#Resist

In previous years, I’ve given way to gusts of logorrhea and come up with “100 Reasions…” to vote (for the most part) for the GOP slate.

I don’t need 100 this year.    If you’re a thinking person who cares about having a Representative Republic with checks and balances, you shouldn’t either.

The notion of Angie Craig, Tina Smith, Amy Klobuchar, Dean Phillips and Dan Feehan “representing” you in DC should terrify you, if you care about living in a representative republic that believes (as imperfectly as the GOP practices this belief) in rights and powers enumerated to the states and the people should terrify you.   They’re the party that is actively taking not only about eliminating the Electoral College, but in some circles applying the Popular Vote on a national level to the House of Representatives (because winning a share of the nation’s districts by 40 points and losing most of the nation by 11-3 points isn’t enough of a verdict for them).

And the Dems’ rhetoric this cycle has been the greatest, most systematic violation of Berg’s Seventh Law I hope ever to see; jabbering about white right wing conservative violence (that never happens) while studiously ignoring the steady drizzle of attacks by their people; yakking about “voter suppression” while benefitting from decades of gerrymandering (hello, CD4 and 5).

And they’re barely bothering with the pretense that “Gun Safety” and “Gun VIolence Prevention” isn’t about disarming the law-abiding anymore.

And if the though of Keith Ellison being the state’s chief law enforcement office doesn’t fill you with thoughts of heading for the woods and going off the grid, the notion of a Governor Walz driving the 2020 redistricting as the state loses a Rep and yet another DFL-leaning judicial committee gerrymanders the state to give Metrocrats yet another ten year stranglehold on your pocketbook should.

I’ve said it before; while I have voted for Democrats, even in the 35 years since I became a conservative, it needs to be said:  while Ronald Reagan would be a tad to the right of the mainstream national GOP today, a DFL party that rejected Lori Swanson would pelt John F. Kennedy with rocks and garbage – and Kennedy governed to the right of Erik Paulsen.

So I’ll be #resisting the Democrats, and the DFL, by voting a straight GOP ticket.  Not because I think the GOP has done the job I wanted them . (and voted for them) to do, but because the Democrats are actively working to destroy what this country is  supposed to  be about.

Paranoia Is Merely Perfect Awareness

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The King in the old joke says: “I know I’m paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?”  In this election, I don’t think Conservatives are paranoid enough.

We know from history that Liberals routinely cheat in elections.  Why shouldn’t they?  The integrity of the process is secondary to obtaining the correct result.  The ends justify the means.  And if they can’t win by cheating at the polls, Liberals litigate before Liberal judges to steal elections (looking at you, Al Franken).

Liberals cheated in 2016 to get Hillary the nomination, to spend other candidates’ money for her, and to spy on the Trump campaign.  They stuffed enough ballot boxes that some districts had more votes than voters.  But they were shocked to learn they hadn’t cheated enough.  Trump still won.

I doubt that will happen this time.  The polling places in Miami ran out of ballots on Monday.  I suspect those ballots are already marked, sitting in trunks of cars, waiting to be counted.

No need for you to stand in line, we’ve already cast your ballot, several times.  You can thank us later.

Satire?   Yes, but the line between satire and fact these days is almost nonexistant.

When “Babylon Bee” is a better source of news than CNN, you know we’ve got a problem.

Silent But Dea…Er, Unexpected

Is another stealth “red wave” about to break?

Well, being a fundamental pessimist, I’d say “probably not” –  but I’ve been wrong before, most noticeably two years about tomorrow.

But according to Rasmusson, there might just be something sneaking out of the fog.: I’m adding emphasis:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 60% of Likely Democratic Voters say they are more likely to let others know how they intend to vote this year compared to previous congressional elections. This compares to 49% of Republicans and 40% of voters not affiliated with either major political party. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

In August 2016, 52% of Democrats were more likely to let others know how they intended to vote in the upcoming presidential election, compared to 46% of Republicans and 34% of unaffiliated voters. Some analysts before and after Donald Trump’s upset victory suggested that most pollsters missed his hidden support among voters fearful of criticism who were unwilling to say where they stood.

I can’t tell you the number of people who voted for Truimp who’d have never admitted it in public, fearing ostracism and reprisals.

Happening again?

We’ll know tomorrow.

That Flop Sweat Smell

Keith Ellison is trying to paint Keith Ellison as…

…soft on guns?

We’ll come back to that.

