I was in a discussion a few weeks ago about what the future holds for the Twin Cities. Someone – a Minneapolis booster and fan of the current administration in Minneapolis and Minnesota – said the cities’ current decline is a sign that the metro is in “the throes of a new city being born”. 

Well, maybe. Good times aren’t guaranteed to last, and any city can turn things around. And they can turn in either direction – fifty years ago Detroit was a thriving city with some worrying symptoms, and Nashville was a backwater with some music companies. The elevator goes down *and* up. 

But a whoooole lot of people, particularly boosters of the status quo in Minneapolis and Saint Paul over the past ten years, think that’s the *normal*. 

It occurs to me – when we talk about what the Twin Cities and Minnesota used to be, people under 40 have no idea what we’re talking about. Minnesota was an economic, cultural and technological powerhouse. It was a destination. It was certainly a destination when I moved here in 1985. 

Let’s recount what’s changed since I’ve lived here.

In 1984, Minnesota was a legit competitor to Silicon Valley. The top two supercomputer companies – the highest tech of the time – were here, spinoffs from a Cold War defense industry that was a national destination and made MN a tech leader. It wasn’t just defense.

In the ’90s, Minnesota had the densest concentration of medical R&D in the world. Hundreds of companies in biotech, medical devices, bio-engineering and every other corner of medical technology sprang up here; it was called “Medical Alley” for a long time.

This concentration of money, technology, infrastructure and talent made the state a business hub. “Sure,” you say, “MN still has a lot of Fortune 1000s!” Sure. Headquarters. But 3M used to have plants all over the place, bringing manufacturing jobs and middle class incomes to places like the East Side of Saint Paul. Honeywell, Ford, 3M, IBM, Ecolab, Medtronic, Whirlpool and countless other companies used to BUILD things here. And it wasn’t just business – although we’ll come back to that.

Minnesota was a cultural center, too. Everyone remembers Prince; many remember Flyte Tyme; some of us recall when the Twin Cities were a hotbed of all kinds of music. And not just music; in the ’80s, MN was the greatest concentration of theater outside New York. 

And we punched WAY above our weight in other performing arts – everything from dance to standup comedy. And there was a film industry – one that actually employed a lot of people, full time, doing Hollywood production for MN prices. That’s all gone now.

It wasn’t all local. Some of it was external: the Cold War ended, so the big defense companies (Sperry, Burroughs, CDC, Honeywell) downsized (freeing up a tidal wave of capital that financed the prosperity of the ’90s). Technology changed, so Cray, ETA and 3M followed suit. NAFTA moved some of the manufacturing elsewhere. 

But state tax policy was exporting jobs long before Clinton cashed the “peace dividend”, much less NAFTA. 

3M started shifting R&D and headquarters to TX in the ’80s; the film industry succumbed to a DFL tax grab in the ’90s, and disappeared overnight. 

And it’s not just big businesses. The startup I’ve been working on (www.storyaliz.com) moved, along with 2/3 of its staff (of, uh, three people) to the Kentucky suburbs of Cincinnati. Between taxes, regulations, the “family leave” policy and the stagnancy of the small business climate, there’s just no upside to trying to do a tech startup in Minnesota. 

And as to the rest of MN’s cultural scene?

There’s a reason places develop thriving artistic cultures, and it’s got little to do with artists. Look at every flourishing of ANY art, anywhere, throughout history; they all coincide with places and times where there was enough surplus wealth to support that talent.

Broadway didn’t create a wealthy NYC; it was the opposite. 

Minneapolis in the 70s-80s was like that – a place with lots of people with extra time and money to support talented people doing cool stuff, and who were inclined to participate in great things.

In 1986, when I was producing the Don Vogel show, I booked a writer from Fodors Travel Guides – which were where you went for information about places you wanted to travel, before there was an internet, and were pretty well-respected at the time – for the show. He’d just written an article calling the Twin Cities “the Athens of the 20th Century”. 

Hyperbolic, perhaps – but not all wrong, either. Nobody’s said anything of the sort in almost 30 years. We’re just another Midwestern city now.

So when people like the one I was talking with say “we’re watching the birth of a new city”?

Sure. It happens. 

But cities and cultures don’t happen because of wishes. They are responses to economics, policy and demographics. 

So ask yourself this: do our current policies foster creation of things – cardiac catheters, R&B records, naval cannon, scotch tape, comedy, brilliant ideas and products of all kinds – or just consuming goods and services? 

