After being called a “Nazi”, a “misogynist”, a “fascist” and a “Racist”, it’s hard not to indulge in a little schadenfreud. 

Maybe a lot.

And when God throws an opportunity like this in your way, who am I to argue?

A licenced “poiltical analyst”, last Tuesday before the results started rolling in:

I asked the universe – there has to be an “after” video.

And the universe answered:

In addition to misogyny and racism, she blamed “Republicans moving to urban areas” .

That’s right – she’s the only “expert” in the US who hasn’t heard of the “Great Sort”. 

Election Week Bonus:  Other progs predictions, saved for posterity (click for a very long thread):

Here’s your state rep, Luke Frederick, comparing people of faith to slave holders for dissenting from the left on trans ideology:

Please shock the world on election day, and send this hamster back to whatever coffee shop he was working at before he latched onto the DFL gravy train.

I don’t need a lot of reasons not to vote for Kamala Harris next week.  I’ve documented many of them.

She’s vapid.

World leaders – the ones that aren’t really just French or British or German version of her, anyway (including the Cartel leaders, who are the de facto leaders of Mexico and are world leaders in a sense in their own right) – have contempt for her, and are clearly drooling at the things they’ll be able to get away with if the American people screw this up.

The policies she does support are disasters, for the economy, liberty and the American republic.

She’s not a lot better at assembling a coherent thought than Biden, or go offscript without screwing up than Trump.

And that’s enough.

But it ain’t everything.

She’s got a pretty tenuous grasp of right and wrong.

The LIttle Girl Who Cried “Hitler”

Out of useful ideas, the Giggles/Piglet camaign is resorting to perhaps the Dems’ most loathsome trope:   their opponents are “Nazis” and “Fascists”. 

I stay pretty relentlessly civil – but there is nothing more loathsome, in part because it trivializes one of the most evil ideologies in history to try to win votes from stupid people. 

For which she should rot. 

Then there’s the little matter of her own little problem with authoritarianism.

“My Authoritaaaaaaaaah”

Giggles clearly enjoys the perks – the power – of being in office.

And flexing that power – especially against those who can’t defend themselves against her:

Not that I needed more reasons.  But those are more reasons.

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

We’re Number 1!

Viewed from the bottom up, that is.   Or you might say, “dead last.”  Potato, potahto.

It’s talking about fiscal policy and, well…

A newly released analysis of fiscal policy ranked all 50 states with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ state coming in first and Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in last.

The libertarian Cato Institute released the report, which graded states by spending, revenue and taxes. The top ten states in the rankings starting at the top are Iowa, Nebraska, West Virginia, Arkansas, South Dakota, Montana, Hawaii, Georgia, Idaho, and Vermont…

In 2019, Walz’s budget would have added ‘$2 billion more in new spending and taxes would increase by $1.3 billion to pay for it, with the rest of the money coming from an existing surplus.’ But he compromised with the legislature, and the final tax increase was about $330 million annually. Walz also pushed for higher gas taxes and higher vehicle fees to raise about $1 billion annually for transportation, but those increases were rejected.

Walz pushed for more tax hikes in 2021. He proposed adding a new individual income tax rate of 10.85 percent above the current top rate of 9.85 percent, a surtax on capital gains and dividends, and a hike to the corporate tax rate from 9.8 percent to 11.25 percent. The proposals—which would have raised about $1.6 billion annually—were rejected by the legislature…

Walz hit the middle class with HF 2887, which raised taxes and fees on vehicles and transportation. The increases included indexing the gas tax for inflation, increasing vehicle registration taxes, raising fees on deliveries, and raising sales taxes in the Twin Cities area.

 

 

No choking in the finals in this contest…

JD Vance’s visit to the Third Precinct brought out, if not the worst of the plagues facing today’s Minnesota, at least the most comical: the WUPH. 

The White Urban Progressive Homer.   Generally a 20-30-something male, employed in the non-profit, public or academic sector, part of the laptop class, single, socially mobile, mostly self-focused. 

And they seem to obsess relentlessly about the zipcode they live in – or at least parts of it:

Because to a WUPH, “business” means “something they pay money to that supports their lifestyle”: restaurants, bars, coffee shops, bookstores…

…which are, let’s be honest, things I also love about living in the city.  

