…and for those who’ve never understood why, and for those who’ve never gotten a hint of it from the media?   Here’s why Hillary’s email hi-jinx actually matter.

Did Chelsea Clinton take a private jet to a “clean energy” conference that was a mere five hour drive (or one-hour commercial flight) away?

Oh, what do you think?

The Clinton campaign promised during the Democratic primary that their entire operation would be “carbon neutral” and had some friendly reporters write stories about how even campaign manager John Podesta took the bus.

The campaign doesn’t talk about that pledge much anymore, given the how much the Clintons love flying on private jets, presumably out of class envy.

Here’s the problem; after 15 years of writing a blog, I’m running out of synonyms and other ways to write “some animals are more equal than others”.  One can only quote Solzhenitsyn so many times, if only because one only rarely spells Solzhenitsyn correctly.

MNDFL chair Ken Martin, in re the MN Supreme Court’s decision to toss his attempt to remove Trump/Pence from the ballot:

If they can’t competently follow the rules…how does anyone expect them to run the country,” said Martin.

Yes, Ken.

How.

How indeed?

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Minnesota election law requires party delegates at the convention to designate electors and alternates.  Minnesota Republicans failed to do that at their convention so party big-shots designated some afterwards.  Democrats correctly pointed out this duct-tape fix failed to comply with the law and asked the Supreme Court to strike Trump’s name from the ballot.

The Secretary of State objected that early voting starts in 11 days and they’ve already printed a million ballots so it would cost a fortune to change the ballots now. The Supreme Court decided the Democrats had waited too long to bring the challenge and ruled against them based on the ancient equitable doctrine of laches.

 Laches?  Laches?!? That’s Republicans’ ace in the hole?  That’s their big defense? 

 Laches is one of those kitchen-sink defenses you throw into the Answer when you’re totally desperate and have no defense on the merits of the case.  It’s for losers and scoundrels and weasels.  A major political party trying to get a Presidential candidate onto the ballot shouldn’t be relying on laches.

 They really are the Stupid Party. 

 Joe Doakes

But why did the DFL file the suit – which, but for logistics and the appeal to, ahem, laches, might have succeeded?

Michael Brodkorb, newly at MinnPost, breaks that down.   Short story short; there are people who get paid to be cynical about things like rules.

In perhaps the most bald-faced violation of Berg’s Seventh Law in history, the DFL – which is constantly whinging about phantom claims of “voter suppression” – is actively trying to disenfranchise half of this state’s electorate in the Presidential election.

DFL Chair Ken “Dwight Schrute” Martin is sueing to keep Donald Trump off the Minnesota ballot in November, over an absurd, abstruse technicality in election law:

The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s Thursday lawsuit claims the Minnesota Republican Party failed to nominate its presidential electors, the people who cast the state’s 10 electoral college votes, in accordance with state law. Keith Downey, the chair of the Minnesota Republican Party, said last month that the party called a special meeting to approve alternative electors because it had previously neglected to do so.

One of these people is imitating Mussolini. The other was a character on a hit TV show.

The suit, which was filed directly to the Minnesota Supreme Court, adds a new level of chaos to an already strange election season. It could cause the parties to spend some of the rushed final eight weeks of the election fighting in court, distracting from other campaigning. While the suit is a technical one, if successful, it could affect the entire presidential election.

If the DFL wins – and one would think even Minnesota’s absurdly liberal Supreme Court couldn’t possibly be that obtuse – then long-time friend of this blog Dave Thul had a great idea; every conservative should vote for Jill Stein, and make the Greens a major party in Minnesota, sapping DFL votes for at least the next four years and drawing money from the DFL’s graft pool.

There’s also a part of me that hopes Martin “wins”.  This – the most baldfaced example of corruption masquerading as law I’ve seen in my lifetime – would stand a good chance of opening an epic floodgate of support for Trump, or at least against Hillary’s party.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

6,500 Minnesota State Fair goers answered a survey.  They demand:

 Higher gas taxes

Higher sales taxes

More gun control

More college subsidies

More sick leave

Right-to-Die

Student privacy

 They hate:

 Restrooms designated by sex

Talking on cell phones

Non-partisan elections

Legislators setting their own salaries

 There are 5 million Minnesotans who did NOT vote in this survey.  Do you think their wishes will be considered?  Or is the fix already in?

 Joe Doakes

With Minnesota bureaucrats, the fix is always in.

Alpha News continues to absolutely thrash the Twin Cities mainstream media at…doing journalism and holding government accountable.