Because that determines the city and state you get. 

I think there’s a very strong case that Minnesota has become a consumer, not creator, culture. 

That’s a problem.

This is, as Barack Obama might have called it, a “composite conversation”. It happened – in bits and pieces, with different people. 

No Kings Protester (“NKP”): No kings!

Me: Couldn’t agree more. And what luck – we don’t have one!

NKP: You know what we mean. Donald Trump is acting like a King!

Me: I mean, if you disagreed with ICE’s tactics, I might agree – but that doesn’t make Trump a king any more than it made Bill Clinton one when the FBI killed Randy Weaver’s family or killed almost 100 people, disproportionally children, in Waco…

NKP: I don’t know anything about that, and I don’t care. 

Me: OK ,that’s fine. But you DO know that the “No Kings” organization demonstrated against the removal of Victor Maduro, who has murdered tens of thousands of people…

NKP: I don’t know anything about that. 

Me: And in favor of the dictators of Cuba, who’ve murdered tens of thousands of Cubans and many more around the world. 

NKP: Don’t know, don’t care. 

Me: Huh. And today the organization is supporting keeping the Mullahs in power – and they may have murdered more of their own people in a single day than the Nazis ever managed. 

NKP: Not sure how that’s relevant. 

Me: Well, “No Kings” keeps supporting actual dictators. 

NKP: I don’t know about any of them. 

Me: And billionaries, too?

NKP: Yep!

Me: So you’re aware that “No Kings” is funded by a network of plutocrats, including not only the usual Soros family trash, but Neville Singham, the billionaire who moved to Shanhai and is dedicated to spreading Communism – which has murdered as many as 100 million people?

NKP: So you say. I can’t confirm any of that. 

Me: You certainly COULD if you wanted…

NKP: I oppose kings in the US. That’s ALL I care about. 

Me: Huh. Like when Trump created a snitch line, an Orwellian thoughtcrime database, fired people who stood up for their medical autonomy, and pushed censorship of dissent and drove legislation to gut the Fourth Amendment for law-abiding citizens…

NKP: Yeah! That’s some real fascist snizzle, there. 

Me: Every last one of those was either Tim Walz or Joe Biden. 

NKP: <blinks>

Me: So it appears to me, a mere casual observer, that while you may oppose kings, you seems to be fine with dictators. 

NKP: JANUARY 6! 

Me: How so?

NKP: FASCIST! FASCIST!

Me: Wait’ll next week when we talk about the leftist and socialist roots of “fascism”

(But NKP has left the conversation).

Al

Joe Doakes, once of Como Park, emails:

A friend who owns a contracting business writes:

***

I’ve driven past a certain St. Paul grade school a few times this week, on the way to a job site. Each time, I see adults standing on the sidewalk wearing yellow vests, no kids around, apparently watching for ICE.

Just what the hell do they think they’re doing?   First off there is zero, absolutely zero, credible evidence that immigration efforts are directed at snatching kids from schools.  There is no interest in the government to waste time on that.  None.  So do these jackasses still think that’s what they’re protecting?  Or do they stand there because school administrators, janitors, indoctrinators (there are no teachers), and other adults are invaders?

And what is their plan?   Let’s assume they think they’re standing guard against ICE showing up to snatch up invaders of any type.  What do these jerks think they will do about it?  Do they intend to alert the invaders and assist them to flee to avoid arrest?  Are they intending to aid and abet known criminals?  Are they intending to engage in knowing obstruction of federal immigration enforcement?

I suspect the answer is yes to each of those and in each case it’s a crime.

They’ve been prosecuting people for silently praying outside baby murder factories for years now.  Isn’t it time to start prosecuting people who are intentionally obstructing federal law enforcement?  

***

He has a point. 

Joe Doakes

 

One the one hand, he’s got a point. ‘

On the other?  

It’s Minnesota.  Any county attorney that participated in the prosecution would find themselves doing document review for public works before the ink was dry on their motion. 

We’re all (*) familiar with the basic “logical fallacies” – flaws in reasoning that weaken or invalidate arguments. Things like the “ad hominen” (attacking the person rather than their argument), “appeal to authority” (comparing credentials rather than arguing the facts), “tu quoque” (comparing an argument with previous argument) and so on. 

I’m here to submit a few new ones. 

