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

No Kings Protester (“NKP”): No kings!

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

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

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

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

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

NKP: I don’t know anything about that. 

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

NKP: Don’t know, don’t care. 

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

NKP: Not sure how that’s relevant. 

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

NKP: I don’t know about any of them. 

Me: And billionaries, too?

NKP: Yep!

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

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

Me: You certainly COULD if you wanted…

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

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

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

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

NKP: <blinks>

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

NKP: JANUARY 6! 

Me: How so?

NKP: FASCIST! FASCIST!

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

(But NKP has left the conversation).

Al

Joe Doakes, once of Como Park, emails:

A friend who owns a contracting business writes:

***

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

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

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

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

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

***

He has a point. 

Joe Doakes

 

One the one hand, he’s got a point. ‘

On the other?  

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

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

But somehow he’s still trying.   

The quote speaks for itself:

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

Fortunately, someone does:

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

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

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

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

In no particular order:

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

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

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

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

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

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

This next one is a little abstruse:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

Dumb thing for him to say. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joe Doakes

 

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

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

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

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

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

Is the ICE surge the ultimate psyop?

Joe Doakes, once of Como Park, emails:

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

***

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

***

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

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

Unless, of course, that IS the objective. 

Joe Doakes

 

It’s the objective. 

…or does this…

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

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

 

…sound kind of like an insurgency?

The governor sounds like he’s losing his mind.  

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

…until it does:

When reporting “news”:

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

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

To wit:

Bad “young Republicans. No cookie.

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

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

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

Joe Doakes, ex-Como Park, emails:

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

 

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

 

 Now let’s talk about the stolen election.

 

Joe Doakes

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

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

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

 

What should you do?

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

What should we do?  

 

Joe Doakes

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

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. 

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

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…

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. 

Have at it.

What could possibly go wrong?

…that the people who most need to read articles like this (I’m not going to pull-quote it; it deserves a quick read) will be the last to actually read it.

Of course, those who have been through the history of the various characters in this blog’s comment section know that while the tendency flowered under Trump, it didn’t start in 2015.

This sums up the moment we’re in as well as anything I’ve seen. 

Worth a watch.

After almost five years, the City of Minneapolis “plans” to “do” “something” with the former Speedway in “George Floyd Square”.

I’m adding emphaiss to the quote below for a reason:

The City of Minneapolis has received four applications to redevelop The People’s Way, which was formerly a Speedway gas station at the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue.

The gas station turned into a gathering place in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. For the past four years, the community has used the site for twice-daily meetings, annual events honoring George Floyd, gardening and other activities, according to the city’s Request for Qualifications presentation.

So who are these four groups?

City Councilmember Andrea Jenkins represents the area and she told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS not much is known about what the private groups would do with the property, but said it is a positive step toward progress and growth at George Floyd Square.

I’m gonna guess we know one thing about them: They’re dues-paying members of Minneapolis’s DFL/DSA non-profit/industrial complex.

And if you look at Rise & Remember, Minnesota Agape Movement, P3 Foundation and Urban League Twin Cities, you’ll realize not only that nobody ever went broke betting against the City of Minnepolis transferring money to its political class, but that whatever “happens” at George Floyd Square is going to be both exquisitely expensive and a magnet for blight.

Rise and Remember – run, among other people, by George Floyd’s aunt.

Minnesota Agape Movement – headquartered in George Floyd Square. Their “team” page is blank.

P3 Foundation – if I’ve got the right one, they appear to be national nonprofit that is into all sorts of things.

The Urban League needs no introduction.

Anyway – it’s going to wind up being a “community space” that turns into a graffity-coated monument to blight.  But the non-profits will get their payoff.  So tomayto/tomahto, I guess.

So – AlphaNews and Liz Collin released Minneapolis has Fallen a little over a year ago.

One of the signal scenes in the movie happened when Assistant Chief Blackwell testified that the “Maximal Restraint Technique” – which a series of current and former MPD officers testified was part of MPD traininig, and which Chauvin’s mother pointed out in her son’s MPD training manual – was not part of MPD training.

Blackwell is suing Collin and Alpha over this claim. 

To wit:

I’m more against police brutality than most conservatives – but to a non-lawyer, it seems like the evidence pointing toward a new trial is approaching critical mass.

1. Create a problem:

2. Keep on letting it stew. Let the “steam” build:

3. Go “I’m shocked, shocked that there’s a crime problem!

4. “Ride to the rescue” with a meaningless band-aid that doesn’t come close to addressing the cultural crisis you, yourselves, fomented:

Of course I’m not the first or only one to notice this:

Apparently “chaos” and “crime” aren’t polling well enough to overcome the loss of the ‘Trifecta’.

Am I the only one that heard about Taylor Lorenz’s “Joy” at the murder of Brian Thompson…

…and thought “that certainly puts a new spin on the Harris campaign’s theme?”

• Freedom is slavery?
• 2+2=5?
• Murder is joy?

One “joy” I try to deny myself is excessive schadenfreud. Pinky swear.

But I’ll confess, I feel quite a bit of it seeing Lorenz’s sociopathic level of self-unawareness splashed about the place:

Less schadenfreud, Mitch.  Less schadenfreud. 

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.