It was 1980. Thomas Sowell – one of the greatest economic and political minds of the the past century – was being considered for a role in the Reagan White House.

Which provoked a, er, predictable response.

Which prompted Sowell to give the only response it deserved:

And it’s the same response needed next time some smug white progressive calls you a “Nazi” or “Fascist” for being a conservative.

Or, for that matter, when some sm

Few things have made me cringe quite as hard as “White Dudes for Harris” – the bunch of man-buns, ex-celebs, non-profit staffers and other walking caricatures that showed up on a struggle session on Zoom over the summer…

…to a fairly universal “ick”.

Why ,yes – I thought the whole thing was cloying and patronizing.

How cloying and patronizing?  You know when Tim Walz puts on his Elmer Fudd costume and grabs his entourage of photographers and social media dinks and waddles around the fair taking pictures of himself eating donuts and hugging piglets? 

 That cloying and patronizing.

But “they” were just getting started:

“Every time you go online, it’s the same story – the people who are paying me to read this script telling people like me that I suck. Well, if you vote for Kamala Harris, because reasons we’ll give you someday, maybe, then maybe you and I don’t suck”.

Whoever wrote this has never met an actual male of any race.

I’m trying to imagine the depths of Kamala Harris’s, er, nuance when it comes to civil liberties.  Perhaps…:

“It’s a false choice to say you support free speech, or censorship. I am in favor of the First Amendment, and I support a disinformation ban, licensing the press, and Governor Walz’s thoughtcrime database, like when I was born into the middle class!”

Or maybe…:

“It’s a false choice say say you are either for or against the Fourth Amendment. I support the 4th Amendment – and I think cops shouldn’t have to ask for search warrants before tossing your house and car, unburdened by what has been.”

Hmmm. How about…:

“It’s wrong to say you either support or oppose the 5th Amendment. I support the 5th Amendment – but it makes life easier for our First Responders in the County Attorneys office if we presume people guilty until proven innocent, abolish juries and defense counsel”

Oh, was there even a need to guess?

Her principles are, in fact, as convenient as her ethics.

SCENE:  Mitch BERG is looking for arrowroot flour at a local co-op.  Moonbeam BIRKENSTOCK, a twenty-something graduate of Saint Olaf, and of Camp Wellstone. Moonbeam works as a telemarketer for “Minnesotans United for All Progressive Causes”, steps around the endcamp.

BIRKENSTOCK: Merg.

BERG:  Hey, Moonbeam. 

BIRKENSTOCK:  So Drumpf really stepped in it this time.

BERG: (With mock concern, tempered with a bit of fatigue). What?  Again?

BIRKENSTOCK: (Oblivious).  Yep.  Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala!

BERG:  You don’t say.  I mean, that was pretty much a foregone conclusion long ago. 

BIRKENSTOCK:  Yeah, but here’s the best part:  He insulted her!

BERG: Oooh. Bad. Really really bad.

BIRKENSTOCK:  This probably ends the race.

BERG: Well, it ends something, anyway:

Only 6% said it made them more likely to vote Harris, while 13% said it made them less likely to—though ABC News noted that those who responded negatively to the question were “overwhelmingly Trump supporters” (Forbes has reached out to ABC News and Ipsos for more data).

But the poll found Swift’s endorsement didn’t even help Harris much in the expected key demographic: Just 8% of women under 30 said they were more likely to support Harris, 13% said they were less likely and 78% said it made no difference.

 

BIRKENSTOCK. So why insult her and risk all those votes?

BERG:  Not sure it affected any votes that weren’t going to go to Harris anyway. 

BIRKENSTOCK:  Hah!  Young women are fierce and independent and…and…I just can’t…

BERG:  Shake it off.

 And SCENE

They warned me if I voted for Donald Trump, democracy would be in danger.

And they were right:

It’s the things they say when they are among friends that really illuminate.

Seen on Twitter:

If someone on the Trump campaign doesn’t turn this into a bumper sticker, it deserves to lose.

But it brought me back to something I talked about on the air the other day.

Hear me out.

The Minnesota Model

See how Kamala Harris has been campaigning?

• Evading all questioning
• Avoiding policy discussions
• Being as vague and gauzy as possible about the bits of policy they do talk about
• Slopping the public trough with an endless diet of soft-focus social media
• Letting the opposition research staff and media (pardon the redundancy) do the hard work?

Look familiar?

If you live in Minnesota, it should.  The Democrats have been trial-running this strategy since at least 2018. 