But being a WUPH isn’t so much about the zip code you live in as it is about the zip codes you don’t live in:

Because behind every “All Are Welcome Here” sign is a person who really doesn’t like people who aren’t like them:

I mean, I get it – Minneapolis is a beautiful place…

…and has cool stuff to do if you have money and don’t mind (or mock any observation of) some of the risks of modern Minneapolis. I mean, I fell in love with the place once upon a time, enough to uproot my whole life and move there.

You know how they say the worst, most arrogant condescending New Yorkers are the ones that were born in Albany? 

A get a little of that vibe from the WUPH – people who seem to think a place’s natural beauty and social amenities impart worth on people who live there is…

Which, to my New York example, is about as parochial as the Lutheran church gossips in the basements of the churches in Woodbury and Forest lake that I suspect so many WUPHs originally come from in the first place. 

Martha Raddatz, on behalf of all media/Democrats (pardon the redundancy) re Venezuelan gangs: “Hey, it’s a big country. Let’s keep things in perspective!

Also Martha Raddatz, on behalf of all media/Democrats (pardon the redundancy) if five self-identified Boogaloo Boys are seen hiking in the woods somewhere in northwest Georgia: “Lets examine this wave of white supremacist terror threatening our social fabric”

Also also Martha Raddatz, on behalf of all media/Democrats (pardon the redundancy) if a group of Venezuelans, criminal or otherwise, moved into her neighborhood: “Hello, Servicemaster? I need an exterminator…”

…that if I voted Republican, then wannabe tyrants would have the President on speed-dial.

And they were right:

Some people are now calling you a “lame duck” president — but then it occurred to me today: You’re not done. You’ve still got 100 days left in office! And the Supreme Court has just granted you super powers — AND immunity! You don’t answer to anyone. For the first time in over 50 years, you don’t have to campaign for anything. You are the opposite of lame, Joe. And you are not a duck. You, sir, are the President of the United States of America, and for the next 100 days, you have tremendous power. The only people you have to answer to is us. The people who put you there. You have an extraordinary opportunity to make a whole bunch of things happen. Great things. Important things. With a simple stroke or two of your presidential pen, you can make life better for millions of people in ways you never would’ve dreamed possible. You will leave the White House a hero.

So I’ve put together a list — a Bucket List for Scranton Joe — of executive actions that you can legally take today or any day until January 20, 2025. 

 

It’s Michael Moore – Flint Michigan’s own wannabe Mussolini.

And in case you didn’t want to read the whole piece (it’s probably the right call, other than sociologically), here’s where he wants POTATUS to wave his magic wand and do, via executive order, before leaving office, Constitution be damned:

1. Declare the ERA the 28th Amendment.   I never knew the President could unilaterally do that…
2. Cancel all student loan debt, now. SCOTUS be damned.
3. Cancel all medical debt.  Hey, why not unilaterally repudiate all national debt?
4. Close Guantanamo Bay.  OK, that’s something he could legally do.  Not that it’s a good idea, but he could .
5. End the embargo on Cuba.  It’s “to free our souls”.   Because the UN General assembly demanded it – and who has a better hotline to “our souls” than the body where Sudan lectures the US on human rights?
6. Force a truce in Israel:  It’s only sporting to give Hamas time to re-arm, after all.
7. End the war in Ukraine.  Hey, there’s an idea.  As Moore says, Biden should “use” his “foreign policy knowledge and prowess“. Where was this advice three years ago?
8. Empty Federal Death Row. . Note:  Suddenly, Moore cares about what Popes say.
9. Free Leonard Peltier.  You’d think the Innocence Project would tackle that case.  And yet they have not. 
10. Pardon Edward Snowden.   Huh.  You mean, expose Obama-era misconduct?  Remember, fat boy – drapes don’t have shoes.
11. Pardon the self-rightous “nuns” who vandalized a Minuteman missile.  See #9, above.
12. Ban Spam texts.  Eureka!
13. Grant clemency to non-violent drug offenders.  Now he’s starting to sound like Trump.

Hey, at least it’s not another documentary.

Last week, I ruffled some of the usual feathers by posting a link to this video by Ryan McBeth.