“Ad Foxinem” – claiming that someone’s argument is invalid because they supposedly “watch Fox News”. (And yes, the same applies to MSNow. Or would, if anyone watched it. That was an “Appeal to Ridicule” for those paying attention). 

“The Epstein Fallacy” – claiming that someone’s argument on an unrelated matter is false because the Epstein Files haven’t been released. 

“Argumentum ad Terminus” – believing that ending an argument by saying or typeing “Period” or “Full stop” makes an argument, whatever its merits, absolutely solid. 

“Faux Possibilitus – starting a claim with “What if I told you that…” does not make the claim true”. 

The Shifted Burden Fallacy: Ending a claim – solid or absurd – with “prove me wrong”. 

And “Argumentum ad LOL” – Ending your response to an argument with “LOL” is absolutely factually dispositive”. This is closely relate to the “Argumentum tu Emoji” – attacking an argument with an emoticon (for instance, the passive-aggressive “Laugh” emoji). 

Also – “Ad Omniciens” – responding to an argument with “Not EVERYONE believes that” (or its sibling, “Many people believe…”, also known as “the NPR Assertion”). 

“Argumentum pro Tantrum” – regardless of the merits of the argument, if you don’t acquiesce without question, I will unfriend you and never talk with you again. 

Discusss.

(*) I’m feeling optimistic, so sue me.

Look, it’s not possible for me to respect Tim Walz any less than I did in 2022 – when he’d abandoned his National Guard unit, and then spent eighteen months as a pocket Mussolini to deal with a three month crisis, completely trashing the notion of “science” – much less today. 

But somehow he’s still trying.   

The quote speaks for itself:

I don’t have any words to describe my revulsion.

Fortunately, someone does:

How long til Walz or one of his toadies calls the Holocaust Museum “Nazis?”

I got into a debate over the Good and Pretti shootings.   

I’m posting this here mostly to have my summation available when I need it.  

Modern political social media demands binaries, black hats and white hats, no ambiguity. Which is a problem, given that sSeveral things can be, and in this case certainly are, true at the same time. 

In no particular order:

1. Civil liberties are for everyone, especially people we disagree with. 

2. It’d be obtuse not to admit that Big Left is a profoundly illiberal force that, true to Alinsky, seeks to force its enemies to live by the rules it only invokes for it’s own gain. As it does with all liberal institutions, Big Left seeks to kill and skin the institutions and wear them like a meat suit. If and when they get the power they want, they *will*, not might, render those liberties pointless. We know that because that’s exactly what they’ve done every place they’ve gotten power. 

3. Federal law enforcement is very militarized, just as we warned during the Obama administration. 

4. So are Big Left’s shock troops. Militarized, well funded, and not bound by any niceties of social behavior. This past year, ICE has been shot at, and rammed over 100 times, including at least twice here in the Twin Cities. I can’t say I’d want to face that wearing a Men’s Wearhouse suit; I’d choose the battle rattle too. 

5. We can NOT trust our sources of information. Depending on who you believe, Renee Good was either a stay at home mom who’d just dropped her kid off at school and was on her way to deliver cookies and butterflies to homeless amputees, or someone with a long criminal jacket, including domestic abuse charges, who ditched her husband and grabbed the kid to come to Minneapolis to live out her fantasy of being Robyn Hood. Evidence seems to be pointing more toward “B”, but I’ll admit I have some bias. Nevertheless, the media and Big Left’s noise machine is going all in on “A”. 

6. Depending on who you believe, she was either murdered in cold blood by an untrained, inexperienced goon hired straight out of a strip club in Pensacola who was given a gun and a quota, OR a veteran of two decades in the military and law enforcement and a spotless record and ample, painful experience with how little these entitled white progressive f*cks care about hurting people. 

This next one is a little abstruse:

7. In 1933, when German President Von Walz…er, Von Hindenburg declared emergency power, and using the provisions in the Weimar constitution installed the “Hitler Cabinet”, among the biggest supporters in the Reichstag were…the Communists. They figured that the upcoming struggle between the Communists and the “horseshoe right” of the day would make the center untenable, and they would benefit. They were right about the first part, but grossly miscalculated the last bit. Point being, Big Left benefits, or thinks they benefit, from destabilizing society, including the erosion of the rule of law and “order” in the broad sense of the term. That’s why they’re reacting with so much well-financed, organic-as-an-iPhone extremism. They figure, like Ernst Thälmann, that people fleeing the center will come to them. SInce they’re NOT faced with a party that’s going to shove them into camps if they lose, what’s to stop them? Small-“l” liberal democracy requires commitment from *all* parties. There is no such commitment from BIg Left, and we know this because what they’ve done, again, every time they have taken power, anywhere. 

