Hey, look! The guy who banned family Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings, limited the Cathedral of Saint Paul to ten worshippers (and Kissin’ Cousins’ Sports Bar in Newfolden to 50) and tried to get you fired for not getting vaccinated…:
…is suddenly a liberty hawk!
Star-Tribune, 2020: Crippling mass layoffs due to knee-jerk government response to Covid. Economy in the tank. Governor Klink sics his pet Soros Attorney General on dissenters, declares emergency power, sets up a snitch line.
Star Tribune: <Crickets>
Star Tribune, 2025: A pulse:
I keep saying “you don’t hate the media enough”. I’m trying to figure out a way to convey that idea without wearing it out.
Margaret Brennan has emerged in this past few months as the poster girl for all that is stupid and depraved about our “elites”.
But even I didn’t think she’d go here…:
Stupid reporter?
Or a natural progression of the whole “free speech is bad” thing that elites were pushing during a campaign where the Democrats were opposing it?
Why choose?
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Check out this thread at Thread Reader App,
Since Threadreader may or may not launch from the link depending on your browser, I’ve provided the entry point on Twitter. It’s a long thread. Read it.
“Draining” is too good for some parts of the swamp. They need to be hit with napalm.
Berg’s Seventh Law has been getting a workout this week.
For starters – as I pointed out all through the run-up to the election – the Democrats and DFL jabbered relentlessly about voting to “save democracy”, while promising to gut free speech, freedom of conscience, the right to self-defense, privacy and separation of powers.
And perhaps it’s good news for 2026 that they seem to have learned nothing:
In the meantime, notwithstanding the 16 years of babbling about “impending waves of right-wing violence”, it is inevitably the left that leans into it:
I’ve been a Trump skeptic all along. But if I’d known that Trump’s win eight years ago were going to bring out Big Left’s true inner nature this hard, I might have opened my mind up a little earlier.
SCENE: The rotunda at the Minnesota State Capitol. A press conference is underway. Standing at the podium, in front of a “Satanic” display, are three members of the Twin Cities Church of Satan:
A smattering of reporters are gathered.
POCKERT: I’m Edmund Pockert, the legal counsel for the Twin Cities Church of Satan.
GUMPKE AND BACHMANN-DUMPF: (awkwardly, loudly) Hail Satan!
POCKERT: Mr. J-Talon666 and Ms. QueenOfTheDark will now answer questions.
CHANNEL 11: Mr. and Ms. What?
POCKERT: Those are the names our representatives go by.
CHANNEL 9: So what’s going on with this display?
GUMPKE: This display is ack-shu-ally our way of striking a blow for religious pluralism.
BACHMANN-DUMPF: We love to notice the hypocrisy of Christians who melt down when other people exercise religious freedom.
MPR NEWS: When you say “melt down”…?
BACHMANN-DUMPF: Christians always have a cow and melt down when we assert our rights.
POCKERT: Always.
ALPHA NEWS: So, how do you respond to allegations that the “church of Satan” is less about religious freedom and more about getting a juvenile rise out of mainstream Christians.
BACHMANN-DUMPF: Well, it is their own fault. They always have a cow and melt down and freak out go into emotional tailspin and get loud and crazy and deranged and lose their shi…
GUMPKE: They are very predictable.
CENTER OF THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT: So a local blogger and talk host left this satirical response to your display:
(GUMPKE and BACHMANN-DUMPF stand, gobsmacked and confused, for a moment. )
GUMPKE: (finally breaking the silence) Well, this is typical. A Christian freaking out…
CHANNEL 4: This doesn’t appear to be – what was your term – “freaking out”.
ALPHA NEWS: Yeah, more like “satire” or “parody”, speaking to the notion that “Satanism” exist just to try to mock and ridicule regular Christians.
BACHMANN-DUMPF: Is this even legal? Can they do that?
