Former ineffective DFL legislator Katie Knuth has been hired as the City of Minneapolis’ “Chief Resilience Officer“.

When I think “resilience”, I think “bouncing back from crises”, “being able to sustain a major human or natural disaster and keep functioning”, or “take a licking and keep on ticking”.

Well, no.  It’s described as:

…a new position that coordinates the city’s work on urban challenges from housing affordability to climate change.

Kate Knuth will join a network that includes dozens of chief resilience officers around the world, in cities that have joined the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities project.

Knuth, 36, previously served three terms in the state House as a DFLer representing New Brighton before leading the Institute on the Environment’s Boreas Leadership Program at the University of Minnesota. The City Council approved her hiring on Friday.

Put another way, it’s “providing a paycheck to people who are part of the political class”.

They take care of their own.

Illinois may very well go bankrupt.

What do to?

It’s time to break up Illinois:

…let’s finally admit that after decade upon decade of taxing and spending and borrowing, Illinois has finally run out of other people’s money.

Not a bad plan – although I’m not sure what Wisconsin did to deserve Chicago. Give Chicago to Massachusetts.

Those “other people” include taxpayers who’ve abandoned the state. And now Illinois faces doomsday.

So as the politicians meet in Springfield this week for another round of posturing and gesturing and blaming, we need a plan.

We just disappear. With no pain. That’s right. You heard me.

The whole satirical (?) thing is worth a read.

I’m just gonna set this down riiiiight here.

Florida Democrat Party leader urges fellow cultists to “hunt Republicans“.

A friend of mine wrote this on social media earlier this week, in re the City of Minneapolis’ proposed plasstic bag ban.

I know this is asking a lot, but I would like environmental activists to think more than one step in front of their faces. Case in point: The City of Minneapolis wants to ban the use of plastic bags in grocery stores (fortunately, the state legislature ended that, but please keep reading). Consumers would have to pay to take their groceries home in a plastic bag. At the same time, a Minneapolis sanitation ordinance says pet waste must be double bagged — in plastic!

So, we’ve taken in 2 cats who needed a loving home. And when we scoop their poop, we’re supposed to put it in a plastic bag that goes into another plastic bag before it goes into the garbage for collection by the city. But instead of re-using the plastic bags we get for free (just by virtue of buying groceries), we’re supposed to pay for the manufacture of “designated” plastic bags for pet waste? The sheer number of people who walk their dogs in the neighborhoods and city parks who are “required by city Ordinance” to pick up and dispose of their pet waste in plastic bags” is staggering.

Are you freaking kidding me??? Are you pet/environmentally friendly or not? And if you think pets are good for low-income and elderly residents who benefit from the companionship, you are penalizing them for the benefit you champion. Look past your nose!!!

We’re lucky enough that the City Limit is less than 5 minutes by car from our house. We can drive outside of Minneapolis to a suburb to shop where we are not penalized for using plastic bags.

The people further inside the city, without vehicles, are the ones being harmed by this environmental activist masturbation.

What’s that old definition of totalitarian?  Everything that isn’t mandatory is banned?

PS: She also notes that while walking around one of Minneapolis’ lakes, they noticed a lot of garbage lying about.   I know – Minneapolis has Socialist trash collection, how can that be, right?   And so they took time out from their walking to bring gloves and (presumably) plastic, legal bags for picking it up.

Might need a lawyer to do that in Minneapolis, these days.

A friend sent me this – an email from “MoveOn.Org”, a group that was founded to get Americans to just shut up and “move on” and ignore the antics of an ageing lothario, 20 years ago (antics that including lying under oath repeatedly).

They’ve changed their tune…:

I just have to ask: is there anyone, even among the lefty herd, dumb enough to fall for this?

The GOP majority in Congress may not like Trump much, but barring some major crime that isn’t currently in evidence, they’re not going to vote to impeach, much less remove him from office.

No, contributors won’t be buying an “impeachment”; they’ll be paying for more political noise and lots of spiffy vacations for MoveOn execs.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Ramsey County proudly announced the opening of premier courts for a Hmong game called Tuj Lub at Keller Park in Maplewood.