8. My old criminal defense attorney used to get pissed at people invoking “due process”. Paraphrasing him, he said “due process isn’t a magical guarantee of justice, or even fairness; it just means the system follows the law as it’s written down”. And the due process of law on many immigration issues *does not provide* for jury trials; I’m no expert on immigration law, but IIRC many visa violations – which were the largest source of illegal immigration until the Biden regime – require an administrative hearing, which is by law is about as probative as a hearing about your parking ticket. Don’t like that? I may agree with you – but that *is* the “due process”. 

9. A whole lot of people who were experts on the War Powers Act a week ago are suddenly experts on Use of Force and Self-defense law. And most of them, on both sides, are substituting feeling for fact on this issue; IF “due process” is followed, the officer will claim he had a reasonable fear of immediate death or great bodily harm; the lawyers will argue and a jury will likely decide. And that jury will be in a Federal court – not because Trump’s got the fix in, but because *that is due process*, according to Neagle Vs. US; federal officers doing federal things are federal jurisdiction. The disinformation has already started on that one. 

10. Let’s not underestimate how this is being harnessed to deflect from Minnesota’s only growing industry, nonprofit fraud. 

One of the reasons, probably the main one, that I left the Libertarian party and never joined the Ron Paul mob was this: without order, prosperity is impossible; without prosperity, liberty is academic; without liberty, order is onerous. American small-“l” liberal pluralism is a lot more fragile than it looks. 

Is the fed’s enforcement of immigration law heavy-handed? Probably. Is the amount of disorder and contempt for the rule of law left by the previous administration, not to mention that is the stock in trade of the opposition, a daunting challenge? Absolutely.

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

Dumb thing for him to say. 

He’s making the same mistake that every juror makes in a gun case.  He’s looking at the situation from every angle, having all the time in the world to analyze frame by frame and second by second.

But that’s not the law. The question is did the officer have a reasonable belief that his life was in danger at the time he pulled the trigger?

That means the only angle that matters is the angle the officer was able to see. What’s happening from the back or the side or above is not relevant.

If the shooter couldn’t see the gray coat agent take the gun from the victim’s back, then as far as the shooter knew he was still facing an armed assailant who voluntarily thrust himself into the fray to attack the officers.

How did he know the assailant was armed? Because one of his team members shouted “gun.”  Is he justified in relying on that team members warning? Absolutely. Did he see the victim pointing at him holding something in his hand? Yes, but it turned out to be a phone not a gun.  Doesn’t matter. Under the totality of the circumstances, the shooting was justified. 

 I understand the lawyer/lobbyist wants to protect Second Amendment rights, but this is a terrible case to do that. And now he just handed the rabble a huge propaganda victory.  Mistake.  

Joe Doakes

 

It’s going to be a terrible case on which to be that juror, too – if it goes to trial. 

Conventional wisdom and a lot of history say that the party that doesn’t control the White House always get a boost during the mid-terms.  

More conventional wisdom says that if the Democrats just avoid the mistakes of 2024 and dial back the crazy, they’ll do much better electorally.  

But what if the Democrats can’t dial back the crazy?  Or more to the point, what if something came along to make it impossible for them to tamp the crazy down?

Like, say, ICE dismantling a “sanctuary city” with enough brazen force to compel the left to go full Portland, 24/7?

Is the ICE surge the ultimate psyop?

Joe Doakes, once of Como Park, emails:

The immigration protests are supposedly in furtherance of an objective, not just random violence. What’s the desired result? Google AI says:

***

ICE protesters want to end or drastically reform Immigration and Customs Enforcement, calling for an “Abolish ICE” movement due to concerns about inhumane treatment, family separations, excessive force, lack of training, and the agency’s perceived overreach, with demands including ending detention centers, protecting immigrant communities, and greater accountability for agents, sometimes pushing for redirection of funds to social services instead. 

***

Sounds like Defund the Police.  They also wanted kinder, gentler, more sensitive law enforcement and thought the way to get it was to replace police officers with social workers.  That was First Order Thinking. But remember how Defund the Police turned out? The consequences were not as hoped.  The very communities of color they intended to protect got worse as perpetrators realized lawlessness and violence were now tolerable. 