This week? Further evidence that Ilham Omar did, indeed, “marry” her brother, and that she was, indeed, married (via a combination of “faith” and undissolved legal marriages) to two men at the same time.

Expect an avalanche of anger from the left over the racism and hatred of foreigners and people of color on the part of Alpha News writer…

…er…

…Preya Samsundar.

As the story of Ilham Omar’s, er, convoluted legal history starts to seep out into the mainstream media, the DFL is starting to do what it does best when it has a hard time managing a story; make threats.

This is a tweet from Tom Lyden of Fox9 about a tweeted “warning” he received from the president of the MN DFL Youth:

I love this threat from the Pres. of the Young DFL. Petulance at its finest. pic.twitter.com/PRTPhvFOWk

— Tom Lyden (@LydenFOX9) August 16, 2016

Bear in mind, this is Tom Lyden; he’s never been mistaken for a conservative tool.  Or a conservative anything.   Quite the opposite.

Conrad Zbikowski looks like he’ll have a big future as a Chicago ward heeler.   Or a Mafia soldier.

Remember, Corey – if everyone’s a misogynistic racist, then nobody is.

Last week’s big Minnesota political news was the Ilhan Omar defeating 2343-term representative Phyllis Kahn in the DFL primary (the election that actually matters in that benighted part of Minneapolis, unfortunately).  The Minneapolis media turned cartwheels over The First Somali Woman nominee.

Scott Johnson found a story behind the story at Powerline:

A reader has written us to point out that the Somali website Somalispot[since deleted, but visible on Googlecache] posted information last week suggesting Omar’s involvement in marriage and immigration fraud. The post notes that Omar married Ahmed Hirsi in 2002. Hirsi is the father of Omar’s three children. Omar is depicted with Hirsi and their children on Omar’s campaign website here.

The post further notes that Omar married her brother Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in 2009, implying that the latter marriage assisted his entry into the United States. Her brother was a British citizen. “As soon as Ilhan Omar married him,” the post continues, “he started university at her [a]lma mater North Dakota State University where he graduated in 2012. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Minneapolis where he was living in a public housing complex and was later evicted. He then returned to the United Kingdom where he now lives.”

Let me note here that Omar’s marriage to her brother, if it occurred in fact, is illegal under Minnesota law. I believe it would be void ab initio, as though it never occurred. If it occurred, I infer that it must have taken place for dishonest purposes.

Seems like mindless gossip?  Perhaps even unfounded?

Well, maybe – but wait’ll you read the response from Noor’s spokesdroid.

If only we had some institution – perhaps with printing presses and transmitters, staffed with people who see themselves as high priests of information – that weren’t terrified of never getting to do lunch at the Saint Paul Grill to look into these sorts fo things

Earlier this week: Donald Trump urges Second Amendment supporters to stand up for their rights to the political process. Mainstream media and the left (pardon the redundancy) craps a kitten at the “call for violence” which was not.
Democrat

Earlier this week: Donald Trump urges Second Amendment supporters to stand up for their rights to the political process. Mainstream media and the left (pardon the redundancy) craps a kitten at the “call for violence” which was not.

Democrat strategist calls for assassination of whistleblower. 

Wait – do you think there’s a conclusion to this?

I’m not much of a conspiracy-theory-monger.   The most direct answer to most things is the right answer.  Generally.

So I’ve always been inclined to take most stories about the Clinton Famiglia with a block of salt.   For example, when Vince Foster committed suicide with eight shots to the back of his head, I dismissed talk of “murder”. ¹  What’s the point?

But when Julian Assange – the official counter-official-culture hero of the left and libertarian right – suggests that the DNC knows something about the murder of Seth Rich, whom he claims was his informant on the DNC email hacking case?  Well…:

Julian Assange seems to suggests on Dutch television program Nieuwsuur that Seth Rich was the source for the Wikileaks-exposed DNC emails and was murdered.

Tangential takeaway:  wouldn’t it be cool if American reporters asked questions of both parties like the Dutch anchor does.

Upshot:  Assange won’t be doing lunch in Georgetown any time soon.

(more…)

…and while 30-40% of the votes are in around the state, zero percent are reporting in Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

That’s because, with the DFL machine fighting with progressive insurgents in the Kahn, Champion, Moran and other races, neither side wants to be the first to dump their fraudulent, bogus votes out there first and give the opponent a chance to top them.

It’s the Twin Cities way.

UPDATE:  Phyllis Kahn and Joe Mullery are out.  Minneapolis has now transitioned from Peronist to full-on Maoist.

