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”.

The man who was, for three terms, the worst president of my lifetime:

“Every single way but on paper”. 

“Look, Ms. Banker – my credit rating is 740- in every way but on paper.  Where, yes, it says 515”. 

“Why yes, I hold several records in sports from high school and college.  Not on paper, of course”. 

“Anna Kendrick and I are a thing.  Just not on paper”.  

“Officer, I’m a legitimate driver in every way but on plastic.  And my car is insured and registered in everry way but on paper.”

You’re a security guy. 

You’re securing a public figure – part of an administration brings out the crazy in the crazies, and who has herself gotten plenty of “admiration” from the “Professor Bill” set. She completely meets the criteria set down in Berg’s 8th Law.

You’re securing her in a crowded room full of people you have to keep your eye on.  

Suddenly, someone comes in the room, bellowing DO YOU KNOW WHO I AAAAAAAM?

You do not know who he is.  He looks like pretty much 100,000 other people within a 10 mile radius.   

But he just won’t shut up.  

So, with visions of John Thompson and Butler PA and Rand Paul in mind, you do your freaking job. 

And this is what you get:

The entire left – no, the entire left – is up in a snit about it. 

I mean, who does he think he is?  Someone trying to go to church in 2020?

Waymo moves all of its self-driving cabs out to the suburbs of Los Angeles:

It may be the most 2025 photo of all time. 

If you were involved in any way in the 2020 riots in Minneapolis, even as a spectator, you know there was little organic and nothing spontaneous about them.  

With that in mind, I urge you to read this entire thread about the LA riots:

Babies getting tear-gassed?   

They’re just eggs for the greater omelette:

The MO points to “leftist NGOs with deep pockets”.

Who, how deep and how did they get so deep?

DataRepubliican (yes, another “X” thread) has more:

The major one appears to be “CHIRLA” (“Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights”). And yes, course you and I are paying for it:

And, oh yeah. don’t forget the leftist billionaires:

I’m going to go out on a short, sturdy limb and guess that Big Left’s A-team was too busy planning in Los Angeles to turn last week’s fracas in Minneapolis into the riots some clearly so deperately wanted.

This past Tuesday, scads of feds – FBI, DHS, BATFE – raided eight different businesses around the Twin Cities, serving search warrants related to human trafficking.  

Seven of the raids went off without a hitch. 

But the eighth – at Lake and Bloomington, deep in the heart of white, progressive Minneapolis – was different.  The Feds rolled in in MRAPs and full battle rattle. 

And, in their own way, so did Minneapolis’s entire progressive power structure; the video is worth a watch:

Watching the woman at around 1:15 is enough to make me realize I sold Michael Savage short: progressivism certainly appears to be a manifestation of some kind of emotional trouble.

Around 3:00 minutes in, you can see the crowd – white, progressive, lots of tattoos and man-buns – starting to push and shove the feds.  It’s almost as if someone wants to institgate another riot.  

Around 7:00, the crowd starts to dump trash barrels on the street, apparently trying to keep the feds from leaving. Around 9:30, it gets even worse.

The mace comes out around 11:30. as the MRAPs leave the area.  

This was in defense of human traffickers. 

For all the sturm und drang, it doesn’t appear that anyone involved in attacking the feds or cops got arrested for obstructing justice. 

The reactions from DFLers were…predictable. 

Putative mayoral front-runner Omar Fateh:

Senator Fateh: under “no” circumstances?

Like , not even with active human trafficking?

Weird.

Councilman Chavez – who is the primary evidence not only of Berg’s 21st Law, but of the “Cano Corollary” to the 21st Law, named after the loony-left councilwoman he replaced because she was too moderate for the local DFL – sounded off. As usual:

Remember – this is against an investigation of human trafficking (not to mention drugs and latin gangs).

The Police Union responded:

It’s not like Jacob Frey – who, let’s not forget, was the “law and order’ alternative to Ray Dehn in 2017 – is going to be much better.  Minneapolis cops should have been hauling everyone who pushed the cops downtown.  It was pure incitement – and a sign of a department that gets no support from its prosecutor. 

Because they don’t:

Minneapolis is at a crossroads:  civilization, prosperity and sanity, vs. decay, anarchy and Lord of the Flies.   

To: Jon Collins, Senior Reporter on Race, Class and Communities, MInnesota Public Radio
From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous Peasant
Re: Anniversary + Findings

Mr. Collins,

As I have every year since 2021, I hope this day finds you well.

It was four years ago yesterday you sent this out on your listener mailing list::

“South Minneapolis: I know this sounds crazy. But it’s 2020. And I’m working on story now about white supremacists coming to Minneapolis to foment race war under cover of the protests. I need your help, and your friends help. Please refer anyone with real, credible info (not rumor or speculation) or sources to me at (I’m gonna redact that)

What the heck – let’s give this a shot:

Now, I know MPR reporters don’t generally deign to respond to the peasantry – in fact, I know MPR News management specifically tells staff not to engage with the unwashed masses.