Considering the consequences before taking action is Second Order Thinking and it didn’t happen then. It’s not happening now.  Protesters and their Democrat enablers should consider the end result they desire, not just the intermediate step, lest they unleash on their communities the same lawlessness and violence which resulted from the Defund the Police movement.

Unless, of course, that IS the objective. 

Joe Doakes

 

It’s the objective. 

Part of being a conservative – and a participant in Western civilization, for that matter – is treating people as individuals rather than collectives.  It’s one of the things that makes Judeo-Christian society objectively better than the alternatives.  

But sometimes groups are gonna group. 

Rep. Walter Hudson describes his observations after three years of reaching out to Somali leadership:

He stresses he’s largely referring to the community’s leadership, and with good reason; there are good Americans, and good Republicans, among Minnesota Somallis – because people, as individuals, have the free will to exercise their freedom of conscience.  

But Rep. Hudson is right in saying that the community needs a lot more of them, and they need to actually move the needle within that community – especially since it appears the grifting dollars might start drying up soon, if the DFL doesn’t manage to gaslight its way out of this round of scandals.  

…or does this…

“I’ve issued a warning order to prepare the Minnesota National Guard,” Walz added. “These National Guard troops are our National Guard troops. Minnesota will not allow our community to be used as a prop in a national political fight.”

Asked how he planned to deploy the National Guard, Walz said he didn’t know yet before acknowledging the extraordinary nature of the situation, telling reporters, “We’ve never been at war with our federal government.”

 

…sound kind of like an insurgency?

The governor sounds like he’s losing his mind.  

Governor Walz appears to be losing his mind:

Because it’s all Trump’s/Joe Thompson’s fault, of course. 

By the way – watch for a concerted campaign by Big Left – or even just Walz’s crowd – to paint him as the victim in all this:

I try to stay on an even keel, to give people the benefit of the doubt. 

But I’ve never wanted to see someone hauled out of the Capitol in handcuffs – or, given this video, maybe a straitjacket – this badly in my life. 

Watch this video.  

How far away do you think Minnesota , and America, are from this?

Joe Doakes, once of Como Park, emails:

There are 3.8 million immigration cases pending.  There are 685 immigration judges nationwide meaning each judge has 5547 pending cases to hear. Not counting new cases.  The case backlog is years. 

President Trump wanted to hire more immigration judges to deal with the backlog.  I was thinking of applying.  I have no immigration law experience but I have lots of courtroom expertise including presiding over hearings. 

If complex subjects like admiralty and bankruptcy can be taught, immigration can.  Not every case demands a learned treatise. 

Okay so I’m not the best qualified but if you are hiring a boatload of people I might still qualify. Hour many are they hiring?

115. Nationwide. Brings the total up to 800. 

So we have reduced each judges caseload to 4,750?  Shaving 800 cases off each judges backlog is supposed to fix the problem?

That won’t reduce the backlog. That will only perpetuate it.  The system IS the problem. What a farce.

Joe Doakes

 

It’s only a farce if it was intended to work in the first place.

Unpopular but correct opinion: Somalis are no different than any other 1st/2nd gen immigrants; some are criminals; most aren’t.

What does ALL the fraud have in common?

The DFL. The non-profit system. And Walz’s “inability” (heh heh) to control it.

You can say the circumstances under which Somalis were brought here – a Clinton-era State Dept. program that gave money to non-profits to settle them here, to benefit the DFL – were a little suspicious. You might have a point.

So – what does that lead us to?

The non-profit/government complex – the system that transfers taxpayer money to non-profits to do pseudo-government-y things, only without any accountability.

“Without any accountability? What do you mean?”

We’re at a billion dollars in fraud * so far*, and sources tell me there’s an even bigger wave on the way; we’re STILL just scratching the surface.

Seeing a pattern?

By the way, while there are a lot of immigrants – the illegal ones – that we need to deal with, people with TPS[1] aren’t them; they are already closely monitored. Somali with TPS – there are 200 of them in Minnesota – aren’t the problem.

I interviewed a counterterrorism expert once; he said 15% of Somali have *some* sympathy with terrorists, almost all of it passive. And that we learn about them from the *other* 85% who want nothing to do with that.

So if you want to knock out this state’s fraud problem, let’s go after the real villain; the non-profit/government complex, and the people who have *at best* mismanaged it, and at worst created it.