Klieglightitis – When I was in high school, my dad – a speech teacher – used to run this exercise where he’s give out clippings from newspaper articles and magazines, and give us thirty seconds to come up with a short speech on the subject.

I got a TV Guide article about Forrest Tucker, TV star of the sixites and seventies (famous for the original Ghostbusters, which unknown to most was actually a Saturday morning kids show before it was a movie).

As I walked up to the front of the class, I had the name “Forrest Tucker” roiling through my head, reminding myself not to make the uttelry obvious error…

…that, iI”m sure you guessed, was the first thing out of my mouth.   I was so busy concentrating on not pronouncing “Forrest Tucker” as “F****er”, it was pretty much inevitable.

A Slip Of The Lip:  And so when I saw Doug Wardlow say in his last debate on 10/22 that he “supported universal background checks”, I attributed it to nerves on a TV set in the midst of a high-pressure debate.

To read Ellison and the Strib describe it, they apparently don’t.

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison hit his Republican opponent for attorney general, Doug Wardlow, on Wednesday for shifting his stance on background checks for gun sales, and Wardlow lobbed a new ad digging into Ellison’s past links to controversial figures.

Ahem.

There was no “past stance” on background checks.  There was a slip of the lip under pressure.

Of course, Keith Ellison is getting desperate:

Ellison pointed to Wardlow’s response during their Oct. 22 debate, where he said he would support criminal background checks on all gun sales.

Keith Ellison, holding conservatives to conservative stances on the Second Amendment, something Ellison wants to repeal?

We’ve slipped through the looking glass.

But look who pops up (emphasis added):

He later rejected that position when asked to clarify it by the Minnesota Gun Owner’s Caucus and during a conservative talk radio interview.

“Just to be clear, I absolutely do not support background checks for private sales,” Wardlow told Northern Alliance Radio’s Mitch Berg on Oct. 27. “I do not support a gun registry. I don’t actually support any new gun laws.”

I asked the question straight up.  He answered it straight up.   There was no reversal; merely a correction of a slip.

But in case that wasn’t clear enough: I’ve known Doug Wardlow a long time.  I did my first fundraiser for his first House race in 2010.    I did it again in 2012, and have done a few for his Attorney General campaign in the past year.

And if I had ever had the faintest whiff of a hint that Doug Wardlow – or any candidate – harbored “moderate” opinions on the Second Amendment and the law abiding American’s God-given right to defend their lives, property, community and freedom, I would never, ever do a fundraiser for them.

Ever!

I”m going to soooo enjoy watching Ellison flame out on Tuesday.

Poll-Proof

Jim Geraghty writes in NRO about how the blue Tsunami might in fact be a leaky diaper.

The whole piece is worth a read – but this bit in particular caught my attention, vis-a-vis polling and dire-sounding media coverage:

Folks on the right get used to hearing that they’re going to lose, how the Democrats have all the advantages, and they develop the ability to just keep plugging away in a tough environment. GOP grassroots activists are used to bad news, critical coverage, and ominous poll results. They’ve seen their candidates give amazing debate performances and then watch the coverage declare the Democrat the big winner. They’re used to having their attack ads denounced as vicious and unfair while the Democratic candidate’s ads are merely “hard-hitting” or “tough.” They’re used to seeing unflattering photos of candidates on the front page, comments taken out of context, fact-checkers that get the facts wrong, headlines that leave the wrong impression, and glowing editorial-page endorsements of the opposition. They’re used to having their yard signs stolen.

And they get up every morning and knock on doors and make the calls and participate in get-out-the-vote efforts anyway.

Of course, this rings true for Minnesota Republicans; if you didn’t get used to ignoring Dave Schultz and mocking the Minnesota Poll, you’d never get out of bed…

Dead Lock

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I now know as much as I need to know, to cast an informed vote in the governor’s race.

Joe doakes

The missive relates to this mailer:

Leaving aside the Orwellian use of “Health” to refer to dismembering fetuses, I just want to smack Democrats for making up “rights” as they go.

There is no “right” to health. There is a responsibility to take care of yourself.

No more!

Things I Never Thought I’d See

When I started going my show in 2004, I accepted a couple of things as truisms:

  • The Eighth Congressional District would be rock-solid Democrat territory forever.
  • Mike Hatch, Mike Hatch’s progeny, or Mike Hatch’s brain in a jar would hold the Attorney General’s office though my great-grandchildren’s time
  • Metro DFL voters would be arrogant, entitled, and generally awful.