McBeth is a former anti-tank grunt who now does open-source intelligence and systems work. His Youtube and Substack channels are interesting; he doesn’t get everything right (he is still claiming Mossad figured out how to remotely blow up lithium batteries, although his reasoning for getting to that conclusion isn’t wrong), and he certainly runs in official-ish circles, but he shows his math.

I pointed this out, not to “run cover” for officialdom (wtf?) but out of awareness that all “sides” of every issue on social media are farming engagements to draw clicks, eyeballs, and of course the mother of all motivations, “monetization”. 

The real lesson?  Waiting for government to help you out after an emergency is a sucker bet.  Government may mean well but be incompetent; it may do its best but be overstretched; it might be actively undercutting you; it might be all three and then some.  But one way or another, example after example in the real world shows us you, the regular schnook, are likely to have to see to your own well-being after a disaster.  

Seeing to that well-being is either a waste of time, or absolutely vital – and you won’t know which until it’s too late.

This note comes from a friend of a friend:

“I’m in Asheville, NC right now and we were devastated by the hurricane. Day 5 of no power, water, internet, or even cell service. We are cut off from the world. Here’s what has mattered so far and what hasn’t in my particular situation:

Life saver #1 = Starlink internet. All our phones say SOS. Can’t text for help. Don’t know what’s going on. I plugged in my satellite internet and have been helping the whole neighborhood call loved ones. Everyone is offering me anything from their supplies because it’s so valuable.

Life saver #2 = Solar panels and 3000w battery pack. I can run satellite internet, electric kettle to purify water, charge headlamps, electronics, instant pot for cooking, ice maker for the cooler, everything I need. I’ll won’t run out of the sun like I would propane or gas if this extends a lot longer.

Life saver #3 = Gas cans and extra gas. These are sold out everywhere and are harder to get than gas itself. When power goes out so do gas station pumps. When you have portable gas you can run a generator, evacuate, drive to where the supplies are, check on family members, etc. People are stranded and sleeping at gas stations for days in their car waiting for power to come back on so they can get home.

Life saver #4 = Knowledge on how to survive without a huge stash. Some preppers spend too much on stocking up and not enough on education. None of us knew the hurricane was going to be this bad. Some people lost their entire house including supplies. Those who know multiple ways to collect water, purify it, start a fire, find food, are the ones still alive that haven’t been rescued yet. I could go for another month if I had to with nothing but my backpack and tools.

Life saver #5 = Hand sanitizer. Sanitation is rough here and the hospitals are out of power, food, and water. People are starting to smell and after you touch something you do not want to get sick and go to the hospital because it’s bad there too. The water you do find may not be safe for hand washing without purification. I wash my hands with soap and water and then do hand sanitizer after to stay healthy.

Other things I’ve relied on:

Cash. No power means no debit cards can be used

Disposable cutlery and plates

A 4×4 truck that can drive where others can’t or help tow people to safety

Solar/battery radio

Dogs for company and to alert if someone is outside

Hasn’t mattered as much as I thought:

#1 = Guns! I haven’t even thought about needing my gun and realized I put too much on this. Strangers have come together in our area and are taking care of each other like you wouldn’t believe. Each person has a surplus of something and is missing something else. We all share while still respecting boundaries and only sharing what we choose. Again, this can depend on the area but here if you are acting paranoid/standoffish of others and open carrying a gun, the nice innocent people are going to avoid you and you will be isolated without community or resources. I’m still glad to have a gun but I wish I spent more time on other skills too instead of putting so much emphasis on shooting. (And to anyone who says, “it only takes one time and you will be glad for your aim”, you’re missing the point I’m trying to make here.)

#2 = Food. This is easy to find for me but it may be due to the part of the country I’m in. I can also fish, forage, and don’t cook much because I don’t want to waste water on dishes. I had shelf stable food prepped and lll probably end up only using 25% of it in a month. As people’s freezers start to thaw we’ve had big cookouts so it doesn’t go to waste and I’ve been full most nights.

Again, this list could be based on location, type of natural disaster, weather, etc But it’s interesting to me because I’m actually living it instead of preparing and wanted to share.”

 

As the correspondent notes in the last graf, it “could” be based on location.  And it most certainly is based on the relative health of the social fabric in the area. 

Berg’s Seventh Law has been getting quite a workout over the past nine years:

When a progressive issues a group defamation or assault on conservatives’ ethics, character, humanity or respect for liberty or the truth, they are at best projecting, and at worst drawing attention away from their own misdeeds.