[1] Not to me confused with Somali creating TPS reports…

David French was once a conservative, in the same sense that David Brooks was – someone with a solid sense of the principles, but a serious problem with application. 

But somewhere along the line, French’s capacity for critical thought eroded away to nil. 

For example:

Perhaps.  

Now – let’s talk about the destructive and nonsensical application of public health procedures during Covid, which destroyed and rendered nonsensical the respect for what had been until 2020 the most indestructible and sensible of the nation’s instititutions, the CDC?  

That might’ve had something to do with it.

Berg’s 17th Law doesn’t get much of a workout…

…until it does:

When reporting “news”:

1. Nothing any Democrat says, or does, up to and including violating federal law and national security, will ever be held against them
2. On the other hand, anything untoward (or that can be interpreted as being untoward, regardless of intent or context) that is or is reputed to be done, said, hinted at or speculated to have been done, said or hinted at by any Republican officeholder (no matter how obscure or inconsequential), candidate (whether mainstream or far fringe), party official, contributor, voter, supporter, rally attendee, or by any putative supporter, contributor or rally attendee, or anyone claiming or reputed to have at any time been a Republican party member, supporter or sympathizer, will not only be treated like it’s evidence in a federal trial, but imputed to every conservative, anywhere, regardless of its context, accuracy or even truthfulness.

A Republican – no matter how obscure – who says something repugnant in a forum no matter how marginal, can count on becoming very, very famous. 

To wit:

Bad “young Republicans. No cookie.

If we presume this conversation isn’t a hoax (I don’t), then let’s tote up the score:   a few maladapted “young republicans” had a pretty ugly conversation. 

Versus:  A solid plurality of young Democrats justify murder over politics.  

Which is probably why this story is getting pushed in the first place.  

I don’t throw this kind of talk around lightly – but the DFL’s approach to this “special session” is intensely, profoundly, corrosively evil. 

Watch Walter Hudson’s video:

To run the story down:

1. Rep. Elliott Engen proposed language in the “Shield Act” that would have provided money for school security
2. The local rep for “The Ted Nugent Fan Club” sent a letter endorsing the proposal. 
3. Just kidding.  It wasn’t the Ted Nugent fan club.  It was the regional rep for Moms Demand Action.  A Bloomberg-funded gun grabber group.
4. That regional rep got her nose whacked with a news paper by the National Moms and the DFL.  Why?  Because they didn’t want a GOP freshman get a win when they wanted to take that district back.  

This whole charade is about headlines and votes.  This is what Richard Carlbom (who looks in NO WAY like a young Herman Göring, pinky swear) specializes at.  

Joe Doakes, ex-Como Park, emails:

One of the most common ways to refute any conspiracy theory is to point out that with that many bad actors, surely someone would have talked.  

 

https://x.com/MattForVA/status/1971575908424151298 

 

 Now let’s talk about the stolen election.

 

Joe Doakes

Joe’s not wrong – although it did come out in only (?) four years.

Joe Doakes, once but no longer of Como Park, emails:

Suppose you are playing a game and your opponent cheats. You point it out and he denies it. You insist you saw him cheat and he admits doing the act but claims that wasn’t cheating.  When you show him the rule book, he asserts those rules don’t apply to him. You insist he follow the rules and he declares you are a fascist so he’s justified in murdering you to win the game.

 

What should you do?

 

If you refuse to play, he will win by default.

 

If you continue to play by the rules, he will win by cheating.

 

 Somehow you must convince him to play by the rules. Game Theory suggests the best way to do that is tit-for-tat. When he cheats, you cheat and offer to quit cheating when he quits cheating. When he cheats harder, you cheat harder and repeat the offer.

 

 Yes, that means stooping to his level. It means betraying your principles because cheating is not who you are.  Game theory is not about morals, it is about tactics. It is not about salvation, it is about winning.

 

 Eventually one of two things will happen:  he will quit cheating and the game will be played by the rules; or the game will end,  probably in violence.

 

 The theory applies to the simplest games and to the most complex. Life is the most complex game of all. Conservatives have been playing by the rules but the Left is cheating. 

 

What should we do?  

 

Joe Doakes

I suppose “amicable-if-possible divorce” isn’t an option?

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

Why fly deportees to Africa?  Is Trump trying to provoke a constitutional crisis?

