Flipped

Tulsi Gabbard is sick and tired of the Democrat party, and she’s not going to take it anymore:

Click on the tweet to read the entire thread over on the hellscape Musk might buyoughts

A few thoughts:

The Key Log: As Berg’s Seventh Law foretells, one of the reasons that Democrats like to harp on the “extremism” of the GOP is to deflect away from their own. One can hope the popular Senator from the very blue state might be the crack in the dam that brings out this century’s “Reagan Republicans”.

Speaking of Reagan: There’s at least some conventional wisdom that Gabbard has made this move to put her name in the VP stakes for 2024.

“She’s a LIBERAL”, some of my conservative friends say.

Let’s back up a moment.

One of Ronald Reagan’s great bits of genius was his ability to reach across the aisle to get people to pull together on the issues that mattered to his agenda. His agenda, by the way, was two items: right the economic ship, and destroy communism. He used his bully pulpit to push others to make headway on other issues – abortion, 2nd Amendment, the border – but he kept his own political powder dry to get the deals he needed made with Dems like Tip O’Neil on the 1982 Tax Cuts, and with the AFL-CIO’s Lane Kirkland on assisting the Eastern European labor movement against the USSR.

So – could a future Republican president focused on our society’s current enemies – the deep state, stagflation and China – benefit from reaching across the aisle to a center-left “libertarian” Democrat who shares those concerns (in as many words, in her statement above)?

It’s worth a look.

That Brave Stance Thing

Rep. Omar:

So, Rep. Omar – are you condemning the regime’s actions?

Because by your logic, the women of Iran are fighting against being forced to don the hijab

…which you call “Islamophobia” when Americans say it.

Just want to be clear, here.

Potemkin Reform

Yesterday, just in time for midterms, President Brandon “pardoned” all people in federal custody for marijuana possession charges, and urged states to do the same.

Mentioned in the closing seconds of NPR’s report on the subject: the number of people in Federal custody solely for marijuana possession is…

(checks his notes)

…zero.

Literally nobody will be affected by this bit of campaign fluffery.

But if campaigns are to be fluffed, Peggy Flanagan will be there:

It must be a month before a hotly-contested election: the Flanagan/Klink administration is making noises about legalizing weed.

The Show Suit

Keith Ellison, after three years and 9 months of glorifying, aiding and abetting crime and the collapse of the rule of law…

…is “tackling gun crime“.

The lawsuit, filed in Hennepin County District Court, alleges Fleet Farm sold at least 37 firearms to two straw purchasers over the course of 16 months, despite red flags that some buyers were trafficking the guns to criminals and those otherwise prohibited from legally purchasing guns themselves. 

But – is it really “tackling gun crime”.

Pay attention. It’s Keith Ellison. Of course it’s a cynical artifice.

The alleged straw buyers were already arrested, tried and sentenced…

…by the Feds. Not by Mike Freeman, John Choi or Keith Ellison, none of whom cares about straw buyers, since it’s not a “sexy” crime (until five weeks before the election, anyway); nobody ever got elected Senator for chasing down a gang-banger’s grandmother.

It’s their job – but none of them are doing it.

Rob Doar at the MN Gun Owners Caucus explains the stuff the media won’t re Ellison’s deeply cynical action. Read the whole thread:

This lawsuit is just for show – to deflect away from three years and nine months of sloth and indifference…

…no. That goes too easy on Ellison.

He’s trying to deflect way from almost four years of using crime as a campaign prop.

Cloud Control

Senator Amy Klobuchar thinks the stakes of this election are very, very high:

Sen. Amy Klobuchar was slammed Tuesday for appearing to suggest that voting for Democrats in the November midterm elections could help thwart hurricanes and the effects of climate change.

The evidence is all around us: Democrats not only think their voters are stupid, they are counting on it.

Keith Ellison’s Round Trip Journey

Keith Ellison – a year ago this week – op-edding to endorse the “Defund” Amendment in the MInneapolis city elections:

Keith Ellison today: “I’m so a law and order, I make Dirty Harry look like a soy-boi cuck; just ask Mike Freeman!.

No, really. Check out his latest TV ad:

It is is the most artlessly blatant campaign lie I’ve ever seen.