When leftists warn of waves of “right wing violence”, you can bet that either:

• A wave of left-wing violence has just happened, or
• A wave of it is in the pipeline and expected soon.

John HInderaker has an example ripped from the headlines:

Here is another instance: a death threat against Judge Aileen Cannon, the Florida federal judge who correctly dismissed the classified documents case against President Trump. She has been the object of a campaign of vilification by Democrats:

Democrats and their media allies have been lambasting Cannon, a Trump appointee, since she was assigned to preside over the Biden-Harris Justice Department’s prosecution of Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, and they have been apoplectic since July, when Cannon dismissed the indictment.

This past Thursday, Eric James Rennert was arrested based on a six-count indictment charging him with threatening to assault, kidnap, and murder a federal judge and that judge’s family in Florida’s St. Lucie County. The indictment does not name the judge. Nevertheless, as the New York Post reports, Cannon is the only judge who sits in the Fort Pierce courthouse in St. Lucie County.

At the link, Andy McCarthy details the Democrats’ shameful smear campaign against Judge Cannon, which has culminated in this assassination threat.

 

If Trump wins – what are you predictions?

University of Kansas prof says that men who don’t vote for Harris/Klink should be…

Well, it’s all right here.  Go for it. 

Not that this is news, necessarily.

The University issued one of those “Oaaaaakaaaay, we’ll look into it, because hypothetically that’s not the kind of thing we approve of here, if it happened…” statements that says between the lines “our PR department is working overtime on this one…”

People can vote for whoever they want to.  It’s still a fairly free country. 

But I have a fair number of people in my social circle – co-workers, high school classmates, former teachers and professors – who are declaiming that they’re voting for Harris and Walz “to save democracy”.

And I read that and try to grasp how much one must ignore – willfully or not – to believe that Harris and Walz support the American republican (small-r) system of popular, federalist government:

• Supports (and gained power in part thru) big tech censoring dissent
• Actively suppressed dissent (Walz’s snitch lines and thoughtcrime database, as well as Harris’s coziness with Big Tech and Big Media with their record of censorship so bald-faced that even Mark Zuckerberg is feeling ashamed)
• Supports repealing the free market – the most human economic system for the most people in all of human history – via price controls and rent control
• Harris supports undercutting federalism and the separation of powers via:
  • proposing bringing the SCOTUS under control of the executive branch
  • further ratcheting up power to the administrative state
  • abolishing the Electoral College
  • abolishing the filibuster – one of the last ditch tools in thwarting the impune tyranny of the majority
  • further centralizing power in the Executive Branch
  • Indeed, *defying* the checks and balances of our system of enumerated powers (the Harris/Biden administrations’ unilateral “forgiveness” of student loans, and withholding of Congressionally-mandated support to Israel)?
• Supports abolishing private healthcare
• Openly seeks to disarm the law-abiding by executive decree (since they’ll never get it through Congress), and expressed contempt for the Fourth Amendment in pursuing that?
• Wants to ramp up the power of the administrative and regulatory state – with “stochastic” implications of violence.
• Actively working to make the border more or less irrelevant – and the nation’s shared ideals along with it.
• And let’s not forget the notion that if you dissent obstreporously enough, professional rioters may “spontaneously” and with no collusion from Big Left whatsoever, nosirreebob, arrive in your neighborhood?
• Subsuming American foreign policy to the power of alliances ?

Against that:

• Mean tweets
• A riot only rhetorically connected with Trump, which has been lavishly prosecuted. 

What am I missing, here?

In my interview with former Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka last Saturday, we talked about the depths of Governor Klink’s radicalism. 

With that in mind – with any luck, this should turn up in the Veep debate tonight:

In a very significant development — I am almost prepared to say the most significant development in the current presidential contest — it has recently been revealed that Brian D. Lozenski, an associate professor of urban and multicultural education at Macalester College and a leader in the development of Minnesota’s proposed ethnic studies curriculum, explicitly called for the “overthrow of the United States.” This goal has demonstrably shaped Minnesota’s ethnic studies standards, according to which students are taught as early as kindergarten that America is evil. The video recording of Lozenski was made two years ago but was taken down the day after it was spotted by Stanley Kurtz, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center…  

And for someone who’s made a bit of an art form out of concealing his radical nature under a couple of layers of Elmer Fudd-wear, it’s actually been kind of brazen of Walz.