Do you remember Tim Walz and Peggy Flanagan ever talking about policy?

Other than soft-focus platitudes about “fully funding education”, “reducing poverty 30%”, “sending kids to school with full bellies” (puke), “One Minnesota!”, and even abortion policy?

The only record the Walz/Flanagan regime will leave to historians is the endless river of social media posts, dripping with platitudes and set-piece photos of Walz in his “regular guy” costume doing “regular guy” stuff, holding piglets and hugging kids and getting fed Pronto Pups by the Lieutenant Governor. 

Ditto Angie Craig, whose only public persona is the biennial off-road rally she throws in that stupid black Jeep. 

If you’re looking at Harris/Walz’s national campaign and not feeling deja vu, I’d love to know why. 

If Trump manages to win, and the DFL takes some setbacks, maybe the “Minnesota Model” of campaigning – evade questioning (or count on the media not bothering to ask them), slop the trough with an endless diet of gauzy social media holding piglets and being “brat” – will start reachind the end of its fifteen minutes.

Here’s some Kamala Harris “Brat Vibes” from her time as San Francisco DA:

Just because you have a gun in the sanctity of your locked home doesn’t mean we’re not going to walk into that home and check to see if you’re being responsible…

If you don’t find “ignoring the Fourth Amendment” absolutely disqualifying, I’m almost afraid to ask what you’ll let government get away with.

Berg’s 20th Law of Social Justice Warmongering reads as follows:

All incidents of “hate speech” not captured on video (involving being delivered by someone p roven not to be a ringer) shall be assumed to be hoaxes until proven otherwise.

Look – these laws, and the concept of “Berg’s Laws” themselves, were always intended to be tongue in cheek.

I didn’t expect them to be invariable truths.

And yet they very much seem to be. 

When I heard about the “flood of threats” descending on Springfield Ohio, I figured “Berg’s 20th Law is in effect”.

Was I right?

What do you think?

I don’t know my own strength.

The DFL and Media (should almost be one word, shouldn’t it) are howling about allegations of domestic abuse against a GOP legislator, six weeks before the election:

In 2008, Dotseth was arrested and charged with misdemeanor domestic assault and he later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct. In a sworn affidavit by his ex-wife when filing for divorce, she detailed years of alleged abuse, according to the newspaper, including that he allegedly kicked and choked her in one incident and in another, pinned her against a wall.

Anyone but me getting deja vu, here?

I’ll help you out – 2006, during Keith Ellison’s first run for Congress, when the Strib put out a hatchet piece against GOP congresisonal candidate Alan Fine, dredging up domestic abuse allegations from his first marriage, but never managed to add a few things to the story: there were no convictions, Fine got custody of their son, and the wife went on to get arrested later on for…domestic abuse.

I’ll wager a shiny new quarter the allegations were brought up by an ex-spouse and her sleazebag lawyer to try to put a thumb on the scales during a nasty divorce – which is far from unprecedented, and in fact likely accounts for a huge percentage of domestic abuse allegationws.  Husbands and fathers are guilty until proven innocent, at least as far as the media and political class are concerned – as we saw with Fine. And it’s why the story is coming out today.  

I say nobody should even talk about leaving a race until Keith Ellison comes clean about his own, much better-documented history, not to mention Nicole MItchell leaving office and Judd Hoff leaves his legislative race. 

My two cents: This story means one or both of two things:

• The race for the state legislature is closer than the DFL is letting on. .
• Some oppo researcher, somewhere, is about to drop a big domestic abuse allegation against a DFLer. 

Any action on that bet?

Look – it’s not like there’s any reason at all, ever, that I’d vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.   I am not better off than I was four years ago, and likely either are you. 

But in addition to the whole “communist” thing, she appears to have been exactly the kind of soulless bureacratic bean-counter and image-polisher that I excoriated here. 

Kamala learned well from her Marxist parents; you gotta break some coconuts to make an omelet unburdened by the brat that has been. 

Or something like that. 

During Covid, I spent a lot of time driving between Minnesota and North Dakota.

And I listened to both governors’ press conferences, back when those were a daily or weekly thing – in one case, back to back, Walz and Burgum.  And the contrast could not have been more stark: listening to Walz felt like I was back in elementary school, with a history teacher who was really more of a football coach talking, slowly, like he thought you were as dumb as one of the jocks on his offensive line.  Burgum, on the other hand, sounded like he knew he was addressing not just adults, but people he had to treat with some basic adult respect.

