Nobody seems to know exactly how much money the Somalians stole, but Bill Glahn at Powerline blog posted this:
That’s a lot of Simoleons. Can we get it back? And send them back, while we’re at it?
Joe Doakes
a) no, and b) in most case no, they’re citizens and/or born here.
Governor Walz’s strategy seems to be to try to blame the whole thing on Trump. I’m just curious to see if Minnesota voters are gullible and stupid enough to fall for it.
And congratulations to Ken Martin on his election as head of the Democrat National Committee.
Democrats – you’ve made a great choice.
Provided, of course, that the national media is as compliant, even sycophantic, as the MInnesota media (although I fully expect to start seeing “Another Look at Tim Walz” pieces in the WaPo any day now).
And provided, of course, you have an efficient-enough machine for laundering billionaire and public employee money into your campaigns (although Martin excels at that).
Good news for Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi, though – he’s the kind of leader they need, if you catch my drift:
Martin has endorsed RIchard Carlbom to replace him. Carlbom was one of the architects of the Same Sex Marriage amendment – successful mainly by turning the debate from a moral and ethical one to an emotional one. But he’s not always been successful.
Among the vice chairs is David Hogg. Who isgoing to get right on the business of tackling the cultural and moral malaise that has brought so many young people to Trump:
what kind of sad and pathetic childhood must one have had to think like this? pic.twitter.com/v4qNjFRKoF
Governor Klink, Melissa Hortman and the Urban DFL clacque squandered a $19 billion surplus paying off the DFL’s special interests, and all we got was a broken dam.
Unexpectedly? No. Not a bit. The century-old Rapidan Dam on the Blue Earth River – a tributary to the Minnesota, and eventually the Mississippi – has been a problem for a long time.
In 2021, a study was conducted that identified two feasible solutions for the dam’s state of disrepair: repair or remove the dam. Both options have significant costs, and each has its opportunities, trade-offs, and timeframes. The purpose of the Future of Rapidan Dam project is to identify the community’s needs and concerns and use their input on the options to help the County make the best decision for all impacted by the Dam’s future.
You can’t buy any urban non-profit allegiances with a dam. You sure can’t carry a dam in a suitcase to Kenya.
It’s bad.
If there’s a better way of depicting the results of the DFL’s priorities, I’m open to suggestions.
I was always afraid the activists had too much control, [the FOB’s spouse] was confident that the state wouldn’t do something this stupid. But, it is getting talked about in mainstream media now. It’s probably really going to happen, isn’t it?
The FOB is talking about the “Plan” being pushed by “advocates” to replace I94 between the downtowns with a “boulevard”.
Normally at this point, of course, I’d say it’s just another racket to transfer money from the taxpayers to the non-profit and consultant “advocate” class. They can write puff-piece reports and squalls of PR material on the indirect public dime, build entire careers out of yapping about vaporware projects.
But the people who love to play with the levers and buttons and knobs of government have gotten their hands on this, so I’d say the odds are pretty decent that a lot more money will be spent on this.
The obvious question is, what happens when an untstoppable money-squandering force (the drive to gut 94) meets the immovable money-squandering object (the drive to put a deck over the freeway to rebuild Rondo)?
Think back on all the financial corruption scandals in recent Minnesota history.
The non-profit scandals that edged a couple of Minneapolis DFLers out of office ten-ish years ago.
The DHS Daycare fraud case – involving hundreds of millions of dollars.
“Feeding our Future” – $250M at least, probably more like $500M.
What do they all have in common?
They all involve the cozy relationship between the DFL and the Nonprofit/Industrial Complex which, when manifested in policy, turns into the systematic transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the political class. It’s done over the table, via taxes, and under the table via graft paid to the Nonprofit/Industrial Complex.
And if the DFL accomplished anything in the State Legislature this past session, it was institutionalizing that stream at the state level.
Based on data gathered, [Minneapolis resident, attorney and plaintiff Zachary] Coppola alleges in the complaint that violence prevention contracts are “replete with apparent conflicts of interest.” In one case, Coppola found that the founder and sole employee of Cause and Effect, an organization that has received multiple violence prevention contract awards, is a city employee.
The complaint states that many of the violence prevention programs are also improperly using federal public funds. The complaint cites the example of One Family One Community, an organization that has received at least $175,000 in funds from the city. The organization operates a lobbyist association named the Community Housing Development Coalition, which lobbies the city on issues related to housing, public safety, transportation, and human services. In other words, the city is “paying a lobbyist to lobby the city,” the lawsuit says. Coppola states through the complaint that “not only is this a conflict of interest, but all federally funded violence prevention contracts expressly prohibit the use of funds for lobbying or political activities, so this use of federal funds is illegal,” he alleges.
Not mentioned in Coppola’s complaint, Crime Watch Minneapolis posted in September that Trahern Pollard, who is the founder of We Push for Peace, an organization that has received over $2 million in funds from the City of Minneapolis for “violence interrupter” activities, has formed a new LLC through which he is pursuing to acquire the embattled Merwin Liquors in north Minneapolis at the intersection of West Broadway and Lyndale avenues north. Pollard’s new venture, TXT LLC, seeks to acquire tobacco and liquor licenses to continue sales operations at Merwin Liquors, a move Crime Watch and others have implied is a clear conflict of interest to his city-funded violence interrupter activities as well as a possible indicator that money being doled out under the city’s Neighborhood Safety program isn’t being properly tracked or measured for accountability or measures of success.
I used to joke about Saint Paul being “Chicago on the Mississippi”, while Minneapolis was “Berkeley on the Prairie”.
I’m starting to think “A Cold New Jersey” is better.
