
Nebraska 21,253
Iowa 21,206
Wisconsin 17,695
Minnesota 17,625

Bear in mind, progs in the audience – this is in terms of tests per million.

The businesspeople – who largely happen to be Republicans, but that’s more an effect than a cause – are doing the job better.

Suppose Minnesota will learn the lesson?

Last week, it was Governor Walz’s snitch line, urging MInnesotans to rat out people violating the nebulous and ill-defined shutdown restrictions.

This week? The “insta-hatecrime line!”:

When this epidemic is over, we’re going to have to have a serious discussion about civil liberty.

The GOP-controlled Senate passed an Insulin bill yesterday…

…but apparently they didn’t give House Majority Leader Ryan “Uncle Tom” Winkler the adulation he so craves:

My son has Type 1 diabetes. It was poor form to express myself as I did, and for that I am sorry. But after months in which Senate Republicans blocked the emergency insulin bill, it was also poor form of them to claim credit alone after we are all on the edge of a deal.

— Ryan Winkler (@_RyanWinkler) April 7, 2020

And what is he, er, “apologizing” for?

This little outburst:

Looks like Majority Leader @_RyanWinkler didn’t like our message today on Insulin. “Character is what you do (when you think) no one is watching.” #mnleg #Insulin4All pic.twitter.com/V7siWMZu53

— Minnesota Senate Republicans (@mnsrc) April 7, 2020

He’s flipping off Senator, and Doctor, Scott Jenson – on of the most moderate Republicans there is, BTW.

This is what half your neighbors voted for.

“States of Emergency” are like catnip for government. Transparency rules get “relaxed” in “everyone’s best interest”, so government can “get things done”.

Of course, it’s not all “Emergency” stuff getting done. The Saint Paul City Council is jamming down an exquisitely expensive rework of Ayd Mill Road – a road that rides like an Andean goat path, whose repaving has been held hostage as the Right Crowd tries to get it turned into their pet path, a bikeway with one lane of car traffic in each direction rather than the current two-ish, at at least quadruple the cost.

And…whatdya know, the dog ate the public hearings.

This is life in a one-party town with an “emergency”.

Is “ICU bed” a technological term, a medical definition, or a billing code?

I’m beginning to wonder if it’s not something like: “In order to receive reimbursement at ICU rate, the facility must pass a Level Three inspection and be certified as having X equipment and Y level of dedicated staff holding Z certificates, and located in a licensed facility.”

If that’s the reason there’s a hard limit in ICU beds – Medicare reimbursement rules instead of medical treatment requirements – then the politicians better hope word never gets out to the people laid off under this fake-martial law, or the next shortage will be pitchforks and torches.

Joe Doakes

I suspect an awful lot of people will be looking for pitchforks and torches when the word gets out about the bureaucracy’s bungling.

If it ever gets out.

Fortunately, as Treacher notes, media’s job is to cover the important stories – with a pillow, until the struggling stops, if the story affects the Democrat establishment.

This far.

We’re told as of yesterday that Senator Klobuchar’s husband is in the hospital with National Healthcare VIrus.

In the statement, Klobuchar said [husband John] Bessler had a fever and was coughing up blood. He was checked into a hospital in Virginia and is receiving oxygen but is not on a ventilator.

“I love my husband so very much and not being able to be there at the hospital by his side is one of the hardest things about this disease,” Klobuchar said in a statement.

“While I cannot see him and he is of course cut off from all visitors, our daughter Abigail and I are constantly calling and texting and emailing,” she went on to state. “We love him very much and pray for his recovery. He is exhausted and sick but a very strong and resilient person.”

All these years pf campaign appearances and debates and fairground ops and every other kind of contact with her constituents, and I do not recall seeing any mention of John Bessier. Am I dense, or is the media softplaying his existence?

Or, for that matter their status (she’s in DC, he’s teaching law somewhere in Maryland)?

Speaking of Softpedaling: Ih this piece about John Bessier, the Channel 5 report helpfully finishes with this bit:

Klobuchar said she is working in the Senate to ensure Americans receive the help they need.

Sounds like reporter Rebecca Omastiak is bucking for campaign communications gig.

On Friday, when Minnesota had 14 cases of the virus, Governor Walz announced schools would remain open because health care workers needed daycare so they could go to work and fight the virus.
 On Sunday, when Minnesota had 35 cases of the virus, Governor Walz closed the schools except for children of health care workers who need daycare so they can go to work to fight the virus.  Everybody else’s kids, stay home. But not to halt the spread of the virus – no, it’s to give administrators time to figure out how to teach kids who aren’t in school. 

Basically, this is another “in service” week, when teachers and administrators try to recreate the wheel that Phoenix University already invented, what every home-schooled parent already uses: distance learning.

Now.  In the middle of the pandemic.  Now, you start thinking about the possibility of doing something different.  Now, after all those years of criticizing and belittling home-schoolers as ignorant and fearful racists, afraid their kids will catch cooties from The Other; now, you’re adopting their methods without admitting they were right all along.