And after seeing this…

…it’s all starting to make sense to me.

Side note:  a joint press conference with Kamala Harris and Gwen Walz would drive the suicide rate into double digits.

While this appears to be pure fluff on the surface…

Minnesota Governor and 2024 Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz has built a reputation as a bit of a foodie, or maybe just someone who enjoys food of varying qualities. After all, he’s not always eating the most refined foods — he’s declared his love for diet Mountain Dew, corn dogs, and Minneapolis’ signature cheese-filled burger,the Juicy Lucy. He’s even won the Minnesota Congressional Delegation Hotdish Off multiple years for his truly Midwestern tater tot casserole. This love of deliciously decadent foods definitely gives him points for relatability, while his universal free lunch program for Minnesota kids poises him as an executive who believes everyone (especially children) has the right to eat regardless of income.
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At the end of August 2024, the display of Governor Walz’s gastronomic delights continued as he was shown on his YouTube channel ordering a mint chocolate chip shake at Cook Out in North Carolina. Led by North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, this was Walz’s first trip to the southern fast food chain. When asked what he thought of the shake, he replied, “It’s really good.” Maybe not the most glowing review, but he did appear to enjoy it, at least. (“Oh, my god,” he said in delight as he continued eating.)

…it it is no less incisive than the rest of the MSM coverage Governor Klink has gotten so far.

SCENE:  Mitch BERG is shopping at the Roseville Cub.  The one on Larpenteur, not the one at Har Mar.   He rounds the end-cap in the condiment aisle, and sees Avery LIBRELLE, Cat SCAT and Gutterball GARY.  Before he can backtrack, they notice him.

SCAT:  Hey, Merg.

BERG:  Uh…

GARY. We need to talk about voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

LIBRELLE:  Yes.  It’s time for a conversation. 

BERG:  A “conversation”.

SCAT:  Yes. 

BERG. OK.  But it’ll be a short “conversation”.   Harris and Walz are communists.  They’ll wreck the economy, trash civil liberties, throw the borders open thus crushing working Americans incomes, and give dictators from Putin to Xi to Khamenei free reign, while presiding over a “Lose Slowly” policy not only for the country, but for all of western civilization.

LIBRELLE:  Huh.

GARY:  OK.   You’ll need to change your mind, or this conversation will get “hard”.

(The three look menacingly at BERG).

BERG:  (Breaks out laughing, snorts in derision, walks away).

SCAT:  I think we got to him.

LIBRELLE:  Same.

And SCENE.

Amongf the Kamala Harris lies that ABC at the debates was the idea that “crime is down”:

It means you have a functioning BS detector. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which measures Americans interactions with crimes not reported to the cops, unlike the FBI report Muir was flogging.

And it’s not good:

Overall, the NCVS indicate that in 2023, the rate of nonfatal violent victimization in the United States was 22.5 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older, which was similar to the 2022 rate of 23.5 violent victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older. Violent victimization includes rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault.

Ironically, the NCVS had lower numbers for violent victimizations for 2020 and 2021, despite the widespread perception that crime got significantly worse during the pandemic. In 2018 the figure was 23.8, in 2019 it was 21, it was 16.4 in 2020 — remember, lots of people were stuck at home, and fewer people on the street means less street crime — and in 2021 it was 16.5.

 

And a look at the Minneapolis crime dashboard, counting only crimes reported to the cops, is also a little instructive: as of today,

• homicide, larceny and robbery are up from last year
• Assault and sex offenses are up above the 3 year average (and that counts 2021, one of the worst years on record)
• Vandalism and domestic assault are up over both last year and the average. 

One of the things that always drew me to blogging was the notion of having a voice to shoot back (figuratively) at Big Media’s stultifying echo chamber. 

I had no idea, 22 years on, that we’d be this busy at it.

It may be a symptom of how complete the “Great Sort” has been – but the safer a Democrat is, the more comfortable they feel “saying the quiet part out loud”, as the kids say these days:

By the way, Governor Newsom:  No.  Denied. 

Now what?

Now, Warnock feeling safe? Well, he is, for another couple years anyway:

On the other hand…:

Anyway – if you are a Democrat, you need to make absolutely certain your candidates accept nothing less than completely confiscation, publicly, and immediately.

“Hunters for Gun Control”.

“Kulaks for Lenin”

“Chickens for Foxes”.

Two of those are made up.

This next one…:

…I give about 50-50.