It opens with…

Mike Freeman (?!?!?) talking about the Ellison’s crime-fighting chops – which is a little like getting your coaching skills recommended by Les Steckel. The ad name-drops Freeman – without (if I recall the ad correctly) mentioning he’s the Hennepin County attorney who’s been letting robbers, carjackers and shooters go free, over and over.

The ad claims Ellison has “…never lost a criminal prosecution” – which is true, in the sense that I didn’t f**k up my bathroom plumbing when I replaced it – because I’m not a plumber, and I hired someone who was to do the job. Keith Ellison contracted the job to outside counsel…

…because his next statement, “he added criminal prosecutors”, is technically true and still a lie. The criminal division at the AGO was tiny, and is now a little less tiny. Which was why he had to farm out the Chauvin prosecution!

Ellison‘s ad is further proof that DFLers think they can count on their voters – or swing voters – being too gullible and uncritical to look past the lies.

Experience shows it’s not a bad strategery. Frankly, if he’s wrong I think it’d shock the world.

So let’s shock the world.

The Case Of The Three Command Sergeants Major

A third National Guard Command Sergeant Major – the top non-commissioned officer in a battalion of 500-800 soldiers, all of them very long-term soldiers/guardsmen with impeccable credentials – has come out against Tim Walz:

I need to find these sergeants and get them on the air, since I don’t suspect the Strib, the TV stations or MPR will.

Feeding Our Supporters

The “Feeding Our Future” (FOF) scandal just keeps getting better and better.

Let’s sum up where we are so far:

  1. 48 people were indicted on Thursday by the Feds.
  2. Governor Walz claimed that Ramsey County Judge John Guthman, had ordered the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) – on pain of a contempt charge and potential jail time – to resume payments to the non-profit, as a result of litigation between FOF and MDE.
  3. Guthman responded with a rare and complete rebuke of the Governor, saying that MDE and FOF had reached an agreement that FOF’s various deficiencies had been fixed, making the litigationi moot. That was one round of lies by Walz.

Then, yesterday, this came out; its an extended thread from Fox9 producer Seth Kaplan, and I urge you to read the whole thing:

Money shot:

There was never a mention by Judge Guthmann of criminal contempt and jail time being a possibility. It was always civil/financial contempt and penalties. There is a footnote on page 6 of the June 24, 2021 order reading: “The court’s order does not include a jail sanction so there is no need to address purge conditions.” It also reads “imposing financial and penal consequences for constructive civil contempt of court.”

So the fraud occurred on the administration’s watch – and when caught, Walz tried to throw a judge under the bus. The judge grabbed Governor Klink by the lapels and got his head wedged in there just a little further.

The media will memory hole this but good. But it’s got to be getting harder and harder to do.

Campaigning 102

Ryan Wilson – who’s running for State Auditor, and is leading incumbent DFLer Julie Blaha in the latest Trafalgar poll on Minnesota statewide races – did a whirlwind tour of Minnesota yesterday, as recounted in this twitter thread.

Read the thread, and notice what’s missing:

At no point in the tour did he drive of the road in a cloud of White Cloud cans, like incumbent DFLer Julie Blaha and her sidekick, Melisa Franzen-Lopez. There was no need for MNGOP chair Dave Hann need to pull up to the scene in a converted Scooby Doo “Mystery Machine” and rescue Wilson from the cops.

At no point did Wilson crash and roll his vehicle leaving a trail of beer cans and ammo, like Dave Hutchinson, the retiring DFL sheriff of Hennepin County and, possibly, the only sheriff in the state that would endorse Keith Ellison.

“No driving off the road in a cloud of empties” would seem to be a low bar…

…oops.. Wrong term. Sorry.

I should say – I assume that Wilson didn’t drive off the road leaving a trail of empty beer cans. If a Republican had done any such thing, we’d have heard about it in the media. endlessly, between now and November. Sort of like when Tom Emmer’s DUI at 20 got wall to wall media coverage, Tim Walz’s at age 31 was completely ignored – that’s how I know .

Anyway – the GOP: the candidates who don’t drive off the road.

The DFL’s No Good, Very Bad Day (Part III): Follow The Money

Perhaps the biggest story of all dropped last. US Attorney Andy Lugar released indictments against 47 (and later, 48) suspects in the Feeding Our Future scandal – the scam funneling $250 million in federal COVID relief into, it’s alleged, the pockets of a series of local non-profits.

he 48th indictment was allegedly a woman who was just about to head to Ethiopia on a one-way ticket – one who’d had the distinction of being the only one of the indicted who’d actually fed anyone.