Players need a piece of grass about the size of a tennis court.  But they can’t provide their own lawn, or form a club like the Curling Club on Selby Avenue, or get a business to sponsor them like the bocce ball courts in the basement of the Halftime Rec on Front Avenue.  They need Ramsey County government to subsidize their hobby.

I’m a shooter, an American competitive sport with a long and noble tradition.  When do I get a shooting range?

If we’re not going to subsidize all sports, then how do we pick and choose which?

For that matter, why subsidize ANY sports?  Is that the purpose of Ramsey County government?

In pioneer days, the County was the principal organizational unit of government statewide.  But Ramsey County is almost entirely contained within cities.  What is the purpose of Ramsey County government nowadays?

Joe Doakes

Why?

To provide an income for the Democrat oolitical classs.

Come on, Joe.  You’re not new to this.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Governor Dayton signed the budget bills, but vetoed funding for the legislature because he didn’t get the bills he wanted.

Some might think Dayton’s move was petty and vindictive.  I disagree.  It was genius.  In chess terms, he’s put the Republicans in a fork – agree to a special session to give the governor what he wants in exchange for funding the legislature, or take your complaint to a court packed with judges appointed by Democrats.  Both are losing moves.

Joe is absolutely right.

When all the moves are losing moves, refuse to play the game.  The Republican Speaker of the House should say “We convinced Governor Dayton to cut spending for a third of state government, which is a good start.  Since he’s defunded the Legislature, we won’t be coming back into session and that means the rest of the government will shut down when this current budget runs out in two years.  Meanwhile, I plan to enjoy a well-deserved vacation.”

And Joe is even more absolutely right.

Of course he wouldn’t mean it.  But it ups the ante.  Every time somebody says “but what about” you point them to the Governor and say “Sorry, the Governor shut us down.  Take it up with him.”

Joe Doakes

I dream of a world where Minnesota Republicans have that kind of political killer instinct.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

This is why I will die a bitter and frustrated old man.  I cannot write like Wretchard:

 

” It would be ironic if a generation of politicians who never built much of anything destroyed nearly everything for the privilege of ruling over the wreckage.”

It’s as much about relative power as absolute power.

Joe Doakes emails about something I’m noticing in regard to the Paris “treaty”, political violence, economics, race, crime, human and civil rithts…

…well, just read it:

Liberals say Trump people are doing just what Clinton people did, but we’re not calling to lock him up, therefore, Republicans are shameful hypocrites.

William F. Buckley, Jr. once explained that the problem with Liberal analysis is shallowness.  One man pushes a little old lady into the path of a bus, a second man leaps in front of the bus to push her back to safety, but a Liberal says the men are identical: they’re both pushing around little old ladies.  Well, yes, at the most superficial level of analysis, that’s true; but a thinking person ought to be capable of looking deeper to see the moral difference in their actions.

Hillary ignored security warnings to set up a private email server which she used for official government business including classified information that ended up on Anthony Weiner’s laptop.  Members of the Trump administration have a private email system which they use solely for non-government communications such as Republican party fundraising.  Liberals now claim the situations are identical but the first system violated the law whereas the second system upholds the law which prohibits using government property for private political purposes.

Hillary set up the Clinton Foundation to provide aid to hurricane ravaged Haiti, and received $2 billion in donations from corporations and other nations seeking access to her.  She used 90% of the money for personal expenses.  Ivanka urged the World Bank to set up a Women’s Entrepreneur fund to help women achieve economic independence.  Saudi Arabia just donated $200 million, no doubt hoping it will get them access to her as a key figure in her father’s administration.  Liberals claim the two situations are identical but the first situation was merely Hillary’s personal slush fund whereas the second situation is managed and administered by the World Bank, not under Ivanka’s control and from which she receives no money (why would she, she’s already rich, she doesn’t need to steal from the poor).

It’s going to be a long four years.

Joe Doakes

Some days, it feels like it already has been.

On the one hand, you support – or at least sympathize with – “Antifas”,  By Any Means Necessary, ACT UP, the Chavezistas, ALF and ELF, the people who pepper-sprayed and physically attacked a peaceful Trump rally at the MN State Capitol twice…

…but you’re mortified that Greg Gianforte pushed a reporter who’d grabbed him.