POCKERT: (nods silently)
GUMPKE: It’s our view that this just contributes to the climate of hate against Satanists…
PIONEER PRESS: But it’s just mockery – not a whole lot different than this display, itself
POCKERT: OK, this converence is over.
(The three shuffle away from the podium).
And SCENE
On the one hand, it’s amusing to see that suddenly “cultural appropriation” – in this case, a bunch of rhythmically-challenged Argentine leftist “Karens”
But I think this is a good thing.
Hear me out.
Until the mid 1940s, Argentina was a wealthy first-world country, with a per capita GDP competitive with the US.
Then, the “Argentine leftists” sold Argentine voters on “Rizz” and “Brat Vibes” with the Perons and a series of socialists, which gutted the economy and led to a series of coups and counter-coups, which also gutted the economy, which led to a war to restore pride that led to humiliating defeat that further gutted not only the economy but national pride, which led to further see-sawing back and forth, finally leading to a complete economic collapse 20 years ago, which has largely been met by further waves of center-to-far-left governments spending money they don’t have (or borrow from the IMF) to keep programs afloat at the expense of, well, everything.
So now the growups, led by Milei, are in charge, and they are showing the world the actual potential of the Argentine economy and people.
So perhaps after his past 70-80 years, it’s best that Argentine leftists stick with club-footed cultural appropriation and dancing with all the rhythmic authority of Swedish disco dancers. They cause less damage (artistic damage notwithstanding).
Joe Doakes, formerly of Como. Park, emails:
Visited a different church this weekend, and heard a new song. The musicians on stage played and sang. The congregation was instructed to shout, “That’s My King” when appropriate. Like all modern churches, they have giant tv screens hanging above the stage showing the words. I’ll skip to the part of the song that I found interesting:
That’s my God
That’s my shepherd
My protector
That’s my kingThat’s my rock
That’s my anchor
My defender
That’s my kingMost Americans think of “king” as a picture on a playing card, not a part of the government. We mistakenly believe Our Precious Democracy is the ultimate form of government. I think that’s simplistic and dangerous. The Seventeenth Amendment, the effort to pack the Supreme Court, the demand to abolish the electoral college, these all move us away from checks-and-balances and toward absolute rule by whomever counts the ballots.
One need only look to the French Revolution to see why pure mob rule is a terrible idea. Elections aren’t everything – Hitler, Castro and Putin won their elections, too. Ben Franklin quipped: “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner.” Robert Heinlein wrote: “A king is the people’s only protection against tyranny . . . especially against the worst of all tyrants, themselves.”
Throughout history before the Constitution, the most common form of government was kingship, partly because Might Makes Right, but also partly because Stability Brings Order. The subjects owe allegiance to their king, sure, but as the song from church points out, kings have a responsibility to their subjects, to protect them from enemies foreign and domestic. When there’s a vacancy on the throne, there’s chaos in foreign relations and confusion in domestic politics. That’s one reason some Founders wanted George Washington to agree to be king. He was a natural leader and a gracious gentleman whom ordinary people could admire and respect.
Looking around at the chaos caused by the vacant Rose Garden Throne in America today, and considering the two contestants for the office, only one strikes me as the sort of leader who can inspire people to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and get busy restoring this nation to greatness. Only one of them is fit to be king.
Joe Doakes
Some historian – I forget who – described the British monarchy of myth, from its origins until probably the 1600s, as the old-world equivalent of Mafia factions duking it out for the position of Capo di Tutti Capi, only with no FBI to prevent slop-over to the wider society. It took over 400 years, from the Magna Carta to the bitter end of the English Civil War, to turn the British monarchy into the most relatively small-l liberal significant monarchy (shaddap about Denmark) in the modern world.
And the greatest glory of the American experiment was that we were able to not only short-circuit that 400 years of dynastic tree-pruning and blood-batheing, but do it via elections and an orderly process, and implement it in 15 short years and keep it running smoothly for almost 250.