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/05/stephen-miller-goes-biden-judge-who-ordered-plane/

My understanding is that the animals being deported are so vicious that their own countries won’t take them.  They’re being sent to the only place that will accept them.  Yes, it’s a Third-World shithole. What’s your point?

I’m wondering why the country-of-origin issue isn’t being addressed more forcefully.  If any nation refuses to take their own scum back then the immediate finding by the President should be then NOBODY from that country is allowed to enter or remain here.  Refuse entry to everyone, including diplomatic staff.  Throw all them all out.  Don’t think you can dump your problems on us.  

And maybe take it one step farther:  “The criminals being deported are so vicious that their country of origin won’t take them back.  It’s unfair to American taxpayers to feed and house them forever.  But we recognize the courts have said these criminals must be given due process.  Therefore, we intend to give them a free lawyer and a fair trial after which they will be given a first-class hanging.  If any nation objects to the death penalty and wants to take them, let me know and we’ll pay the freight to ship them to you. Be aware that if you let them go and we catch them again, they will be summarily executed and the cost will be recovered from you in the form of higher tariffs.”

That ought to put the cat among the pigeons.

Joe Doakes

Seems like too much fuss.   

Don’t want your citizen back?   Seems to be that’s what parachutes and C130s are for.  

“Oh, gosh.  You got ’em back anyway”.  

And yes, not taking your own criminals back is a solid case for raising tariffs. 

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

What SHOULD a person do in that situation?  

 

 I’m curious to know what SITD readers think the result would be in Minneapolis versus Greater Minnesota?  Charges or no?

 

Joe Doakes

Joe asked for thoughts. 

Mine:   This is one case for which Mary Moriarty could be stirred from her stupor.  

Greater MN?   Depends on the county, but there’s a decent chance of actual justice. 

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

California has legal marijuana so of course there are farms to grow it.  And it’s hot, dirty, stoop-labor, field work so the cheapest workers are illegal aliens, whom ICE is arresting to deport. That all makes sense. 

 

What’s the deal with the children?  Were they truly slaves, kidnapped from their parents, trafficked across the border, held captive by adults, forced by cruel overseers to labor under the burning sun, as the article suggests?  That would be horrible. 

 

Or did the whole family come over together, all working at the same farm?  That would be illegal but morally acceptable.  They still have to go back, of course, but there’s no glory in enforcing that law.

 

Or are they young adults, maybe 15 or so, doing farm work (as we did when we were kids) because union rules, labor laws, and minimum wage rates make it impossible for young people to get entry-level jobs nowadays?  That would be more annoying than horrifying and certainly not something to celebrate.

 

I question whether the feds heroically rescued child slaves or simply arrested entire families.  It’s frustrating when press releases read like propaganda.

 

Joe Doakes

When people can’t trust their sources of information, they make up their own.  

How to make it in America:  Come to America via the immigration system.  Adopt the values that made America great.  Work hard, raise good kids, give a good value for the money. 

How to make it in Minnesota:  Come to America and, in apparently no particular order:  Commit a crime, ingratiate yourself with the bureaucracy, make get lots of taxpayer money.  

Wilson Tindi holds a director position at the Minnesota Department of Education, where he audits taxpayer spending and oversees internal accountability.

…

Tindi was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to register as a predatory offender. His sentence was stayed for five years, but he was also sentenced to 210 days in the workhouse, records show.

However, despite the felony conviction and offender status, Tindi serves as Director of Internal Audit and Advisory Services at MDE, according to public records and his LinkedIn profile.

 

Wonder if there’ll be a riot if he’s fired?

December 6, 1941: “A modern war would inevitably turn into a trench quagmire like the First World War”

June 24, 1950: “The next war will be, at best, a mobile industrial clash of titans, and likeliy end with mutual nuclear annihilation”

March 7, 1965: “This war is going to be a conventional war to contain Communist aggression”

August 1, 1990: “This war is going to devolve into a quagmire that will destroy a generation and enervate a nation”

October 3, 1993: “American technological power and training will enable us to walk all over these primitive tribesmen, and restore order just the way we did in Kuwait”

October 18, 2001: “As we discovered in Mogadishu, the Islamist terrorist’s willingness to die will make any war between us an endless quagmore

March 19, 2003: “American technological prowess and our experience liberating Afghanistan in record time will enable us to prevail against the Iraqi Army, Republican Guard and Fedayeen in short order.

June 22, 2025: “Iran will inevitably be another Iraq”.