But for the fourth June in a row, I’m genuinely curious – did you find anything?

It’s not of idle interest to me.  Mine was one of the neighborhoods that got burned, looted and vandalized in May of 2020 (noting at the time that I saw a lot of “AmeriKKKa” and “Destroy the 1%” graffiti, but not a single swastika or “14 words” reference, I’m thinking the Twin Cities either got the most inept “white supremacists” in the history of bigotry, or they were the most ingenious – fiendishly tricking a whole city full of leftists into doing the job for them – the sort of fieldcraft that’d make a Mossad agent envious).     

While I am a very overt conservative (I went from Bob Collins’ Christmas Card list to…well, very much off of it during his unfortunate unpleasantness a few years ago), I also spent time covering radical groups of all stripes back when I was in the mainstream media.  

I ask because a not-so-cursory look through the last three years of your reporting doesn’t seem to show anything.  

And as I do every year on the anniversary of this event, I’d like to invite you on my show (Saturday, 1-3PM) to talk about your findings.   Because it’s everyone’s city. 

Thanks,

Mitch Berg
Host, WWTC-AM

A group of federal law enforcement agents – FBI, DHS – apparently served a warrant for drug trafficking and money laundering on a restaurant at Lake and Bloomington in South Minneapolis yesterday. 

And it’s almost – I say, almost – like Twin Cities Big Left is trying to coax a riot out of the situation:

I mean, a riot over ICE, or whoever, would certainly divert attention away from the collapsing schools, the crime, the downtown that is disintegrating and leaving a gaping maw of taxes that will wind up being made up by an increasingly beleaguered middle class, a dysfunctional city government and a state government run by a bunch wastrels that squandered a $18 Billion surplus, wouldn’t it?

Joe Doakes, once of Como Park, emails:

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

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

That “summary execution” thing will set a lot of district judges injunction printers abuzz. 

But I suspect it’d get the message across.

Compare and Contrast:

The number of people in “white supremacist” groups dropped by an order of magnitude every generation from 1916 to 2016, from millions down into the single digit thousands. 

News media:  “Meh”.

Today:

News media: “It’s because they think they won“. 

No matter how much you hate the media, it’s not enough.

He’s gonna run for Governor again:

Of course, the little gnome will spend the next 18 months dodging debates.  But his Veep bid last year, and his newfound rise to national prominence, have given people a whole lot more material. 

As has the governor himself:

The little gnome never gets tired of “Nazi” references, does he?

I bet he does not see (badda boom) the problem with this…

Joe Doakes, formally of Como Park, emails:

I recently took a full flight from Fort Myers to Minneapolis with children crying and puppies whimpering. The only thing different from a converted South American school bus is the rooster.

 

 The puppy is not angry, it is frightened. I so wanted to confront the woman: “Why do you have a frightened puppy on this airplane?  Because it’s your comfort animal?  Really? It comforts you to terrify puppies?  What kind of monster are you?”

 

Joe Doakes

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

Democrats and WLs (Woke Lite Republicans) insist there is no valid justification for separating boys and girls, so long as the boys mouth the magic word “transgender.”  Once the spell has been spoken, the laws of biology no longer apply.  The former “boy” is now a “girl” for all purposes including tampons in the locker room and competition in sports.

So why do we still have Title IX?  Why do we still have a 1972 federal law banning discrimination between the sexes if there is no difference between the sexes? We no longer have “separate but equal” facilities for Black and White (except then Blacks demand separate dorms and graduation ceremonies).  So why not amend Title IX to say that all education, all sports, are co-educational?

Everybody who plays basketball, plays by the same rules on the same teams.  The best players are Varsity, next best are Junior Varsity, then B-Squad, C-squad, and so on.  Teams will be based solely on skill and ability.  Yes, that might mean that Varsity is mostly Black boys, Junior Varsity is mostly White boys, the lesser ranks are mixed boys, girls and transgender students, but that doesn’t matter, right?  No difference between the sexes.

Think how much money we’d save by eliminating girl’s sports which could then be put toward something important, like another train nobody will ride or higher welfare benefits for illegal aliens.

Joe Doakes

Prediction:  high school sports will disappear in Blue areas.

Minneapolis deputy police chief Katie Blackwell’s defamation suit was thrown out, and she’s been ordered to pay back part of Liz Collin’s legal fees:

This may be the biggest backfire I’ve seen in a defamation suit – and the subject is by no means academic to me.

In a move that finally brings truth to the matter, Blackwell also signed a written declaration, stating:

“I, Katie Blackwell, acknowledge, agree, and affirm that everything in the Honorable Edward T. Wahl’s Order Regarding Special Motion for Expedited Relief Under Minn. Stat. § 554.09 and for Fees and Costs Under Minn. Stat. § 554.16 dated April 8, 2025 is accurate, true, and correct.”

So, despite her initial claims, Blackwell has now affirmed that all of Judge Wahl’s findings are “accurate, true, and correct.”