(With a nod to Walter Hudson)

Joe Doakes from Como Pak emails:

When Bill and Hillary Clinton were under investigation for their part in the Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate, Paula Jones, and Monica Lewinsky affairs, Hillary Clinton told Matt Laurer that there was nothing to the charges, they were the result of a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy working against her family.  She persisted in that lie for years, despite mounting evidence that the Clintons were not being wrongfully persecuted, but justly prosecuted.

When Islamic terrorists attacked the US Consulate in Benghazi, killing our ambassador and dragging his body through the streets, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed the killers were innocent Muslims outraged by an offensive internet video.  She persisted in that lie for years, lying to the faces of the victims’ families, despite all evidence to the contrary.

When embarrassing Democrat party e-mails were published by Wikileaks before the election, Hillary Clinton claimed Russian hackers were trying to help Trump get elected.  Democrats are still demanding an investigation into her claim and now they’ve gotten a Special Investigator appointed.

But what if the emails weren’t stolen by Russians?  What if they were given away by a disgruntled employee of the Democrat National Committee?  Specifically, what if a 27-year-old computer programmer sent 40,000 emails to Wikileaks and later was shot in the back while walking down the street in Washington, DC, a murder the police are no longer trying to solve?  There’d be nothing for the Special Investigator to investigate.

If that were true, then Hillary’s Russian hacking story would be another misdirection lie, the same pattern of misdirection lying as Hillary repeatedly has used in the past to avoid blame for the damage she’s caused.  It fits a decades-long pattern of conduct that she’s used to great success.  Why is it so hard for people to believe it’s happening again?

Because if they allow that thought into their heads, they will be forced to admit how stupidly they’ve acted for the last 30 years as they drank the Kool-aide.  Nobody wants to admit he was duped, repeatedly, and gladly. So they perish the thought and double-down on the lie.  The Russians!  The Russians!

As Hillary slinks away.  Again.

Joe Doakes

Eventually, lotically, some conspiracy theory is going to turn out not to be a theory at all.

…the DFL and its PR firm, “The Minnesota Media”, blame the upcoming government shutdown on the GOP, keep this in mind:

It’s Javier Morillo, and if you’re not constantly marinading in Minnesota politics, a) you’re lucky, and b) you may not know that Morillo is up there with Alida Messinger as the most powerful person you haven’t heard of.

He’s the “Protressive-to-a-fault” majordomo of…the SEIU?  AFSCME?  MAPE?  Oh, who cares – all government workers’ unions are pretty much the same.

Anyway – mark my words:

1. Morillo calls for “progressives” to shut down the Legislature
2.  “Progressives”, being herd animals, will do it
3. The media, being obedient servants of the class led by none other than Morillo, will do as told and bury that fact; on Almanac after the shutdown, Morillo (or the other Mini-Javis that appear in his stead) will be able to skate away from their complicity.

Just watch.

UPDATE:  MN Representative Scott Dibble is in on the act:

As is Rep Dehn, who is also running for mayor of Minneapolis, and bringing enough grandstanding to the ‘struggle” (bwahahaha) to make Betsy Hodges go “um, Ray?  Bubbie?  Dial it back a skosh?”

Five’ll get you ten this is all forgotten when the government does shut down; the GOP will be to blame as far as the media knows.

Joe Doakes from Como Pak emails:

“Many people want to be authors. They crave the adulation of fans, going to cons, signing books, being able to work in their bathrobe and getting checks in the mail. Few people really want to be writers. Writers are miserable people who spend most of their time alone, have poor relations with their families and live in other worlds because this one doesn’t work for them. But to be an author you have to be a writer first.” (Paraphrase of Lois Bujold.)

There definitely are days when I feel that way.

Joe Doakes

I’m suddenly longing for the dignified grace of Jimmy Carter.

Be advised that there is only one acceptable DFL candidate for Governor in the upcoming race:  Minority Leader Thissen:

Speaker of the House Paul Thissen, in this AP file photo, receives a packet of orders – legislative and food delivery – from AFSCME, back when he was Speaker. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

To settle for anyone less would be a betrayal of progressive principle.

Unless Sandy Pappas runs. Then vote for her.

This photo was circulatec by AFSCME Council 5 this week:

It’s aimed at the Legislature.

Or…is it?

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I astonishes me how much law enforcement has improved during the Trump Administration.  He should get more credit for it.