The indicted include major donors to DFL candidates up through Ilhan Omar – and some key staffers for (as far as we know so far) Jacob Frey and others.

Beyond that?

This all took place on the watches of Keith Ellison and, especially, State Auditor Julie Blaha – who listed her main qualification for the job as “teaching kindergartners how to count”, four years ago. She may just be out of her depth.

Strong hunches bordering on fearless predications:

  • The Twin Cities media will try to move along to a new news cycle ASAP.
  • More DFL connections will become apparent, for those who are looking for them.

It was a very bad day for the DFL. I needed that.

The DFL’s No Good, Very Bad Day (Part II): Police On My Back

As the DFL’s day continued, the DFL’s push to wrap themselves in law and order took a solid hit when a couple of dozen county sheriffs endorsed Jim Schultz for Attorney General:

This has got to terrify the DFL. There may be more bodies buried at the AGO than even in Steve Simon’s State Department. Expect a tsuanmi of Sorosbucks to try to right the DFL’s ship in this race.

And that could get even worse for Ellison, given the next story that dropped yesterday…

The DFL’s No Good, Very Bad Day (Part I): Polled

It was a rough day for the DFL yesterday. One we’ll be talking about on Saturday at some length.

First: a Trafalgar poll showed the Governor’s race tied, and Jim Schultz and Ryan Wilson ahead in the Attorney General and Auditor’s races:

After the cold bucket of water from SUSA three weeks ago – showing the whole GOP ticket hopelessly out of the running – this poll is…bracing?

Governor:

And the news down-ticket is even better. Kim Crockett solidly in the running for Secretary of State:

Ryan Wilson has nosed ahead of Julie “White Claw” Blaha – of whom more below:

And nosing into “shock the world” territory, the poll shows Jim Schultz leading Keith Ellison:

I haven’t seen crosstabs – more on Trafalgar’s reliability below – but if those stack up, it’ll explain why the DFL and ABM’s TV ads are getting so shrill-sounding. With public opinion polling, the devil is always in the details; sampling, turnout models, methodology, all of them can distort numbers, and we really won’t know until election night for real, anyway.

But If these are close, I can’t wait to hear about Angie Craig’s internal polls .

If the chorus of calumny from DFLers about the Trafalgar poll (which Nate Silver rates as an “A” for methodology and accuracy) shows us one thing, it’s that Minnesota DFLers aren’t used to getting bad news. They do it with all the grace of toddlers who don’t get their ice cream cone.

Speaking of law and order, that brings us to the next story:

Chanting Points Memo: Giants In The Associates Washroom

DFLers are of the opinion that Keith Ellison is a legal giant compared to challenger Jiim Schultz.

Here’s an example from a repeat Point Chanter:

The truth is, Ellison was a very junior litigator for three whole years, before becoming a “community organizer”, non-profiteer and politician. Ellison was a very junior attorney, when he was an attorney at all. Schulz has vastly more experience – and when you’re talking becoming an attorney general as opposed to a courtroom practitioner, the type of law isn’t especially relevant.

And “he” didn’t prosecute Chauvin. Either, for the most part, did the Attorney General’s very thinly-staffed criminal division. The list of the prosecution team includes lots of free-lance Biglaw attorneys, lawyers from social justicelaw firms working “pro bono”, Henco prosecutors (apparently some of them do something other than write wrist-slapping pro forma plea agreements – who knew?) and pretty much everyone at the AGO who had ever closed a case against a traffic offender.

Schulz has actually practiced law his entire career, unlike life-long trough-diner Ellison.

Glad we could clear that up.

Don’t Forget

It’s about six weeks until the election. And with polls showing Governor Klink seven points up on Scott Jensen, it’s time to remind minnesotans, with their famously short attention span‘s, about what this last couple of years have been like.

The Twin Cities media desperately wants to memoryhole this episode:

Governor Klink created a three class society:

  • “Essential“ workers – people whose stores and businesses had to be kept open at all costs; grocery stores, gas stations, pretty much any big box store, and the worlds largest candy store, in Jordan, which just happens to be owned by a big DFL campaign donor.
  • “Nonessential“ workers – people who worked at frivolous hustles like oncology clinics, cardiologists, and all manner of surgeons.
  • “The Laptop Class“ – everyone who could work at home, including most government union employees. and pretty much any big box store

But then, his administration added injury to insult. while you couldn’t visit your family in hospitals or nursing homes, or whole funerals if they passed, somehow the Klink administration made a “scientific“ exception for demonstrations and riots – which, according to the “party of science“, were actually good for health, since science.