Who’s the best choice to try to keep that record going?
I can’t disagree with Joe at this point .
More tomorrow.
Last week, I ruffled some of the usual feathers by posting a link to this video by Ryan McBeth.
McBeth is a former anti-tank grunt who now does open-source intelligence and systems work. His Youtube and Substack channels are interesting; he doesn’t get everything right (he is still claiming Mossad figured out how to remotely blow up lithium batteries, although his reasoning for getting to that conclusion isn’t wrong), and he certainly runs in official-ish circles, but he shows his math.
I pointed this out, not to “run cover” for officialdom (wtf?) but out of awareness that all “sides” of every issue on social media are farming engagements to draw clicks, eyeballs, and of course the mother of all motivations, “monetization”.
The real lesson? Waiting for government to help you out after an emergency is a sucker bet. Government may mean well but be incompetent; it may do its best but be overstretched; it might be actively undercutting you; it might be all three and then some. But one way or another, example after example in the real world shows us you, the regular schnook, are likely to have to see to your own well-being after a disaster.
Seeing to that well-being is either a waste of time, or absolutely vital – and you won’t know which until it’s too late.
This note comes from a friend of a friend:
“I’m in Asheville, NC right now and we were devastated by the hurricane. Day 5 of no power, water, internet, or even cell service. We are cut off from the world. Here’s what has mattered so far and what hasn’t in my particular situation:
Life saver #1 = Starlink internet. All our phones say SOS. Can’t text for help. Don’t know what’s going on. I plugged in my satellite internet and have been helping the whole neighborhood call loved ones. Everyone is offering me anything from their supplies because it’s so valuable.
Life saver #2 = Solar panels and 3000w battery pack. I can run satellite internet, electric kettle to purify water, charge headlamps, electronics, instant pot for cooking, ice maker for the cooler, everything I need. I’ll won’t run out of the sun like I would propane or gas if this extends a lot longer.
Life saver #3 = Gas cans and extra gas. These are sold out everywhere and are harder to get than gas itself. When power goes out so do gas station pumps. When you have portable gas you can run a generator, evacuate, drive to where the supplies are, check on family members, etc. People are stranded and sleeping at gas stations for days in their car waiting for power to come back on so they can get home.
Life saver #4 = Knowledge on how to survive without a huge stash. Some preppers spend too much on stocking up and not enough on education. None of us knew the hurricane was going to be this bad. Some people lost their entire house including supplies. Those who know multiple ways to collect water, purify it, start a fire, find food, are the ones still alive that haven’t been rescued yet. I could go for another month if I had to with nothing but my backpack and tools.
Life saver #5 = Hand sanitizer. Sanitation is rough here and the hospitals are out of power, food, and water. People are starting to smell and after you touch something you do not want to get sick and go to the hospital because it’s bad there too. The water you do find may not be safe for hand washing without purification. I wash my hands with soap and water and then do hand sanitizer after to stay healthy.
Other things I’ve relied on:
Cash. No power means no debit cards can be used
Disposable cutlery and plates
A 4×4 truck that can drive where others can’t or help tow people to safety
Solar/battery radio
Dogs for company and to alert if someone is outside
Hasn’t mattered as much as I thought:
#1 = Guns! I haven’t even thought about needing my gun and realized I put too much on this. Strangers have come together in our area and are taking care of each other like you wouldn’t believe. Each person has a surplus of something and is missing something else. We all share while still respecting boundaries and only sharing what we choose. Again, this can depend on the area but here if you are acting paranoid/standoffish of others and open carrying a gun, the nice innocent people are going to avoid you and you will be isolated without community or resources. I’m still glad to have a gun but I wish I spent more time on other skills too instead of putting so much emphasis on shooting. (And to anyone who says, “it only takes one time and you will be glad for your aim”, you’re missing the point I’m trying to make here.)