And the Twin Cities media praised keeping the schools open as bold leadership on Friday; and praised the decision to close the schools as bold leadership on Sunday; without ever mentioning the two decisions made two days apart are completely contradictory.

Here’s an alternate possibility.  St. Paul teachers were on strike last week.  If the governor had closed the schools, they wouldn’t have been paid.  So they quick settled the strike and now they’re back to work at full pay when the schools close.  Lucky for them, they settled.  Almost as if they were tipped off.

Joe Doakes

The DFL and the Teachers Union…connected?

Say it isn’t so!

That’d be like saying “progressive” journalists had a sub rosa agenda or something.

And that’s just crazy talk.

As the city of Baltimore notches it’s fifth COVID-19 case, it’s mayor, Jack Young, has issued a plea to some of his most notable constituents; the city needs hospital beds for victims of the public health crisis, so please stop shooting each other.

No, seriously.

He really, really means it:

“I want to reiterate how completely unacceptable the level of violence is that we have seen recently,” Young said. “We will not stand for mass shootings and an increase in crime.”

“For those of you who want to continue to shoot and kill people of this city, we’re not going to tolerate it,” Young implored. “We’re going to come after you and we’re going to get you.”

I am no expert – like, the mayor of a city that’s been controlled by the Democrats for three generations – but something tells me that this should’ve been a priority before the city had a public health emergency, and if the city wasn’t “coming after and getting, criminals when times are relatively easy, the job is going to be just a little…

… well, Captain Obvious is going to skip straight over Major and jump straight to Lieutenant Colonel if he finishes that sentence, isn’t he?

Joe Biden tells 2nd Amendment supporter he’s, er, “full of shit”.

“You are actively trying to end our Second Amendment right and take away our guns,” the worker said to Biden, according to video captured by CBS reporter Bo Erickson.

Biden immediately interjected, saying “You’re full of shit,” and implored those gathered to listen to his clarification.

Then, he shows that he is, indeed, full of…

…well, you know. Specifically FOS bits are emphasized by me:

“I support the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment — just like right now, if you yelled ‘fire,’ that’s not free speech,” Biden continued. “And from the very beginning — I have a shotgun, I have a 20-gauge, a 12-gauge. My sons hunt. Guess what? You’re not allowed to own any weapon. I’m not taking your gun away at all.” [Which is it? Ed.]

The man cited “viral” videos surrounding his claim that Biden is against the Second Amendment, saying the former vice president was “trying to take our guns.”

“I did not say that. I did not say that,” Biden repeated. “It’s a viral video like the other ones they’re putting out that are simply a lie.”

“This is not OK, alright?” the man shot back.

Biden replied, “Don’t tell me that, pal, or I’m going to go outside with your ass.”

“You’re working for me, man!” the worker said.

“I’m not working for you,” Biden said. “Don’t be such a horse’s ass.”

But then, Biden has also told us he’s going to put Beto “Hell Yeah, I’m Coming For Your Guns” O’Rourke in charge of gun policy, so it’d seem he’s full of…

…well, you know where this leads, right?

Elizabeth Warren campaign staffers abuse journalist who “didn’t support Warren” enough.

Politico reporter Alex Thompson, who was assigned by his editor to cover Warren’s campaign, posted screenshots of messages that Warren staffers have been sending him.

Some Warren campaign staffers don’t have a good understanding of campaign journalism.
Not my job to “actively support the candidate that you were assigned”
It is my job to contact as many ppl as possible rather than just rely on what the campaign wants to give me. pic.twitter.com/GjSDQ4i5ii

— Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) March 7, 2020

The part that surprised me ? Emphasis added below:

One of the staffers chided him for not “actively supporting” Warren’s campaign while others told him to “eat s**t.”

Thompson explained, “Some Warren campaign staffers don’t have a good understanding of campaign journalism. Not my job to ‘actively support the candidate that you were assigned‘ It is my job to contact as many ppl as possible rather than just rely on what the campaign wants to give me.”

What? A reporter acting lilke…a reporter?

The cynics among you might point out “that’s just when reporting among Democrats; the reporter is probably a Biden or Bernie supporter”. And you have a point; if you’re not a cynic about the coverage of politics in this country, you’re not paying attention.

Still, it’s nice to see the Warren Kidz’ invincible entitlement getting even gently slapped down. Looking at their Twitter feeds, it would appear to have been the first time it’s ever happened; we’re talking about kids who’ve never known anything but Urban Progressive Privilege.

Just another day at the airport for Cenk Uygur, Armenian Holocaust denialist and host of The Young Turks, the screaming, tantrum-throwing inner id of modern progressivism:

Here is a two-minute video @cenkuygur screaming at black airline employees because a flight was delayed pic.twitter.com/dGGFJzTsDt

— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) March 8, 2020

Wonder if the poor airline employee IDed as a Young Turks fan will be filing a cease and desist?

You can call it schadenfreud if you want – I’ve met Uygur, and he’s not a lot less annoying in real life.

Or you could call it karma for this glorious evening of self-parody that even the Babylon Bee couldn’t have envisioned:

I say “why choose”?