The Twin Cities media is going to go out of its way not to remind you of any of this, or of the prosecutions of business that, desperate to stay solvent, defied the ham fisted and unscientific emergency orders.

Don’t let this go down the memory hole.

The Shorter MNDFL

“ The rule of law has collapsed so badly in a city we used to proudly brag about “owning“ that crime flourishes openly and without fear in the streets“

“And if you don’t accept an invitation to come see this collapse face-to-face, it is you who is the problem!”

Polled

I’m going to guess some internal poles give representatives Angie Craig and Dean Phillips a bit of a wake up call.

2022: representatives Craig and Phillips have a bit of a change of heart, just in time for midterms:

I’m going to guess that all those soccer moms in Lakeville and Wayzata aren’t amused at the news of carjackings filtering out to the burbs.

The Media’s Loving Embrace

According to the Strib, there’s almost no difference between the two attorney general candidates!

I mean, an honest report would note that, for the incumbent Attorney General, this (if true, which you can never really assume with the incumbent attorney general) would be a 180° reversal of course

… but no worries. It’s not like people are concerned about law and order, this cycle…

Never Forget

Since it’s state fair time Dash the time when at least some people in Minnesota start paying attention to the upcoming elections – let’s make sure we remember: when minutes counted, Governor Klink took days to respond to the collapse of law and order in Minneapolis.

The media is going to focus on cheery stories about food on sticks, and a blijf The Administration in deflecting to happy talk about abortion.

To protect a progressive administration, the rioting is going to get memoryholed.

Let’s not let it get memory holed.

The New Democrat Strategery

2018: afraid that the hyper-progressive Erin Murphy/Erin Maye Quade ticket will lose the governor‘s office, the coterie of progressive plutocrats that bankroll the DFL prop up retrofitted “moderate“ Tim Walz as a sort of Danish-monarchy-style figurehead for the hyper-progressive troika of Peggy Flanagan, Ryan Winkler and Melissa Hortman (all of whom are essentially mouthpieces for Aleta Messinger And Michael Bloomberg). With the help of the invariably subservient Minnesota media, they retain the governors office.

2020: Fearing the electoral consequences of nominating socialist Bernie Sanders, progressive cabal appropriates elderly, addled Joe Biden as their “Moderate“mouthpiece and, in effect, Trojan horse. They win a bitter election, and go on to drop all “moderate“ pretenses even before the inauguration.

2024: I don’t want to keep seeing the same hands, here.

Wishful

“ DeSantis in fighter plane conjures images of Dukakis in tank

Just between you and me, I suspect that the only people for whom it “conjures” that image is Charlie Crist’s message team.

DeSantis was actually in the military; putting Dukakis in a tank was a little like putting Paul Lynde in a UFC ring. (UPDATE: Duke served in the Army, as a radio operator serving the UN Armistice Commission, back in the fifties. My bad. Albeit not as big a bad as the ).

As Long As We’re On The Subject

To: Governor Walz
From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant
Re: Priorities

Your Highness:

You wrote this on Twitter yesterday:

Let’s look at this past four years:

  • Crime wave, abetted by DFL policy
  • Riots, encouraged by your administratiion’s passive-aggressive bureaucratic gamesmanship with the National Guard
  • Collapse of respect for the rule of law, as a result of DFL policy
  • Educational outcomes for minorities, already terrible, collapsed
  • State divided between “essential” and “non-essential” workers – meaning dividing people
  • “Science” bastardized by your administration hiding the code for the “model” “predicting” tens of thousands of dead from Covid by July 2020, as a best case. That’s how how science is done,

To the extent Minnesota is doing well, it’s in spite of you.

Hope we’ve settled that.

That is all.

Vow Of Silence

To: Governor Walz
From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant
Re: Debates

Governor,

You pretty terrible performance in his debate with Scott Jensen at FarmFest last week.

Which is, I suspect, why you’ve backed out of the traditional debate at the State Fair:

Governor Walz: Don’t like the noise, heat and humidity?