My district – House 65A – features a primary between two DFLers; incumbent Rena Moran and challenger Rashad Turner, who’s earned a reputation this past year as one of Black Lives Matter’s more militant organizers.  (And for those who want to get out of the fever swamp, it also features endorsed GOP candidate Monique Giordana!)

Over the weekend, this flyer started turning up on Saint Paul social media:

First things first: I’m not positive it’s legit.  On the one hand, something smells funny about the flyer.

On the other hand, it is totally in character for the Saint Paul DFL, funny aroma and all.

SCENE:  A conference room at the FBI in Quantico, Virginia.   Special Agent Charles SIEGELMEYER, in charge of the Russian Online Political Espionage (ROPE) desk, sits at the head of the table.

In the room are Jared SCHLAUTERMEYER, a cybersecurity analyst with the ROPE desk, Juliana SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO, a senior Russian policy analyst, and Oscar VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ, from the Central Intelligence Agency.    SIEGELMEYER convenes the meeting.

SIEGELMEYER: OK.  Welcome to the task force on Russian political cyberespionage.   Juliana, do we have an update on the Clinton case?

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO:  Nothing, really.  Nobody, either at State or at FBI can tell what Putin would stand to gain by punking Clinton.

SIEGELMEYER:  Devil’s advocate here – less defense of the Baltic States?

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO:   At the risk of getting all of Europe to start rebuilding its military?

SIEGELMEYER:  I agree.  At worst, I think Putin is just imparting chaos, because…

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO:  …chaos increases your options.

SIEGELMEYER:  Jared?

SCHLAUTERMEYER:  Well, so far it’s just a story. Nothing hard to pin it on.

SIEGELMEYER:  Huh.  So it sounds like this investigation…

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO: …is at a standstill?

(SIEGELMEYER, SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO and SCLAUTERMAYER nod glumly)

VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ:  Let me interrupt here…?

SIEGELMEYER:  I’m sorry – this is Oscar Villanueva-Lopez, from the CIA.  You’re from the…

VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ:  I’m from the Cuba desk.  And we’ve really got one theory here.

SIEGELMEYER: Shoot.

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO:  Let’s hear it.

SCHLAUTERMEYER:  Anything’s better than nothing.

VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ:  So the question is “who is running a cybermole operation in the US, we’ve had one big clue to work with.  In Cuba, the people at the top of the food chain are given to giving these loooooong speeches – four, five, even six or seven hours.  They just go on and on.  And sometimes it’s just babble; they’re not a whole lot more “accurate” than Kim Jong Un, plus they’re all full of that Latino sense of drama.  It literally is about hearing their gums flap.

SIEGELMEYER:  Interesting.

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO:  Huh

SCHLAUTERMEYER:  Fascinating.

VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ:  Now, at the CIA, one of our analytical tools is “Berg’s Law“, specifically Berg’s Seventh Law…

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO:   …Oh, yeah!  “When a Liberal issues a group defamation or assault on conservatives’ ethics, character, humanity or respect for liberty or the truth, they are at best projecting, and at worst drawing attention away from their own misdeeds.”

VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ:  Wow – you use Berg’s Seventh here at FBI, too?

SIEGELMEYER:  Absolutely.

(SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO and SCHLAUTERMEYER nod in enthusiastic agreement)

VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ:  Excellent.  So the DNC has accused the GOP of colluding with a foreign power, that means…

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO:  Someone at the DNC is colluding with a foreign power.

SCHLAUTERMEYER:  Damn.

VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ:  And the Russians are know to work through proxies.  What you need to do is find a long-winded liberal commentator who makes endless proclamations, puffed up with lots of drama and strurm und drang, but all talk.  Not just any long-winded BSers – the longest-winded, most BS-addled ones!

SIEGELMEYER:   And they’ll be a Cuban mole?

VILLANUEVA-LOPEZ:  Yep.

(SIEGELMEYER, SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO and SCHLAUTERMEYER nod in agreement).

SCHMIDT-BULAWAYO:  So we just need to find an American liberal commentator that goes on and on and on and on, and never really says anything of value?

SCHLAUTERMEYER:  Hmmm.

SIEGELMEYER:  We’ll obviously have to continue this discussion.  I’ll schedule a meeting on Monday.

Who.  Who, indeed.

And SCENE 

Among the glorious haul from the Wikileaks DNC Email Doc Dump; a DNC staffer accidentally slips up and tells the truth about the Democrats’ regard for their Hispanic voters:

Oh, my.