The first really fell apart two years ago, with Trump capturing the district by two digits, and Pete Stauber looking to do the same.

And the second?   Look out, but there’s a hurricane coming:

Republican Doug Wardlow has pulled ahead of Democrat U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison in the race for Minnesota attorney general, a Star Tribune/MPR News Minnesota Poll found.

Wardlow now leads by 7 percentage points, at 43 percent to 36 percent for Ellison, just a month after the Democrat held a 5-point edge in a September Minnesota Poll. The switch follows a turbulent period for the Ellison campaign, as he has navigated the political fallout of his former girlfriend’s allegation that he abused her in 2016, a claim he denies.

About one in six poll participants said they had not made up their minds about who to support.

And this has got to be bad news for Ellison:

Republicans appear to be falling in line behind Wardlow, but an increasing number of Democrats were undecided about who to back compared to September.

When you’re losing the sales on your own side (assuming the poll is accurate, and I never have and never will, but let’s run with it for now), you’ve got issues.

By the way – the crosstabs:

The self-identified party affiliation of the respondents is 38 percent Democrats, 33 percent Republicans and 29 percent independents or other.

Seems…high to me.

But onward.

Oh, the third bullet?  Utterly unchanged.  What, you thought it might?

Image To Remembet

Tina Smith didn’t show up for her debate with Karin Housley on KSTP last night.

On the one hand, this is the time of the race went under dogs in challengers get that notion, all too often mistaken, that “this could actually happen!”. It’s a time in many races when hearts of plucky challengers start on the road to getting completely, utterly, totally crushed.

On the other hand – this is been an interesting week. The polls in the eighth congressional district jumped 15 points in favor of Pete Stauber as, I suspect, the likely voter model became clearer. The star Tribune “Minnesota Paul” show the governor’s race is very, very tight, and we’re hearing anecdotal reports that Collin Petersen and even Amy Klobuchar are having to actually work, this year.

That in mind – it’s common political wisdom that debates never benefit front runners – all you can do is screw up. At this point in the race, is Tina Smith playing the prevent defense, watching out for last minute flubs?

Fingers crossed, here.

No Joementum

The Joe Radinovich Campaign, stunned by polling that showed them slipping from a one point lead to being 15 point dogs, hit another bump on the campaign trail yesterday; J-Rad’s campaign manager has bailed:

Meredith Raimondi has confirmed with Alpha News that she is no longer with Radinovich’s campaign. Raimondi would not give any further details regarding her departure.

Raimondi’s exit is another setback amidst a difficult week for Radinovich’s campaign.

On Tuesday the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) cancelled $1.2 million in ads in the district, redirecting the funds to races that Democrats are more likely to win.

The sudden loss in funding comes after a new New York Times poll that shows Radinovich’s opponent, Republican Pete Stauber, up 15 percentage points.

The independent, non-partisan Cook Political Report also weighed in on Radinovich’s chances, downgrading the race from “Toss Up” to the “Lean Republican” on Tuesday.

If you’d told me when I started my blog in 2002, or my show in 2004, that I’d see CD8 looking at sustained GOP victories of any kind, much less two-digit ones, in my lifetime, I’d have said you should get that traumatic brain injury looked at.

And yet here we are.

Turnaround

The bad news: a little of the luster has faded from “Nate Silver predicts…”.

But just a little.

The better news:  the odds of the GOP increasing its majority next month are the same as the odds of losing control of the Senate.

As of Wednesday afternoon, elections forecaster Nate Silver’s site FiveThirtyEight gives Republicans a better chance of reaching 54 seats or more than he gives to Democrats for taking over the majority.

Specifically, as of this writing, the site’s “classic model” gives Republicans a 20.3 percent chance of reaching at least 54 seats, which compares with an 18.4 percent chance of Democrats taking over control of the Senate.

While holding the Senate was always likely, increasing the majority in a midterm – with an “unpopular” president, to boot – would be pretty unusual.  The fact that it’s crept into the conversation lately is not something I expected.

-1

North Dakota senator Heidi Heitkamp seems to be on the path to political palookaville even before this week; polls were showing her trailing republican Kevin Cramer by two digit margins.

A fiasco over the weekend would seem to have not only put the final nail in her political coffin, but if there is any justice in the world should be tied into the Democrats frothing hypocrisy on #MeToo.