But there’s not much point in trying to make Lozenski look like anything but a CRT Kommissar:

To make as explicit an assertion as did Lozenski is extremely rare; indeed, I have never seen or heard such an admission. The destructive intent of ethnic studies or CRT has been very apparent and much commented upon for many years by the conservative commentariat. But Lozenski’s open, cavalier articulation makes the destructive nature of ethnic studies virtually impossible to deny. 

So the debate should be interesting, for a change.

During Covid, I spent a lot of time driving between Minnesota and North Dakota.

And I listened to both governors’ press conferences, back when those were a daily or weekly thing – in one case, back to back, Walz and Burgum.  And the contrast could not have been more stark: listening to Walz felt like I was back in elementary school, with a history teacher who was really more of a football coach talking, slowly, like he thought you were as dumb as one of the jocks on his offensive line.  Burgum, on the other hand, sounded like he knew he was addressing not just adults, but people he had to treat with some basic adult respect.

And after seeing this…

…it’s all starting to make sense to me.

Side note:  a joint press conference with Kamala Harris and Gwen Walz would drive the suicide rate into double digits.

FIve’ll get you ten she’s a teacher

Someone’s gonna get discovered alone in an apartment full of cats after drinking too much boxed wine:

Freedom.

It’s such a big deal, our “elites” don’t think you can be trusted with it:

Keith Ellison thanks the authoritarian socialist government of Brazil for threatening to criminalize Twitter:

Kamala Harris thinks free speech is a privilege, and needs supervision.

Democrats are warning me democracy itself is at stake.

I guess they’re right.  

It’s high time we updated the “DFL Dictionary” – which, as you read it, is clearly a product of a more innocent time.

When I do, one phrase I’m going to add is the “Urban Life Theme Park”.

To wit:

Urban Life Theme Park: (noun) A neighborhood, populated mostly by white middle-class “white “progressives” with Urban Progressive Privilege, mostly from the “laptop class” (non-profit, governmental, academic or petty professional) and their “fur babies” (but, signally, not the people who work at their restaurants, bars, coffee shops brunch places, pet spas and doggie daycares). Technically in the city for purposes of urban virtue-signaling (especially trying to one-up people from suburbs or rural areas), but economically and socially insulated from all but the most banal urban issues.

Example: this guy:

I can smell a 2025 edition of the DFL Dictionary brewing.

So, the housing permit numbers for the Twin Cities are in. 

And if putting people in houses is  your goal, they are…uh, not good:

Saint Paul:

And Minneapolis:

Was it rent control? Bidenomics?

Why choose?

Look, it’s not like I need more reasons not to like Governor Walz. 

He’s fake.  He’s a product of the Democrat propaganda machine.  He’s a wannabe tyrant. 

But more personally?

Listen to this bit here:

I’ll cop to it – I spent a good chunk of my early years in the Twin Cities with a big chip on my shoulder; the city mice were often dicks to the country mice.  And though it’s been over thirty years, I’ve still got a short fuse on the subject. 

So I’m asking rather than declaring; is there a way to listen to that and not hear “you hicks gotta know your place?”

George W. Bush’s Air Guard record.

Mitt Romney’s tax returns.

The Russian Collusion hoax.

The “Perfectly Fine People” hoax.

“White Supremacists started/did most of the rioting in Minneapolis!”

“Kids are coming to school hungry in Minnesota”.

And now this:

A PBS senior corresponent apologized Wednesday after falsely telling her audience thart former President Donald Trump tried to talk Israel out of a cease-fire amid its ongoing war in Gaza.

Judy Woodruff passed off blame for the blunder by “clarifying” that she based the flimsy scoop on outside reporting that she had read byefroe broadcasting from the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago.

“The reporting is that former President Trump is on the phone with the prime minister of Israel, urging him not to cut a deal right now, because it’s believed that would help the Harris campaign”, Woodruff told a PBS roundtable”. 

 

Woodruff posted a tweet “Clarifying” her regret that she’d been caught:

But it’s out there. Democrat tweeps are chanting it like it’s fact. The intellectual gerbils that make up the Democrat base are parroting merrily away.