Show me the “Republican” who supports price controls, open borders, defunding police, gun confiscation, soical decline, packing the SCOTUS, creating two new Democrat states to pack the Senate, explosive debt, and a foreign policy as firm as a Dairy Queen ice cream cone, and I’ll show you the real problem. 

I mean, it’s only Grenell. 

But, if true…:

…I mean, it’s not like I need more reasons not to vote for Kamala Harris. Picking one of the only attorneys-general worse than Eric Holder would be one.

But since the idea of appointing Ellison to AG is so egregiously stupid, one needs to ask – why?

• Is a potential Harris/Walz regime not being perceived as anti-Semitic enough?
• Did Harris’s polling slip in MN after picking Klink spook her that much?

Thoughts?

The BIden/Harris administration seems to be slowly figuring out something that most of the rest of the world knew last October 6: Hamas are evil people who don’t want a “deal”, except one that leaves them able to keep killing Jews.

Not that it’s sitting well with them:

They could not get Hamas on board, but that did not stop the president from retreating into what must be the comforting fiction that Benjamin Netanyahu is all that stands between Joe Biden and the Nobel Prize. “No,” Biden said simply when asked if, in the wake of the execution-style murder of six Hamas hostages, including an American citizen, Netanyahu was doing enough to secure a peace deal. And yet, not only had the Israeli government agreed to the conditions Biden floated for a temporary cease-fire back in June, it had agreed to the terms Biden outlined in January, March, April, and May in similar fashion. Know who didn’t? Hamas!

If there is a political strategy in the Biden administration’s performative exasperation, it’s hard to see its value. The White House has cast itself as an impotent, easily dismissed bit player in a drama over which it still maintains it has some control. Even now, the administration seems incapable of admitting to itself what most Americans already know: The terrorists who murder Americans without fear of U.S. reprisal are meting out near-daily embarrassments to the country and its president.

And yet, in her disastrous interview the week before last, Harris’s view was still “We support Israel but there has to be a cease-fire”.

It’s pure delusion.

To be fair, it’s better than Walz’s version:

I’d mock him for running away, but really, Biden and Harris are doing exactly the same thing. 

SCENE:   Governor Walz’s command post van, parked out back of the Minnesota State Fair.  Governor WALZ enters, dressed in his “regular Joe” costume, trailed by Lieutenant Governor FLANAGAN, sans turquoise earrings.  Trailing after in the entourage are the Governor’s press secretary, Moonbeam BIRKENSTOCK, and Lt. Gov. Flanagan’s press aide Cat SCAT.   WALZ’s face is red, causing his eyebrows to stand out like little white flares on a dark night.  Several other staffers, as well as FLANAGAN’s husband, former MPR political reporter and NPR’s MyLyssa SILBERMAN, reporter for National Public Radio’s Saint Paul bureau, covering the “Fake News” and “Diversity” beats, and Betty Rae TORSTENGAARDSEN, a writer at the (possibly fictional) progressive blog “MinnesotaLiberalAlliance.Blogspot.com“, and Lac Qui Parle County Dairy Princess in 1987, and voted “most likely to end up as a freelance political writer” by her sorority at U of M Morris in 1992.

WALZ:  What the hell was that?

FLANAGAN:  Weren’t they tooooold of the policy?

BIRKENSTOCK:  It was on the handout (SCAT produces the handout); “The state fair is only about food and baby animals“. 

WALZ:   Then what the hell was this?

BIRKENSTOCK: It was all that out of town media.

WALZ:  Well, what can we do about them? 

SILBERMAN:  What do you mean, “do”?

WALZ:  Can we get rid of them until they know the rules?  I mean, just look at this:

WALZ: I mean, what happened to the reporters who knows the rules? Peggy, what did you do with that guy from Public Minnesota Radio?

FLANAGAN:  Dated and married him? (WEBER gushes).

WALZ:  Can one of you date and marry that woman?

(BIRKENSTOCK and SCAT trade nervous glances)

BIRKENSTOCK:  Uhhhhh…

WALZ:  Look – the Minnesota media knows their place.  What’s it gonna take to get these national people to follow the rules?

SILBERMAN:  I probably shouldn’t be talking here, but playing games with access usually does the trick.

BIRKENSTOCK:  I know, we gotta get in control of that.

TORSTENGAARDSEN:  Or – and this may seem a little radical – you could answer policy questions from the press…

(Everyone in the room looks at TORSTENGAARDSEN as if she’s farted in church)

WALZ:  Get her the hell out of here.

(Security guards and Secret Service pass TORSTENGAARDSEN out of the van like it’s a mosh pit in 1992). 