The Senator and her campaign placed an ad in the Bismarck Tribune with “signatures” from 127 “sexual assault survivors“. It was in response to a statemenr by Cramer that indicated North Dakota women were too tough to get sexually harassed:

Sen Heitkamp was upset by this and apparently decided to capitalize on it by running a full-page ad in the Bismarck Times [it’s the Bismarck Tribune – Ed.] and several other papers on Sunday. The ad contains a statement about survivors of sexual abuse and is signed by 127 women who, in the context of the ad, are identifying themselves as survivors. But some of the women named in the ad came forward to say they never consented to have their names appear in it.

And some have since come forward to say that they weren’t survivors of any form of sexual abuse at all, and at least one said that she had only told a few people about her episode, and found the whole thing really, really scary.

(One must also wonder if the Democrat party doesn’t expect us to “believe survivors” by dint of the fact that the Democrat party puts them out there as “survivors”, facts be damned.)

In a just world, this will not only take down Heitkamp, but slop over onto Amy Klobuchar.

The Twin Cities Media Won’t Cover This…

…I don’t suspect – but I will:

The governor’s race is inside “Statistical Noise” levels.   Ditto Housley and Smith.   (Klobuchar is shown nine up over Newberger, which is closer than other polls as well).

Last week, an NBC/Marist poll claimed Walz and Smith were pulling away – this being the same poll that showed Tim Pawlenty and Lori Swanson winning the gubernatorial primaries in landslides.   Was that a media/Democrat attempt to “bandwagon” Republicans into staying home?

Maybe, maybe not.

But don’t get bandwagoned anyway.

Angie Craig: Miracle Worker!

Angie Craig would seem to have been the first person in the world to have discovered an “NRA sharpshooter” who keeps his finger on the trigger while racking a round.

He also points the gun at his hand during the course of the commercial.

If you’re a non-shooter: “Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot” and “don’t point your gun at something you’re not willing to destroy, right now” are two of the inviolable rules of gun safety.

“Sharpshooter”? Please. Any competent range safety officer would look at this and yell at him so hard it’d give him dermabrasion. This is Angie Craig’s tame Fudd shooter.

Anyone breaking those rules claiming to be a “sharpshooter” of any kind is a fraud and a liar. And so is any politician putting them out there.

If this guy is a credible voice for shooters, I’m a point guard on the Portland Trailblazers. And Angie Craig is, well, a businesswoman.

In fact, the guy in the ad is a known gun control activist – and if he was ever an NRA member, it was a long, long time ago. Judging by his grip, that was the last time he shot a firearm, too. The ad is playing to what we human rights activists call the “Fudds ” – hunters who figure, wrongly, that gun controllers will never come for their deer rifles and duck guns.

This ad – and Angie Craig – need to be mocked and taunted.

Pass the video around for suitable mocking and taunting.

UPDATE:  The guy is “Bob Mokos”, and we’ve sort of met.  I went to the “Protect” MN / Moms Want Action event  oin the . mean streets of Eagan a couple years ago.   I saw him give his speech.   And I was struck – then as now – by the fact that at no point in his story about his sister’s murder did he ever mention a perpetrator.

Not once.

Nothing.

Seemed odd to me.

The Bandwagon

NBC/Marist poll shows DFL Senate Candidates leading by biblical margins in the upcoming election.

The glum picture for the GOP comes as both parties point to the state’s four competitive House races as bellwether contests in the race for control of the lower chamber. The poll finds that 53 percent of likely voters prefer a Congress controlled by Democrats after the November midterm elections, while 41 percent prefer Republicans.

Unmentioned: this same showed Lori Swanson winning the DFL primary fairly easily, and Tim Pawlenty clobbering Jeff Johnson. They were off 28 points in that matchup.

But then the point of these October polls isn’t accuracy. It’s “bandwagoning“.

October – But No Surprise

From his initial eledtion in the Democrat wave of 2006, until the 2016 election was all over but the shouting, Tim Walz got, and earned, an “A” rating from the NRA, and good marks from state 2nd Amendment human rights groups as well.

You could see the change, though, as the 2016 campaign wound down; he started cuddling up to the gun grabbers.

Tim Walz, cuddling up to the Dreamsicles and Moms Want action in 2016.
Pass this photo around.

It made no sense – until you remember he was starting his gubernatorial run.

And for any DFLer, the road to the governor’s mansion starts with convincing the bat-splittle crazy Metro DFL that you hate guns worse than rape.