So abusing emails can take a powerful Democrat down!

Fran Wasserman-Drescher, the DNC chair and one of a menagerie of villains in plot to fix the Committee’s process in favor of Hillary (who, as the Greatest Canddiate in History, should not have needed any fixing), is going to preside over the pep rally convention, and then shuffle adenoidally into the sunset:

The resignation becomes effective at the end of the convention, which wraps up Thursday.

Wasserman-Schultz cited her desire to focus on boosting Hillary Clinton in Florida, where she is running for re-election, in a statement announcing her decision to step down just one day before the Democratic convention begins in Philadelphia.

“Going forward, the best way for me to accomplish those goals is to step down as party chair at the end of this convention,” she said. “As party chair, this week I will open and close the Convention and I will address our delegates about the stakes involved in this election not only for Democrats, but for all Americans.”

A hilarious and validating byproduct of the Wikileaks DNC scandal?   It’s a classic Berg’s Seventh Law issue; as much as the left claims that the RNC and Fox News are in bed with each other, it naturally follows that the DNC and MSNBC have, essentially, a client-vendor relationship.

Complete with golden parachute.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails

Democrats want to use the No Fly list to deny suspected terrorists the right to buy guns. If Hillary wins, considering the Clinton’s history of renting out the Lincoln bedroom in exchange for campaign contributions, I would anticipate them expanding the program and operating it like a Public Television fundraiser.

If you make no donation, your name stays on the list and you cannot exercise Constitutionally protected rights.

For $25, you will not be subject to a “random” tax audit. This doesn’t protect you from a justified audit based on red flags on your return, but it will avoid the “random” audit of political enemies that President Obama pioneered in his first term. 

For $50, you can take one round-trip flight.   Go ahead and book that vacation, you’ve got flight insurance.

For $100, you can vote in this year’s election. Special discounts are available for groups likely to vote Democrat: Blacks, welfare recipients, illegal immigrants.  And by “discount” of course, I mean a program like the Earned Income Credit where the government pays you.  But it’s per vote so in some cities, it could be a huge economic stimulus.

For $500, you can apply for a permit to be considered to purchase a single round of ammunition. Not guaranteed, it’s dependent on a background check and is discretionary with the local Democrat party chairman who will consider whether you are a person of “Good Moral Character” meaning “not a Republican.” But you can apply.

For a cool million, you can buy any firearm you want, even fully automatic, no background check, no waiting, conveniently delivered to your door by agents of the ATF themselves.  Because if you can afford to make that large a donation, by definition you are one of the Good People and not one of the Little People, so ordinary laws don’t apply to you.

The sad part is Republicans are poised to give it to them.

Joe Doakes

Sad, but true.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The IRS has released a list of nearly 500 conservative groups it targeted for extra scrutiny to delay their fundraising abilities and thereby allow Democrats to outraise, outspend and out-advertise their way to winning the election.

I’m so old that I can remember the President of the United States insisted there was not even a smidgen of corruption at the IRS.

 With this new information, I guess the President will be outraged to learn he was misled, heads will roll, people will be fired and prosecuted.  Hell, the President might even step down out of sheer embarrassment, knowing that his party intentionally violated the civil rights of millions of Americans for the benefit of Democrats in Congress. 

 Joe Doakes

Ya gotta have faith.

Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds wasn’t writing about the Twin Cities’ Met Council in his USA Today piece, “Why Politicians Love Cities”.   But in another sense, he was precisely writing about the Met Council.

Reynolds cites urban theorist and “New Urbanism” critic Joel Kotkin’s new book (we’ve met Kotkin on this blog before) in getting to three reasons why politicians – like the Met Council – loooove big cities;  snobbery, graft and politics.

I’ll commend Reynolds’ article to you for the first two.  As to the politics?

Cities tend to repel – and, ultimately, exclude – people who intend to raise children; it’s become something of a phenomenon.   What it’s not, it would seem, is accidental:

Politicians like to pursue policies that encourage their political enemies to leave, while encouraging those who remain to vote for them. (This is known as “the Curley effect” after James Michael Curley, a former mayor of Boston.)  People who have children, or plan to, tend to be more conservative, or at least more bourgeois, than those who do not. By encouraging high density and mass transit, urban politicians (who are almost always on the left) encourage people who might oppose them to “vote with their feet” and move to the suburbs.