No, really: remember last Summer when thousands of people demonstrated against police, insisting that Black Lives Matter?  They shut down Snelling for the State Fair, shut down freeways, marched all over, all the time, all for the same purpose — to protest unfair treatment of Blacks by law enforcement.

There hasn’t been one such march since Trump took office; therefore, Trump solved the problem and he ought to get credit for it.

Either that, or there never was a problem, the whole thing was a billionaire-financed fake movement intended solely to whip up minority support for the Democrat candidate for President.  Now that she’s lost, there’d be no need to spend money on agitators and consequently no marches.  Who could believe such a cynical thing?  That can’t possibly be the reason.  No, it must be all Trump’s doing.  He saved the nation from a heinous and ongoing civil rights injustice.  Good for him.

Joe Doakes

As we noted earlier this week, the Obama Administration’s big “victory” was fairly destroying race relations in this country.

Progressive Lino Lakes City Councilwoman Melissa Stockman-Maher contributed to this nation’s civic discourse in commenting about a Tom Emmer “town hall” meeting on a 6th District farm:

If you live in Lino Lakes, you might want to ask if Councilwoman Stockman Maher is threatening only Congressman Emmer, or if there are parts of Lino Lakes that conservatives in general should try to avoid, lest the Councilwoman likewise sic an armed mob on them.

Or maybe just make sure someone runs against her, with this tweet as part of their campaign literature.

2% of US counties have 51% of the murders, according to the Crime Prevention Research Center:

54% of US counties had zero murders in 2014 (the most recent year for which national crime data is available by county.

69% of counties have no more than one murder, and about 20% of the population. These counties account for only 4% of all murders in the country.

The worst 1% of counties have 19% of the population and 37% of the murders. The worst 5% of counties contain 47% of the population and account for 68% of murders. As shown in figure 2, over half of murders occurred in only 2% of counties.

m sensing a bit of a correlation, here:

2016 Election results by county

So it seems Democrat governance is correlated with death.

And – wait for it – here’s another correlation:

First, the good news:  Rep. Mary Franson has introduced a bill that would expose parents who subject their children to ritual genital mutilation to felony charges and potential loss of custody.  It’s currently illegal for a doctor to perform the procedure; if passed into law, Franson’s bill would spread the onus to the parents.

This is a good thing – especially if you are remotely familiar with the procedure:

Farhio Khalif of Minneapolis…described in horrific detail how she was forced as a little girl in Somalia to undergo a ritual mutilation.

Farhio Khalif, with Rep. Franson. Photo courtesy Tim Pugmire at Minnesota Public Radio.

“My legs were tied each side. My hands were tied each side. I was blindfolded, and the ritual took place and it was painful. It was so painful I think I died or maybe I passed away,” Khalif recalled. “I don’t know what happened. But I remember waking back up, and I see blood all over the place.”

And awful as that sounds, that’s really only the half of it.  The law seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it?

[“No-brainer” joke referencing Rep. John Lesch of HD 66A deleted – if only that were the problem].   Rep.  Lesch – representative from perhaps the least politically engaged district in the state, and a candidate for Attorney General – played for the cameras by…accusing Franson of playing for the cameras:

Despite bipartisan support for the bill, some Democrats suggested that parents could already be prosecuted without a new law…Rep. John Lesch, DFL-St. Paul, raised concerns that only Republicans had signed on as co-authors of the bill. Lesch said criminal law bills have traditionally been bipartisan.

The current law, to which Lesch and Somali DFL representative Ilhan Omar referred, makes abetting female circumcision a gross misdemeanor – like throwing a rock at a train.  Like, not really that much of a crime.

Several Republicans on the committee criticized both Omar and Lesch for questioning the motives of their colleague.

“This has absolutely nothing to do with the cameras in the room, with the headlines in the paper,” Franson said. “This is about saving children’s lives.”

With Lesch, and his bid for Mayor State Senate to go to Iraq Attorney General, it’s always about the cameras.

This needs to follow him through the AG race, assuming it actually gets to the starting gate.

Yesterday, Ken Martin – the Chairman of the MNDFL – posted one of his giggly little “gotcha” posts about a fairly loathsome Facebook post made on the 7th CD GOP page.  In the post, he took a swipe at new MNGOP chair Jennifer Carnahan.