He tried to play both sides, of course; while he spooned with the gun grabbers, even picking lifetime F-rated Peg Flanagan – one of the most “progressive” reps in the House – for a running mate, he also claimed to the press that he, given his shooter bona fides, could serve to “bring both sides together”.

Which did not amuse the Real American movement.   I think we’d rather negotiate with Erin Maye Quade; she’s at least honest about wanting to destroy our ultimate guarantee of liberty.  Also she’s out of office.

But that’s not going to prevent the Media/DFL Complex from trying to flog the charade for the uninformed (aka “Most Democrat Voters”).

The PiPress got smokescreen duty, apparently, this week, and ran this puff piece about Walz:

Tim Walz, the Democrat with the “F” grade from the NRA, wants to ban bump stocks, expand background checks and give courts the authority to temporarily take away someone’s guns if the person is deemed a threat, as well as ban “military-style assault rifles” in Minnesota.

Jeff Johnson, the Republican with the NRA’s “A” grade and endorsement, wants none of that. He opposes any tightening of gun laws.

Election 2018Guess which of the two candidates for Minnesota governor owns more guns.

Walz. He owns three today. The Nebraska native and former Mankato High School teacher grew up with guns and was given his first at age 11.

Unmentioned:  in addition to “expanded background checks” (in reality, a gun registry) and taking guns with no due process on accusation and after ex parte hearings, he also supports an “Assault Weapons” ban.

The article is part of Walz’ effort to appeal to what Real Americans refer to as “Fudds” – people who are dovish on gun control, since nobody is talking about taking their hunting rifles or duck guns or whatever their hobby is.

Yet.

Walz is yet another “camel’s nose under the tent” DFLer – only worse, since he still tries to parlay his revoked NRA cred to appear “moderate”.

He’s the worst form of traitor.

 

Snatching Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory?

My usual disclaimer: I’m not a Trump fan, and have never been. The deficit and debt Numbers are intensely troubling, so it’s not like my dislike is completely unwarranted.

But you’ve got to hand it to Trump – he gets politics. Better, it seems, than most politicians. Certainly better than the press, or the late-night infotainment howler monkeys.

But the latest ABD/PP poll indicates his handling – and, perhaps, staging dash of the Brett Kavanaugh nomination might be one of the most brilliant political traps (whether that trap was sprung by the president or the opposition, I don’t know) of all time. I will add a bit of emphasis here and there:

The latest IBD/TIPP poll finds that President Donald Trump’s approval ratings made a strong rebound this month, with a four-point gain to 40%, reversing almost the entire loss he suffered the month before. His disapproval rating went from 56% last month to 54% now.

What’s more, the Democrats’ advantage on the generic ballot question plunged from 11 points last month to just 2 points this month.

A Bullish Wind

The President’s party always loses seats in the midterms.

Trump is a polarizing figure who will drive Democrat turnout like nothing since Obama’s first election.

The GOP is doomed, and Triump will be a lame duck starting in January.

We’ve all heard it.  Truth be told, while I think the GOP has a great chance to pick up congressional seats in Minnesota this fall, I  – as naturally pessimistic as any other Scandinavian-American and urban Conservative – have been mentally buckling myself in for a brutal, 2006-like night on election night.

Much as I was about this time two years ago.

We know how that went.

And while I don’t get sanguine over much of anything, Conrad Black says there’s room for hope in the wake of the Democrats’ Kavenaugh show trial and Trump’s canny, intensive campaigning:

Just as he calculated that by speaking for all those who despised the entire incumbent political system he could win the Republican nomination, and that he could win by designing a campaign to exploit the possibilities of gaining a majority in the Electoral College rather than the popular vote (as five of his predecessors did, by design or otherwise), he is now exploiting the fact that there is no leader of the opposition in the American system, and between presidential elections he has no rival. The likely outcome is the most favorable midterm result since Franklin D. Roosevelt won nine additional congressional districts and gained nine senators in 1934. Even now, though the bunk about impeachment has subsided, Trump’s enemies have little idea of how profoundly hated the OBushinton era, 1989 to 2017, had become, as a time of sleaze and incompetence and stagnation. Now, in what is practically a full-employment economy, wages for the least well-paid are rising. Amazon and other retailers grumble about $15 an hour for unskilled work, but it is the first time people in that economic bracket have had real increases of purchasing power and the lack of fear of joblessness in more than 20 years.

Time will tell — and not much time, as luck would have it.