#2 = Food. This is easy to find for me but it may be due to the part of the country I’m in. I can also fish, forage, and don’t cook much because I don’t want to waste water on dishes. I had shelf stable food prepped and lll probably end up only using 25% of it in a month. As people’s freezers start to thaw we’ve had big cookouts so it doesn’t go to waste and I’ve been full most nights.
Again, this list could be based on location, type of natural disaster, weather, etc But it’s interesting to me because I’m actually living it instead of preparing and wanted to share.”
As the correspondent notes in the last graf, it “could” be based on location. And it most certainly is based on the relative health of the social fabric in the area.
People can vote for whoever they want to. It’s still a fairly free country.
But I have a fair number of people in my social circle – co-workers, high school classmates, former teachers and professors – who are declaiming that they’re voting for Harris and Walz “to save democracy”.
And I read that and try to grasp how much one must ignore – willfully or not – to believe that Harris and Walz support the American republican (small-r) system of popular, federalist government:
Against that:
What am I missing, here?
John Kerry – who came waaaay too close to becoming President, and that’s after acknowledging what a disappointment Dubya was in retrospect – accidentally told the left’s truth:
“our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it”
It’s disheartening how many Democrats consider that a bug rather than a feature.
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.
There are two kinds of people in the world: people who look at statements like this and think:
And, moreover
…either:
“WHAT? Government doesn’t have a plan for me? Ehrmuhgerd what will I do?“
Or
“Well, good. That’s why my ancestors came to America; so we could have our own plan and not worry about government’s “plan” for us.
Am I the only one that finds this more than a lot creepy?
Big Left’s greatest achievement may have been convincing a plurality of Americans tthat “freedom” means satiety and freedom from material want in exchange for, y’know, freedom.
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.
Once nice thing about being a conservative these days…
…is that all your “conspiracy theories” turn out to be true.
So, Governor and Veep Candidate Walz supports censorship of “misinformation” (which is defined by his sycophants in the media) and “hate speech”, which is defined by…him.
I’m gonna guess this gets called “hateful misinformation”.
One heartbeat away from the presidency, if America doesn’t wise up this fall.
Joe Doakes, no longer from Como Park emails:
In Murthy v. Missouri, the Biden administration was accused of unconstitutional infringement of free speech by pressuring social media to suppress stories unfavorable to the administration. A lower court found it was the most blatant act of censorship in American history.
The Supreme Court sidestepped the issue in cowardly fashion and reversed. The court did not say the government’s action was constitutional, it said citizens have no standing to challenge the unconstitutional action.
There’s no such thing as “standing” in the Constitution, it is strictly a made-up rule that courts use to get rid of nuisance cases they don’t want to hear. It’s a convenient way to avoid making hard decisions. Minnesota courts have used it to rule that ordinary citizens have no standing to challenge the governor’s Covid lock down order, even though it cost them their livelihood or landed them in jail. There is simply no legal remedy for those acts.
Imagine that Biden stays in the race so Democrats have to steal the election to keep the Bad Orange Man out of power. Imagine that the courts act for this instance as they did in 2020 denying that individual citizens have standing to challenge the result and refusing to hear the merits of the election fraud case. What’s the remedy?
If the court is correct citizens have no peaceful remedy within the constitutional system for unconstitutional government action, then the only remedy available is the one the founders exercised: insurrection leading to revolution.
Plenty of rope in the hinterlands and plenty of lamp poles in Washington. No wonder the elites are terrified.
Joe Doakes
One hopes they are.
Joe Doakes, no longer of Como Park, emails:
We all know how Minnesota Nice works. Someone invites you to dinner, she’s serving Italian Spaghetti. Everyone in Minnesota knows there’s an unspoken understanding that “Italian Spaghetti” is hamburger, onion, and Ragu from a jar ladled over Creamette spaghetti noodles sprinkled with Kraft Grated Parmesan from the green can. If you get there and the recipe is anything else, Minnesota Nice requires you to Try A Bite To Be Polite and when asked, say something bland like: “Oh, it certainly was Interesting. I’d never have thought of adding raisins, wherever did you get the idea?” Under no circumstances may you demand: “Why the hell are there raisins in it?” as that may offend the hostess which she will immediately tell everyone in town and you’ll never hear the end of it.