WALZ:  OK.  Serious discussion here.  National media.  What the hell?  Think, people…

And SCENE

Kamala Harris’s choice of Tim Walz for her running mate appears to be hurting her…

…in Minnesota:

Only 52% of Minnesota voters see him as an excellent or good choice, with 12% saying he’s a fair selection, and a staggering 34% saying he’s a poor pick.

Walz is underwater with men, with 49% approving of his selection and 50% opposing it. About 40% of male respondents called him a poor choice of running mate.

Voters under the age of 35, a key demographic Harris needs in November, also aren’t enthusiastic: 49% called Walz an excellent or good pick; the other 51% regarded him unfavorably. These voters make up 25% of the anticipated November electorate.

Walz is also one percentage point underwater with parents, with 48% regarding him favorably and 49% panning the pick. Among people with children, 35% say he was a poor selection.

And who knows him better than the people he’s been governing, badly and opaquely, for six years?

As one local wag put it…:

What she said.

Leave him at the door, America.

This past week, Brazil’s “supreme court” ordered a shutdown of “X” (formerly Twitter) after Elon Musk declined to participate in a sham court proceeding. 

The justice said the platform will stay suspended until it complies with his orders, and also set a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) for people or companies using VPNs to access it.

OK – so you say “banana repubics gonna banana republic”.   They got themselves a socialist PM, so it’s to be expected.

Yes, indeed; banana republics gonna banana republic:

In a just world, this would be a disqualifier for further service as an “Attorney General”, as actual lawyer and state rep Harry Niska points out:

Now, Niska’s not new at this – he knows most Twin Cities media only supports their free speech. But rules are rules.

Speaking of which – Ellison is certainly trashing the spirit of Minnesota law, if not the actual letter::

Tack this onto Governor Klink’s clear ambivalence about free speech, and the Twin Cities news media’s trite juvenility about doing its putative duty to democracy…:

…and it’s hard to know which is the bigger banana republic, Brazil or Minnesota.

Freedom.

It’s such a big deal, our “elites” don’t think you can be trusted with it:

Keith Ellison thanks the authoritarian socialist government of Brazil for threatening to criminalize Twitter:

Kamala Harris thinks free speech is a privilege, and needs supervision.

Democrats are warning me democracy itself is at stake.

I guess they’re right.  

Kamala Harris’s campaign has been hiding her and Governor Walz from unscripted public view for over a month.  They’re content to led the media do their mythmaking for them, and so are able to slop the trough with an endless stream of chanting points.  

Look familiar?

If you live in Minnesota, it sure should.

My theory – Democrats in Minnesota have figured out that you don’t really need candidates; you need figureheads; moderate-ish looking people who serve as social media conduits for chanting points.  Mark Dayton was one – he barely poked his nose out of his office fior eight years.  He was irrelevant; Ken Martin and Tina Smith did all the thinking. 

Walz is a little more active – in a social media sense.   He’s no less opaque than Dayton was, but is a more bald-faced conduit for the state’s non-profit/industrial complex.   He’s nothing but a stream of Tweets about the State Fair and “full bellies”.  

And it worked. 

And Democrats are trying the same thing nationwide; take an empty skirt, wrap it in platitudes and social media imagery, and blow enough “joy” up peoples pant legs to move enough numbers into the “D” column.  

Forget “forever chemicals” – this  system may be Minnesota’s most toxic export.  

To:  Amanda Taylor, Candidate for the Missouri House
From:  Mitch Berg, Peasant
Re:  SCIENCE!!!

Ms. Taylor,

Your bio claims you’re both a biochemist and running for the Missouri House 

Last week, you dropped an “Ack-Shyu-Ally” bomb on someone:

So,  question for Ms. Taylor:

Let’s ignore for a moment that Karyotypes aren’t, themselves, “sexes”, rather than medical conditions that don’t actually kill a fetus. 

Let’s say for purposes of argument that there are six actual first-class sexes. 

How many of those six sexes are precipitated by the subject’s emotional attitude, psychological condition or fervent belief?

Thanks for your prompt attention to this matter.

That is all.

Governor Walz hasn’t done a single substantive interview with a “Journalist” that isn’t throwing him sloppy kisses (Esme Murphy, Jason DeRusha) since before the ’22 election.

But this?

And our erstwhile “fourth estate”, the ones who are supposed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable?

They’re yukking it up:

Not sure “peak Minnesota” means what Ms. Lopez thinks it means.