The Record

Caron Monahan – the ex-girlfriend of anti-somatic DFL congressman Keith Ellison, who is running for state auditor this fall – reports that the big social media platforms appear to be engaging in shenanigans.

Since the big social media platform is our plan I’d like to make sure the actual record gets out:

Pass it along.

This Is Your DFL Candidate For Attorney General

As I discussed on the show on Saturday, I believe in innocence until proven guilt, even in cases of domestic abuse.   We don’t, as the hysterical left is wont to say, “Believe Accusers” because of some a priori  conflation of assumed victimhood and virtue.

We take accusers seriously.  And that means accusers of either gender.   Women are thumpers, too.   Take them seriously, and find out the truth.

So in the wake of the DFL Politburo Central Committee voting 82-18% to go ahead with endorsing Ellison, I won’t be joining the horde demanding he step down from the race over the domestic abuse allegations.  There’s juuuuuust enough missing from Karen Monahan’s story to make me want to get the actual facts – preferably, to see (or have lawyers and prosecutors see) Monahan’s elusive video.

Maybe it’ll be enough to convince voters that he’s not a great fit to be the state’s top law-enforcement officer.

And I don’t care.  Because for a rational person, there are plenty of other excellent reasons not to allow him within a mile of the Attorney General’s office.

Gonna Dust Some Cops Off

Ellison’s history of cuddling up to cop-killers – without a lot in the way of nuance or question – should give one pause:

In September 1992 Minneapolis police officer Jerry Haaf was murdered execution-style, shot in the back as he took a coffee break at a restaurant in south Minneapolis. Police later determined that Haaf’s murder was a gang hit performed by four members of the city’s Vice Lords gang.The leader of the Vice Lords was Sharif Willis, a convicted murderer who had been released from prison and who sought respectability as a responsible gang leader from gullible municipal authorities while operating a gang front called United for Peace.

The four Vice Lords members who murdered Haaf met and planned the murder at Willis’s house. Despite the fact that two witnesses implicated Willis in the planning he was never charged because law enforcement authorities said they lacked sufficient evidence to convict him.

At the time, Ellison was a Minneapolis attorney in private practice. And within a month of Haaf’s murder, Ellison appeared with Willis supporting the United for Peace gang front. In October 1992, Ellison helped organize a demonstration against Minneapolis police that included United for Peace. “The main point of our rally is to support United for Peace [in its fight against] the campaign of slander the police federation has been waging,” said Ellison.

Read the whole thing.  Goodness knows the local media won’t be running anything of the sort.

Ellison The Ideologue

Even before he became the Deputy Chair of the DNC and one of the de facto leaders of the most “progressive” wing of the Democrat conference in DC, Ellison was a noted extremist.

No – I mean extremist:

While speaking to an atheist group in 2007, Ellison compared the Sept. 11 attacks to the Reichstag fire. He stopped just short of accusing then-President George W. Bush of having a hand in the attacks. “It’s almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that,” Ellison said of the terrorist attacks. “After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it, and it put the leader [Hitler] of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted.”

Ellison went on to say he wouldn’t suggest the U.S. had a hand in the attacks because “you know, that’s how they put you in the nut-ball box — dismiss you,” before later walking back the comments.

About Those Jews

It was probably ten years ago, appearing on a podcast run by a local center-left pundit, that I got my only chance to actually talk with Ellison.

I got one question out:   “Do you renounce the Hamas charter?”

I was referring, of course, to the parts that call for the eradication of Israel, and the extinction of the Jewish people.

Ellison’s response:  “Do you know any Arabs?”

Not sure if he was expecting me to respond “Some of my best friends are Arabs” or what – but the rest of his answer was peevish deflective baked wind, intending to turn a simple question into an ad hominem against me – for trying to get a straight answer about a record that could be charitably called corrosively antisemitic.   And has been.

Domestic abuse is the least of the questions Ellison should be impelled to answer.

So will anyone in the Twin Cities media bother asking?

Off Script

Minnesota Democrats and the media that work for them will be and to some on natural angles to justify the behavior of Democrat politicians – especially virtue signal sponges like Keith “Thumper” Ellison.

But once in a while, you get surprised:

If the allegations are true, Keith Ellison has no right to serve as the state’s chief legal officer. And he had no right to run under false pretenses, as a man standing wrongly accused. Voters had only his word on that claim, and the investigation is ongoing.