Because, well perception is reality.  And who controls what people perceive, anyway? 

Could happen to anyone. 

Hey – wasn’t “misinformation” public enemy number one?

Berg’s Seventh Law is getting more and more inerrant.

I have a hard time describing the contempt this bit here makes me feel:

She left the windows open (presumably at the Governor’s mansion, safely dug in down on “old money” Summit Avenue, miles from the actual rioting) and “smelled the tires burning”, because it was a “touchstone to what was happening”. 

I smelled it a little closer up. 

It was less a “touchstone” than it was my neighborhood – the one I’ve invested a few decades in – getting looted and burned by DFL voters. 

Like all communists, Gwen Walz sees everything in theoretical terms.  She’s one of the ones who is literally in the dacha, now.  She can afford to. 

The rest of us?  Not so much.

SCENE:  On Broadway at Central, in Northeast Minneapolis.  It’s late fall; winter is clearly on the way.  Stray papers blow down the street, nearly deserted in, visibly chilly.  Outside the boarded up remains of what had been a breakfast place catering to “laptop-class” white progressive “new urbanites”, one of many boarded up stores on that once-lively stretch of street, a small group of people stand around a fire in a trash pail. 

The group includes Tyrese and TayShawnda GROVES, a 40-something black couple; Steven SPALSKI, a 31 year old white male with his girlfriend, 30 year old Summer BLEAKER; 58-year-old Cindy HARLESS; Juan and Marcella VEGA, both 50, with their 11 year old son Arturo; and 45 year old Thai NGUYEN..

A police car creeps down the rutted road, dodging potholes, the officer avoiding the gaze of the people around the fire. 

TYRESE GROVES:  (to Spalski):  So what did you used to do?

SPALSKI:  You mean…before the joy?

(The group laughs, mirthlessly)

SPALSKI:  I was a graphic designer for a startup that had just done its IPO. 

BLEAKER:  He was in line for a ton of stock options. 

MARCELLA VEGA:  What happened?

SPALSKI:  (sighing with a weight greater than his years):  All our customers went bankrupt. 

TAYSHAWNDA GROVES:  Same here.  We ran a little grocery store over North.  We were getting by…

TYRESE GROVES: …til the “anti-gouging price controls” hit.  

NGUYEN:  F***ing “anti-gouging act”

 (Several of the people spit onto the dirty sidewalk). 

GROVES (To Juan and Thai)  You?

JUAN VEGA:  I ran a little repair shop.   Couldn’t get parts anymore. 

NGUYEN:  Thai restaurant.  All our wholesalers went bust. 

TAYSHAWNDA GROVES:  Well, they took care of the “gouging”. 

(Bitter laughs ensue)

MARCELLA VEGA:  At least we had all that “joy”.

(General murmurs of disgust was the group warms their hands).

A Subaru, belching oil smoke, pulls up.  Two women – 27  year old Emily FRONTENAC and 48 year old Emily MONTPETIT-EMILY, roll down a window.  FRONTENAC’s hair shows little flecks of long-neglected blue dye at the end of long dirty-blond roots.  MONTPETIT-EMILY, a blocky-looking woman, stares ahead grimly.

FRONTENAC:  Hey – do you know the guy who’s selling the gluten-free eggs?

THAI:  I might.

JUAN VEGA:  Hey, just a minute ( points at the shirt MONTPETIT-EMILY is wearing,  which looks a little like this…

JUAN VEGA:  You’re one of the “pissed off women” who dragged Harris and Piglet over the line into the white house!

MONTPETIT-EMILY:  Er…uh…

SPALSKI:  You’re the ones that brought us all the “Joy”!

FRONTENAC:  Uh….

JUAN VEGA:  I had a good life before you “pissed off white progressive women” tanked the economy!

FRONTENAC:  We saved abortion rights…

HARLESS:  I can’t feed my grandkids abortion rights!

FRONTENAC:  But…

TAYSHAWNDA GROVES:  Hey, it’s a couple of the “pissed off women!”

JUAN VEGA:  You always knew better than everyone.

SPALSKI:  I had a life before you and your idiot president!

(Arturo Vega picks up a small rock and whips it at the Subary, dinging off the door)

FRONTENAC: Heyyy!