Because that ‘s what politics is to Ken Martin.

Little did Ken Martin know…

…well, much of anything.  Martin has never been anything but Alida Messinger’s gimp.

But in this case, he also didn’t know that Chairwoman Carnahan had already pretty much eviscerated the Facebook post and the posters, nearly half an hour earlier.

Ken Martin; he’s not very sharp, but pass the beer nuts.

When Matt Järlström got snagged by one of Oregon’s red light cams in 2013, he began researching the effectivness and side-effects of these red-light cameras – and the jiggering of yellow lights cycle times that allowed then to earn extra money for their jurisdictions.

Since then, his research into red light cameras has earned him attention in local and national media—in 2014, he presented his evidence on an episode of “60 Minutes”—and an invitation to present at last year’s annual meeting of the Institute of Transportation Engineers.

It also got him a $500 fine from the Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying.

Math and logic are apparently so powerful, you need a state license to use them (emphasis added):

Apparently the threats weren’t enough, because the board follow-up in January of this year by officially fining Järlström $500 for the supposed crime of “practicing engineering without being registered.”

Järlström is now suing the state board over that fine, arguing that it’s unconstitutional to prevent someone from doing math without the government’s permission. He’s getting support from the Institute for Justice, a national libertarian law firm.

Don’t think there aren’t “journalists” who’d love to run with that whole “sue the competition out of exisence” schtick.

“Criticizing the government’s engineering isn’t a crime; it’s a constitutional right,” said Sam Gedge, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, in a statement.

Some would call it a duty.

Oh, wait – I just got a letter from the Minnesota Moral Philosophy Standards and Licensing Board…

Baltimore – like most Democrat-run cities – as become a cesspit of crime and murder:

(CNN)The number of homicides in Baltimore this year is soaring — reaching 100 before the end of April for the first time in nearly two decades — and the mayor is asking the FBI for more help.

So – like New York, Camden, Cleveland, Detroit, New Orleans, St. Louis, The District of Columbia, Minneapolis, Chicago,Stockton, Los Angeles, Oakland and others, Baltimore is defining the national trend of plunging crime rates, Baltimore is defying the national trend of plunging crime rates.

I won’t insult the audiences intelligence for asking one of these cities have in common.

“Murder is out of control,” said Mayor Catherine Pugh, at her weekly news briefing Wednesday. “There are too many guns on the streets. We’re looking for all the help we can get.”

So many levels of violence here:

• After decades of rhetorical, political violence, leaving Baltimore a one party city, culminating with…
• A full on rhetorical is sold by the cities government against its own public unions allies, the police…
• … Which has led to over a year of out of control violence in the streets, as the cops wonder which one will be the next to be thrown under the bus…
• The city of Baltimore is committing violence against the idea of federalism – bringing the feds in to do the city is right for job – the job it charges its residents prohibitive tax rates to “do”.

This will be Minneapolis into more decades.

Remember when questioning the provenance of immigrant voters was a baaaad thing?

Either does Alondra “The Brain” Cano, the “third world feminist” and Minneapolis City Council ward heeler:

Minneapolis City Council candidate Mohamed Farah is accusing Council Member Alondra Cano of “Jim Crow tactics” after she questioned the credentials of many of the Somali-American delegates chosen in the Ninth Ward caucus earlier this month.

Cano’s campaign filed challenges with the Minneapolis DFL saying 101 delegates elected in the near south Minneapolis caucus did not sign in to participate in the April 4 event at South High School. At least 27 delegates and alternates did not write down their addresses when they registered, Cano’s campaign said, and “we have identified at least three delegates who do not live in the precinct they were elected in.”

I love watching tyrants eating each other.

Kevin Williamson’s conclusion on the Democrats’ seeming compulsion to inflict more Clintons on us, and themsellves, via Chelsea:

…for Pete’s sake, stop it. Have a little self-respect, Democrats. Build Bill Clinton a statue or . . . whatever. Send him your daughters like a bunch of bone-in-the-nose primitives paying tribute to the tribal chieftain. But stop trying to inflict this empty-headed, grasping, sanctimonious, risible, simpering, saccharine little twerp on American public life. It’s stupid enough out there.

What led to the conclusion?

Oh, just read the whole thing.