In the meantime, Keith Ellison must withdraw from the race and not put Minnesotans through another cycle of political scandal. They’ve been through enough.

It’s very simple. We believe survivors.

Politics doesn’t matter. We believe survivors.

Keith Ellison says he wants to protect women from domestic violence and sexual assault. That starts by believing survivors.

As a matter of fact, I believe that people are innocent until proven guilty.

Given that representative Allison as often supported policy is (especially on domestic violence and gun control) that repudiate that idea, I don’t feel a lot of sympathy for him.

Monday Morning Cop

DFL-endrosed gubernatorial candidate Erin Murphy commented on the Thurman Blevins shooting on Facebook.

Other-peoples-money quote:

He ran, yes. He was armed, yes. He reportedly was drunk and had fired shots, yes. All of those things might have led to his death, but none of them had to. I don’t understand why calmly starting a conversation wasn’t an option or wouldn’t have been a better course.

There is something about the whole “Shots Fired” thing that tends to make cops a little edgy.  Also everyone else – provided they’re in the real world, and not on Facebook, opining for a tame, partisan crowd.

(And am I the only one thinking “so why isn’t ‘starting a calm conversation with gun owners, rather than advocating confiscations and wholesale crushing of civil liberties, not an option for you, Miss

Just a few days ago in South St. Paul a mentally ill man was reported to be threatening people at a group home. Officers arrived and engaged with the man. He too had a gun, he actually fired it at and shot the officers, injuring two of them. They subdued him not with a hail of bullets but with other tools, their words, their determination to find a better solution. Those officers— Todd Waters, Derek Kruse, Dennis Brom and Julie Bishop, are heroes who found humanity in what must have been the worst and scariest situation in their lives.

The message?   Cops should be willing to get shot first, then ask questions.

Is there a conversation to be had about use of police force?   About the limits or shape of qualified immunity?  Absolutely.

Is Erin Murphy the one to be lecturing the cops about it?

I don’t know much about Thurman Blevins. Had the officers approached the situation differently he might be in jail right now for firing his weapon into the sky and ground, or could be sitting on that curb with his family enjoying a morning off. I don’t know.

I’m no cop fanboy – but this may be the dumbest bunch of monday-morning quarterbacking I’ve ever seen.

You Never Count Your Money When You’re Sitting At The Table

Conservatives watched, amused, yesterday as the DFL played a long, comical game of musical chairs with their candidacies.

And it’s going to continue until the filing deadline of 5PM today.

Keith Ellison jumped into the race for Attorney General – evidence he wants to run for Governor someday.  In turn, Ilhan Omar filed to run for Ellison’s slot in Congress.  Phyllis Kahn promptly filed to run for that seat, which she had held for roughly 200 years.  But wait!   Deb Hillstrom jumped in to the AG race, and Mike Freeman was making noises about jumping in as well.

In the meantime, Lori Swanson, along with retiring (again) congressman Rick Nolan, filed for governor.

And the day ended with rumors of a Franken filing.  The questions – which race (Probably CD5, said the rumor mill) and which Franken (the rumors mentioned both Al and Franni).

GOP pundits greeted the news with a little glee:

And some of it is justifiable.  The DFL has given up all pretense, at least among itself, of being anything but a Metro party.

And the idea of a primary with Lori Swanson and Tim Walz squaring off against Erin Murphy, splitting the Greater Minnesota vote, was certainly tantalizing (especially given the prospect of the Dem vote fraud machine being turned against the DFL).

I’m urging a little restraint, here.

It’s pretty clear the DFL is sliding toward Metro-only status.  If they lose CD8 and possibly CD1 this  year (both are more possible than at any time in years), and with the knowledge that Colin Peterson’s potemkin seat in CD7 will never be replaced by a Democrat again when he retires), it’ll really be official, even if they someday flip CD3.

So the good news is, the DFL is becoming a Metro-only party.

The bad news is, they’re ‘the Metro party.

Hennepin County is a vote machine; a DFL super-de-duper majority that’s only getting worse.  And if – if – the MNGO manages to flip enough swing voters statewide to counter that crushing mass of government employees and government clients, the DFL can always create more; there are a zillion refugees in the world, and the DFL, working through its non-profit clients, can always import more just-add-water DFL voters.

And if that doesn’t work?  Minneapolis’ cemeteries are full of potential DFL voters.

Call me a cynic, but I don’t know if the DFL can screw up enough to lose this state, sometimes.