NGUYEN, HARLESS and TYRESE GROVES pick up handfuls of rocks and garbage and start pelting the car, which accelarates away as SPALSKI kicks at the back bumper. 

MARCELLA VEGA:  Feeling the joy yet, b***h*s?

JUAN VEGA sails a rock down the street, cracking the Subaru’s back window. 

TAYSHAWNDA GROVES:  I’ll show you pissed off women…

(General murmurs of asssent)

NGUYEN:  So what are you all having for dinner tonight?

BLEAKER:  Probably more joy. 

(MIrthless laughter).

SPALSKI:  Never gets old, does it?

And SCENE.

To: Senator Tina Smith
From:  Mitch Berg, Obstreporous Peasant
Re;  Democracy

Senator,

Yesterday you (via  your social  media intern) tweeted this:

“History” may mark those words, if it’s written by someone dumb enough to be a Tina Smith voter.

But – and saying for sake of argument that Donald Trump was in fact any way a threat to “democracy” between election day and Joe Biden’s coronation – the big story is our constitutional system worked.   It easily dealt with whatever “threat” Trump might have been. 

Your personality cultism is more appropriate for a Maoist dictatorship…

…but I suspect you know that, and are OK with it, since you will likely be one of the people in the dachas rather than the gulag, at least for a while.

But stop calling it democracy. 

That is all.

When Governor Klink and the DFL legislative majority were making the case to squander the “surplus” [1], they put “cutting poverty by 30%” as one of their goals. 

So – how is poverty in Minnesota doing?

Well – we don’t know. 

Official poverty stats conveniently trail real time by a couple of years. 

Official poverty rates trail real time by a couple of years. In 2022, the official poverty rate in MN was 9.6% – up from 9.3% in 2021, and an even 9% in 2020.

So at some point – 2023? 2024? 2025? – the poverty rate needs to drop to 6.4% – a rate the state hasn’t seen in recent memory.

I’m going to go out on a short, sturdy limb and guess the rate isn’t dropping to a historic low next year.  

Any action on that bet?

[1] Which, let’s not forget, wasn’t really a surplus

Socialism:   A system that has murdered 100 million people in the past century?

Or just another term for “Minnesota Nice?”

Governor Walz:

Klink, of course, has been practicing the rookie-league Beria handbook for years:

• Snitch Lines
• “Badthink” databases
• The relentless sorting and name-calling

Of course, Walz serves as governor solely at the sufference of the metro DFL establishment, which is increasingly dominated by actual socialists. He is nothing but their “moderate” beard.

But given Kamala Harris’s radicalism, will that be enough to get on the ticket?

SCENE:  Mitch BERG is whacking weeds along his alley.  He doesn’t notice Avery LIBRELLE, who appears to be inspecting peoples recycling bins for inappropriate material. 

LIBRELLE:  Merg!

BERG:  Oh, shiiiiiure as I live and breathe, it’s Aver…

LIBRELLE:  Shut up.   Republicans are the worst possible combination of Nazis, Fascists and slave-owning Confederate traitors!

BERG:  You don’t say.

LIBRELLE:  I do – and so does America’s best governor and fun uncle, Tim Walz!

BERG:  Huh.  So you’re saying a populist utopian movement that builds itself around a central mythology, that relentlessly sorts society into “in” and “out” groups, that co-opts or destroys the societal institutions to consolidate and uphold its power,that requires enemies either internal or external to divert attention away from the problems they cause, and tolerates, and even glorifies and fetishizes violence to intimidate and subdue opposition, is Fascist?

LIBRELLE:  Yep!

BERG:  Right.  And a “fascist” movement that obsesses over race to the point that it’s their fundamental motivation, screening mechanism and call to action resembles Naziism?

LIBRELLE:  Uh, yeah!

BERG:  Huh.  And a movement that exists within our Federalist system, but ignores or actively denigrates the parts of that system that inconveniences its pursuit of its political goals, and exists mainly to uphold the wealth and power of its key stakeholders, resembles the Confederacy?

LIBRELLE:  Er…yes.  And why do you put all the links in when you talk?  That’s just #weird. 

BERG:  So…sorting and denigration…

LIBRELLE:  (Plugs ears, runs away) Nananananana can’t hear you….

BERG:  (sotto voce) Oh, I think you can. 

And SCENE.