Ah, for the good old days when the only lie we had to acquiesce in, was that the meal was edible. Now we need to pretend to believe whatever mental illness anyone else at the party asserts. That guy claims he is a pregnant woman so he’s about to go on pregnancy leave from work. Isn’t that wonderful? “Well, it certainly is interesting. However did you discover your new gender identity?” That woman is so emotionally unstable that she needs to bring a comfort animal everywhere she goes and the airline won’t allow her alligator on the airplane, can you believe the outrage? “Well, that certainly is interesting. Wherever did you get one?”Which makes me wonder: what if we . . . didn’t? What if we didn’t pretend? What if we responded truthfully: “I don’t like raisins in my spaghetti sauce; in fact, I never heard of anybody who did,” and let the hostess be offended. What if we told the guy: “That’s silly, you’re a man, you can’t get pregnant and besides, Monty Python did it better in Life of Brian.” What if we told the airline woman: “If you’re so crazy you need an alligator to avoid hysterics, I don’t want you OR your alligator on my flight.”
Liberals claim to favor free speech but what they mean is you are free to agree with them. You can agree in word or song, music, poetry, or interpretive dance. But you can’t disagree because they hate that. They say: “Hate speech is not free speech,” but what they mean is: “Your opinion offends me.” Yeah, so? What if the First Amendment guarantees a Right to Offend? What if stix-and-stones is essential to the smooth functioning of an honest society and the Heckler’s Veto is the Devil’s Work tearing it down?
If you’ve got a problem with my opinions, well then, You’ve got a problem. I don’t have a problem. I’m comfortable with my opinions and I’m entitled to express them in law-abiding manner. You are not entitled to suppress them through unlawful behavior, not by yourself and not by proxy. Students on campus, take note.
It’s one thing if polite manners suggest we should not needlessly offend. It’s quite another to criminalize offensive speech, to doxx and de-platform and de-monetize it, and quite the worst thing when government is doing it to political opponents, by phony lawsuit or by pressuring social media. Making the most-easily-offended-person the focal point of an entire society is a recipe for societal collapse into anarchy. We’re well on our way.
Joe Doakes, no longer in Como Park
Its hard to see this as anything but The Swamp killing freedom with a thousand petty little passive-aggressive cuts.
Brazil is going through an exaggerated version of the US’s current gyrations; between a “right wing” leader who, the expert class told us, “is going to destroy democracy“, to a left-wing oligarch who is actually destroying democracy in the name of “saving democracy”.
In particular, they – and their American, Democrat party (and American big-media allies) are trying to crush free speech, to, er…
…uh…
…”save” it.
Michael Shellenberger is on the front lines. Expand the tweet to read the whole thing:
Berg’s Seventh Law in action; the party that is (or was) the first to bleat about McCarthyism, is the McCarthyist party:
“Mr. Shellenberger,” [Rep. Kamlager-Dove, D-CA] said to me yes or no? Is it true that you have repeatedly published false information that defamed public figures who are dedicated to combating disinformation?”…
Long story short:
Remember this when NPR yaps about their “disinformation” efforts.
I always liked the idea of Argentina’s libertarian-conservative President, Javier Milei.
But after seeing this interview, I am actively wondering a bunch of things:
Does the US need to bottom out, as Argentina’s been doing for most of my life – before being ready to, as he says, “put on our long pants?” and embrace the freedom that used to be this nation’s reason to exist?
And where can we get one of him to run for governor in 2026?
This got some headlines yesterday: a group of Somali Muslim families in Saint Louis Park pushed back against the school board, with the aid of a couple of conservative public interest law firms, and forced the district to allow their children to opt out of LGBTQ content in school.