This isn’t necessarily good for the cities they rule. Curley’s approach, which involved “wasteful redistribution to his poor Irish constituents and incendiary rhetoric to encourage richer citizens to emigrate from Boston,” as David Henderson wrote on theEconLog, shaped the electorate to his benefit. Result: “Boston as a consequence stagnated, but Curley kept winning elections.”

But that’s OK. Politicians don’t care about you. They care about power, in urban planning and in everything else.

Pushing people who tend more conservative out of the city/ies is just plain good politics for the DFL that the Met Council exists to serve.

Charles Rangel:

Some animals are just more equal than others.

…the problem isn’t terrorists, the violently insane, and criminals.

No – it’s you and me.

My mom worked at a nursing school. My niece is a NICU nurse.  I have quite a few nurses among my closest friends.  

So it’s hard not to say “I have all the sympathy in the world for the nurses that are striking at the various Alina hospitals”.

So I will let Larry from “Very Angry Bird” say it for me:

Normally, I am very sympathetic to anyone who is affected by the treachery and deceit of ObamaCare. The only ones who escape by shoulder to cry on are union types who supported ObamaCare when it was first being hatched. Since most unions are Democratic strongholds, the nurses union all supported ObamaCare. To put it in old west terms – they now know what it is like to be shot with their own gun.

nurses are wonderful people – but the nurses union is as hard left as the SEIU. The union jumped up and down and did cartwheels for Obama, and Obamacare, eight years ago.

Now, as the “Affordable Care Act” makes healthcare I’ll truly unaffordable for millions – exactly as predicted – the union is trying to insulate itself and its members from the policies that the union supported, worked for, and donated its members ‘money to.

Sorry, nurses. You lost me on this one.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

IT’S EXACTLY WHAT YOU THINK IT IS: How Clinton Donor Got on Sensitive Intelligence Board.

A prolific fundraiser for Democratic candidates and contributor to the Clinton Foundation, who later traveled with Bill Clinton on a trip to Africa, Rajiv K. Fernando’s only known qualification for a seat on the International Security Advisory Board (ISAB) was his technological know-how. The Chicago securities trader, who specialized in electronic investing, sat alongside an august collection of nuclear scientists, former cabinet secretaries and members of Congress to advise Hillary Clinton on the use of tactical nuclear weapons and on other crucial arms control issues.

“We had no idea who he was,” one board member told ABC News.

No biggie, just nuclear security issues, it’s not as if she put it on an unsecure email server that our enemies could hack.

I suspect her defense will be “Doesn’t matter, I didn’t listen to any of them, anyway.”

Joe Doakes

Seems to be working for her.

Detroit Free Press article calls for the murder of Republicans…

…for voting for school choice.

What was it that Gandhi said?  First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they attack you.  Then you win.

Or, in the case of Detroit, “win”.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

On the one hand, the Americans with Disabilities Act was more than a kind-hearted gesture, it was an acknowledgement that America is rich enough to be able to afford to make its public spaces accessible to everyone, including the handicapped. If the law says you have to make accommodations, then by God you have to make them; and if it takes a lawsuit to force you to comply, then you’re jerk and we don’t feel sorry for you. .

Except when the bureaucrats and building inspectors and disability lawyers get ahold of the kind-hearted gesture and turn it into a nit-picking, mountain-out-of-a-molehill tangle of impossible and conflicting regulations, compliance is not simple. The comments show how clueless the public is about the law. “It only requires that the business make the stuff from the second floor available by catalogue, or the disabled person can be met off site, and old buildings are exempted, grandfathered in.” They may be exempt until some minor change is made, then suddenly the entire place needs a major overhaul. Meet a client offsite? Portable temporary ramps? Not likely. The coffee shop with the temporary ramp will be sued because the wheelchair bound person can’t get inside to tell the store they need the ramp.
Now we’ve decided it’s time to rein in the lawsuits and make it tougher for people to force businesses to comply with the kind-hearted law.
The whole problem is another example of Liberals at play. It would feel good to do something nice for those sad victims and it doesn’t cost us anything because we’ll make somebody else pay for it, so pass the law to signal everyone how virtuous we are for Doing Good. But when people we know have to start paying real money to comply, well, that’s not so much fun anymore. Blame the nasty lawyer for bringing all the lawsuits. Make him stop forcing us to comply with our feel-good law.
It’s not so much the hypocrisy that annoys me: it’s the notion that virtue is good if it’s free; but if we have to pay for it ourselves, then it’s too much bother.
Joe Doakes

Want to start a fire?  Ask a flaming committed “progressive” what they think about private charity.  Hold kindling to their ears.