After doing like 14 years at the State Fair, I totally get it.

So I’d like to formally invite you and Dr. Jensen – either or both of you, honestly – to join me either Sunday afternoon, or any Saturday between August 27 and election day.

Of course, we’ll be talking about your response to Covid and the riots, as well as you propensity for naming giveaways for self-glorification (“Walz Checks”) and claiming credit for tax cuts you opposed, and the like.

But it’ll be cool and quiet.

Have your people call my people.

That is all.

Berg’s 24th Law Is New Yet Omniscient

Last week, President Biden said this:

And the left social-media bashibazuks spent the rest of the week repeating it as if – aaaaalmost as if – driven by a coded algorithm.

Why, it’s aaaaaaalmost as if the Democrats know they can count on stupidity, incuriosity and inability to reason to bring out the vote for them.

Ray Of Hopelessness

I wouldn’t say there was much in the way of “surprises“ in the primaries last night. Mostly confirmation of existing hunches, and a brief stab of hope followed by waves and waves of confirmation that Minneapolis is not only screwed, but seems hell-bent on participating in its own screwing.

The marquee race, Don Samuels tackling Ilhan Omar, ended up a lot closer than I, or anyone, I suspect, figured it might.

That is painfully close. A few hundred people who kvetch about crime turning out? A few hundred Republicans crossing over? An errand thunderstorm? All could’ve affected the results enough to retire Omar.

I have to expect the results surprised congresswoman Omar as well; she ran almost no television, and a fairly languid campaign up until the frenzied (and occasionally tone deaf) tour with The Squad this past week. Primaries usually draw the party’s loyalists to the polls – the hard-core who also go to caucuses and the next layer outward. In Minneapolis. that generally means white, upper-middle-class progressives, and public union employees. I haven’t looked at the precinct results yet, but I have to suspect Samuels started getting people to the polls who normally wait ’til November, if at all, to vote.

Omar pulled it off by two points. If she doesn’t focus on crime, and Minneapolis continues to deteriorate, someone else – Samuels, or some new law and order DFLer – might have a shot.

Which is probably the closest thing we can find to a silver lining on the next two races.

In Hennepin County races, the top two finishers in the primary go onto the general election. and if the choices of the county voters gave themselves last night are any indication, there is going to be a big opportunity for a “law and order“ candidate in two years.

It’s hard to come up with an adjective phrase even softer than “soft on crime” to describe the choices that will move to the November ballot. Mary Moriarty and Martha Holton Dimick will be the “options“ this fall for Hennepin county attorney. Mori

And for sheriff, committed progressive Dawanna Witt will square off against Joseph “Who?” Banks. When Witt wins, she will make Dave Hutchinson look like Ted Nugent.

Last night – at least as re the CD5 DFL primary – was a little spasm of common sense and protest voting in the highest profile race in the city, the results are fairly clear; the people who come out of the primaries are fine with Minneapolis’s status quo.

On the other hand, the DFL finally cut itself loose from its biggest public relations boondoggle of 2020; John Thompson got pummeled, with a level of voting that suggests orders went out from party HQ:

And in house district 52 a – the area around my radio station – the reliably moderate, center left Sandy Mason got pummeled…

by…

Liz Reyer.

Liz who?

I don’t know who she is, but she pulled off the exceptionally difficult combination of “ELCA hair“ and pink. Not just literally, but figuratively and morally:

So Eagan has moved from center left to “Alandra Cano“ territory.

On the GOP side: Jim Schultz beat back a challenge from Doug Wardlow, to advance to run against Keith Ellison for Attorney General this fall.

Every time I see these, I have to ask – who are the 12 freaking percent of people who vote for Sharon Anderson?

I’ve got nothing against Wardlow; I’ve emceed or spoken at five of his fundraisers over the years. but I’m having a bigger and bigger problem with people defying the party endorsement. Especially after saying they would honor it.

Speaking of honoring endorsements: in the new 33B, endorsed candidate Mark Bischofsky prevailed over Tina Riehle, a candidate supported by most of the GOP brass (including Kurt Daudt and Karin Housley, who took a break from opining for the sanctity of the endorsement to float Riehle against the endorsed candidate, for reasons I am just not advanced enough an intelligence to figure out)

Here’s hoping the GOP can pull it together enough to get behind the primary winner, and flip that very winnable seat.