I’ve added emphasis:
This change comes after two public interest law firms, True North Legal and First Liberty Institute, sent letters to the school district saying the district’s previous denials of opt-out requests violated the First Amendment and state law.
In 2023, six Muslim families requested that St. Louis Park public schools provide notice before LGBTQ-affirming books were discussed in class. These families, who emigrated from Somalia over the last two decades, also requested the ability to opt out their children from participating in the curriculum.
According to previous press statements from the two law firms, third- and fourth-grade children who were members of the six families were exposed to LBGTQ content in October 2023. These LGBTQ-centric readings were also allegedly accompanied with the teacher’s commentary on LGBTQ identity. This situation caused “significant confusion and distress” amongst the six families.
The school district was reportedly, uh, not cooperative. Contrary to some social media palaver, this affects parents of all faiths at SLPS.
The system, naturally, is not amused:
It’ll be interesting to watch the bureaucrats response.
OK, so something useful, non-toxic and non-authoritarian happened at Davos.
Javier Milei loads his carronades with rhetorical grapeshot and aims them at the decks:
We need one of him here.
I’m going to commend you to this particular episode of Ben Shapiro, from a couple weeks ago.
He’s talking about the Republican Candidate debates – comparing the debates Republicans deserve with the one the nation needs.
The one we deserve? Well, the donnybrook between DeSantis and Newsome was a great one. In another time and place, it might have been a classic, like Reagan/Mondale.
But it was just another chapter in this nation’s formerly biennial and now permanent ritual of the tribes ceremonially throwing rhetorical (for now) bricks at each other, immune to any reason the other side may be throwing back.
The debate we need, on the other hand?
It’s a bit of a cartoon – whenever you suggest that maybe it’s time to discuss, even think about, how this nation approaches the subject of perhaps having a “National Divorce”, leftists immediately chant “That was settled in 1865!”.
The only response to that that matters is “Well, no – it was settled in 1776”.
We’ll come back to them.
From the center right, the response is probably more rational, and definitely more frustrating: “we have to preserve the union”.
Why?
If the union’s moral and political compass decays to the point where “the union” has completely trampled on the Constitution, the RIghts of Man and the whole notion of Government being a free association of equals, what is the point?
Put another way – what is more important: The nation’s founding principles, or its political union.
I’ll take founding principles, and ditch the parts of the country that disagree, every time.
There are those on all sides who shy away from the topic, saying any national breakup will inevitably look more like Bosnia or Kosovo or Belfast than some Trulbert-like organic readjustment.
Again – why? If one had asked a typical political thinker in Europe in 1770 what would happen if a people threw off the monarchy and established a constitutional Republic, what do you suppose they’d have predicted?
Chaos. At best.
And given the moral and intellectual midgets who set the standards for our culture, the idea of the “peaceful divorce” just might be harder than it needs to be.
But as Dennis Prager correctly notes, America was less divided in 1861 than it is today. I believe a renewed commitment to federalism is the only hope to maintain a nation.
And a renewed commitment to federalism would require a huge bounce-back resurgence in Federalists in politics. We’re out there – but we’re nowhere near power, even in the GOP.
So our culture is rolling the dice. And the best way to assure that any future, uh, “civic readjustment” is absolutely a bloody debacle is to shame the conversation into the shadows, were only the crazies and the extremists will own, and consider, and be ready, for the split when and if it finally happens.
New York State christened the “least free” in the United States:
The report, conducted by the Cato Institute, showed that New York ranked last place among the 50 states for 2022 policies that impacted economic, social, and personal freedoms.
New York ranked 50th for economic freedom and scored at or near the bottom for debt and state and local taxation, government consumption, land use and labor policy.
“Heeeeeyyyyyy – the study is by the Cato Institute! They’re biased toward freedom!”
We live in a world where that can be seen as a pejorative.
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