So this brings up all sorts of questions about Blackwell’s testimony in the Chauvin trial – including her assertions that the restraint technique Chauvin used on Floyd, which appeared to have been straight out of the department’s training manual as affirmed by several Minneapolis cops interviewed in Collin’s movie, was no-how, no-way, ever part of the MPD’s training canon. 

Read the whole article.  And buckle up.  This next year or two is going be a doozie in Minnesota courts. 

Democrats, Two Weeks Ago:   “No government official is a king!”

Democrats today:  “What?  You can’t arrest a judge!   Judges can’t break the law!”

Joe Doakes, once of Como Park, emails:

Liberals keep saying “due process” as if it’s a magic phrase like “abracadabra.”  Tim Walz’ idiot daughter uses it, claiming Trump would have denied Jesus Christ due process in order to deport Him.  The implication is that if Jesus had received due process, He would not have died on the Cros

 

According to the Bible, Jesus Christ DID receive due process.  He was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane on Thursday evening, was convicted after a trial before the local magistrate (Herod) on Friday, lost His appeal to higher authority (Pilate), and had His sentence of capital punishment promptly executed by crucifixion on Calvary.  He elected to represent Himself at trial and did not contest the charges.  “Due process” didn’t save Him. It wasn’t supposed to.  That wasn’t the point of His death.

 

And due process won’t save illegal aliens from deportation.  Any illegal alien who admits to being a member of the MS-13 gang will be deported.  Any illegal aliens who denies being a member of the MS-13 gang is still in the country illegally and therefore will be deported.  Reciting the magic phrase “due process” won’t alter the outcome for them any more than it did for Jesus.

 

Joe Doakes

 To paraphrase my late crim-def attorney, “‘Due Process’ isn’t a synonym for a jury trial, or even justice.  It means ‘the process in the statute and case law'”. 

A “red flag” process, with its ex parte hearings and lopsided standards of evidence are a travesty – but they are “due process”. 

Visa holders sign an agreement acknowledging that they can be deported without ceremony for violating the terms and conditions of their visa.  That is the “due process”.  

I’ve never been to a Holiday Inn Express, but even I know this.

Entire Twin Cities media and left (ptr) last week:  “A graduate student, one of America’s best and brightest, was snatched away in the middle of the night by ICE for exercising free speech!  They could come come for any of us, citizen or not!”

Waiting period specified in statute passes:

Not sure it ever fails. 

Which is why we call ’em “laws”. 

Honestly, with some of these lefty s**tpost farms, I’m not sure why I bother fact-checking anything.  They don’t care, and they bank on their audience not caring as well. 

But there’s always the off chance that I’ll catch someone who hasn’t checked all of their brain in at the lefty claim check, who is looking for an honest answer to a stupid question.

To wit:

So let’s get this straight:  in the past 60 years, the United States has spent $22 Trillion dollars – more than the annual gross domestic product of China, or about 3/4 of a year’s GDP of the USA – to “eradicate poverty” and its effects. 

But, on top of all that spending (which is ongoing, and has accelerated well ahead of inflation), taking a small tax onto the small number of billionaires is what it’ll ackshyually take to fix the problem?

Huh.

We’ve been so close, all along!

OK.  Now let it sink in.  

Then press flush. 

I’ll allow that it’s possible that between David and I, Minnesota might get a little over-covered here at Hot Air.  

But I’ve got a theory:  national Democrats are trying out a lot of their national strategies and tactics in Minnesota; conservatives following Minnesota politics got a fair amount of deja vu during the ’24 presidential campaign, and that was even before Tim Walz got the (inexplicable but providential) nod to run for VP.   The accession of Minnesota DFL chair Ken Martin to the head of the DNC supports the theory.  So hear me out. 

The DFL in Minnesota has a bit of a crime problem:  their one vote majority in the State Senate (until Senator Eichorn is expelled for his arrest) hangs in the person of Sen. Nicole Mitchell, who is accused of multiple counts of burglary; the Walz administration is mired in a persistent series of non-profit fraud scandals, one of their elected representatives was tossed from office when it was revealed he didn’t live in his district (with the full knowledge of the DFL’s former Speaker of the House), and there’s the usual assortment of DUIs, not to mention the DFL taking the “20%” side of a lot of 80-20 issues (“stand your ground”, boys in girls sports, and so on).  

The response appears to be…

…slander all Republicans.  

State Senator Erin Maye Quade is a long-time progressive activist – think of her as a home-grown AOC.  Her terms as a state representative and state Senator from the south Twin Cities suburb of Apple Valley were interrupted by a brief run for Lieutenant Governer, along with current Minnesota Senate majority leader Erin Murphy – who, significantly standing next to Maye Quade outside the Senate chamber as she said (read the thread, via Tom Hauser at KSTP-TV):

She said this with the Majority Leader standing right there.  You can see it. 

That’s about as close as you can get to declaring all Republicans potential sex criminals in advance, just to save the trouble.  

So I’m going to go out on a short, sturdy limb and predict that Democrats nationwide are going to embark on a colossal campaign of name-calling.  

Have at it.

What could possibly go wrong?