As predicted, Nicole Mitchell isn’t leaving the Senate until the DFL has squeezed every last possible vote out of her:

So Real Minnesotans should picket the Capitol, and to the extent possible the Senate chambers and hearing rooms, dressedin all black, carrying tupperware and basement storm windows.

Senator Mitchell (DFL Woodbury) was arraigned for First Degree Burglary in Becker County yesterday.

I’ll cop to the fact that I honestly hope someone who has attitudes about civil liberties and rights like she has, has a short political career.

Now, I really need to follow my. own counsel here; Berg’s 18th Law applies. We don’t know all the facts, and our media will be pretty worthless at getting those to us accurately anyway, especiallly since she’s one of their own – both as a media person and a Democrat.

So I’m jumping to no conclusions, here. Pinky swear.

Still – it’s been in the news. I’m gonna talk about it.

You Have The Right To Remain Silent: She doesn’t seem to have done herself many favors before arraignment; for someone with a JD, she seems to have missed the whole “don’t talk to the cops without an attorney present” thing:

I’m nothing if not a pollyanna: It all could be a huge misunderstanding. It’s a crazy world.

But, while I am no attorney, that seems to be a dumb thing to say to cops, when dressed in black, outside a place you have allegedly entered without authorization, dressed in black, before 5AM.

We’ll come back to that.

Anything You Say Can And Will Be Used Against You: Now, she was represented by counsel at her hearing. After which she (or someone claiming to e her) posted this on social media:

Now, I lost my mother to Alzheimers two years ago this week – after years of adventures including a ten hour drive to try to find her (long story). I’m nothing but sympathetic to relatives of Alzheimers patients.

But, uh…

• “Prompted me to check on the family member” – at 4:45 AM? Dressed in all black? And telling the cops you know you did something wrong after you were Mirandized?
• “have come and gone from countless times” – at 4:45 AM? Through, it is alleged, a basement window?
• “Startled this close relative” – at 4:45 AM, while allegedly dressed in black and entering the home through something other than a door? I don’t wonder.

Did her defense counsel know she was posting this? It seems…ill-advised, but again, I am no expert.

Speaking of the close relative:

The stepmother said in an interview that she’s afraid of her stepdaughter and applied for a restraining order against her. She also said that while most of her husband’s ashes were buried, she sent Mitchell a miniature container with some of them.

Is the stepmother genuinely afraid of Mitchell? Or suffering from delusions while suffering from dementia? Experience notwithstanding, I’m no expert – but either way, it seems that entering the woman’s house (allegedly) at 4:45AM, dressed like a ninja, through a window, might not be an optimal choice.

Senator Mitchell is of course innocent until proven guilty. But it is difficult to see how a DFL with any integrity, as opposed to lust for power in a Senate where Mitchell is the margin, keeps her in office. While she won her seat by a 18 point margin, having her in office is a problem.

MInnesotans: “Judd Hoff. Matt Roznowski. Julie Blaha. John Thompson. Dan Wolgamott. Brion Curran. Andy Smith. Can the DFL get any more depraved?”

Minnesota DFL: “Hold our Kombucha”.

Why, yes – that’s the relentlessly smug Nicole Mitchell – DFL senator from Woodbury, and apparently the DFL’s designated civil liberties expert.

Jeff Kolb ran through the facts we know (Twitter thread):

The incident took place at the home of her late father’s wife. Fill in further details at your own peril, but that might suggest a few answers.

It goes without saying Berg’s 18th Law is in force, and of course Michell is innocent until proven guilty.

Judd Hoff has allegedly been stalking Minnesota State Representative Mary Franson for a while now.

“Stalking”, you say?

Yep.

He’s got kind of a colorful past (emphasis added), which has been recognized:

“Defendant approached Mr. Cornett with a machete pointed at him to instill fear so that he would comply with defendant’s command to return the flag,” she wrote. “As Mr. Cornett retreated, defendant approached. Defendant continued to keep pace with Mr. Cornett’s retreat all around his vehicle, into the street and back onto the sidewalk. Mr. Cornett felt sufficient fear of being stabbed or killed by defendant’s dangerous weapon, a machete, that he pulled his handgun. Even then, defendant did not stop.”

Oh, yeah – and he’s now the DFL-endorsed candidate running against Franson:

Not just endorsed. Endorsed unanimously.

This is today’s DFL .

Oh, yeah – I suspect that if the GOP endorsed a felon and someone very credibly alleged (with, say, footage they shot themselves, and a loooong social media record) to have stalked his female MNDFL opponent, the media would be humping the story’s leg.

UPDATE: Ken Martin, to his credit, at least rhetorically tried to distance himself from Hoff.

On the one hand, I don’t suspect the DFL is going to spend any money in 12B no matter who gets endorsed; Franson hasn’t faced a serious challenge since 2012, and she’s going to win the district by a 2:1 margin no matter who the DFL runs; with Hoff, it might be close to a three digit margin. .

But kudos to Martin; there is a bottom to the barrel below which the DFL won’t dig. John Thompson taught ’em something.

Well, some of them, anyway. Other DFLers, including this endorsed candidate, doubled down:

Which DFL will show up?

As Sergeant Esterhaus on HIll Street Blues used to say, be careful out there.

And apparently “railroading cops into kangaroo court for politicized prosecution to earn favor for a “woke” prosecutor”…

…isn’t polling well in CD2.

“Go ahead, tear down a couple of stores that were half of the commercial heart of the Midway”, said all the people who don’t live in the Midway. “It’ll bring hordes of soccer fans in from their “Urban Life Theme Park” homes in Marcy Holmes and Longfellow over to pre-game at the local bars, and carouse about the place afterward!”

“Trust us!”

I warned ’em. I sincerely tried.

The game day ritual:

1. Watch hordes of cars (and a quick surge of people on the train) pack Snelling, Hamline and University, and the neighborhood streets all the way up to Minnehaha, clogging everything for a solid hour.
2. A couple of hours of noise and pandemonium and hearing the mob singing “Wonderwall”. By the way, of all the songs they could have picked, why in the flaming hootie-hoo did it have to be “Wonderwall?” I swear, “Afternoon Delight” or “Pilot of the Airwaves” or “Who Let the Dogs Out” or a root canal are less irritating.
3. Another hour or two of clogged streets and pedestrians stagging through the neighborhood as they get while the getting’s good. Because nobody wants to be stuck on University outside of a crowd.

One will spend less time waiting for Godot than for the wave of prosperity that professional soccer was supposed to bring to the Midway.

Metro Transit posted a “code of conduct” a few weeks ago, to much derision. “All window dressing and lip service”, the wags said.

So Metro Transit added their interveners.

Looks like we still got lip service and window dressing. Perhaps we call it “lip dressing”:

So – not only is the collapse of social mores being encouraged by the aggressive lack of consequences, but we get to transfer tax dollars to more bureaucrats and their employees while we do it.

I call that adding insult to insult to insult to injury to injury .

Cellist and medical student attacked in the New York subway:

Look for Mayor Adams to call foe a ban on metal water bottles.

Its a fine day to pounce.

There was a mass shooting in Kansas City, at the post-Super Bowl celebration.

The anti-gun crowd, dare I say, pounced on it…

…briefly.

And then…:

That means the shooter/s is/are:

• Transgender
• Gang members

Hope you placed your bets fast!

Gang carjacks an SUV, goes on a Tarantino-ready crime spree:

The only real question: what ethical and moral gymnastics will Mary Moriarty go through to make sure none of them serves a moment in prison?

To: The Secret Service
From: Mitch Berg, obstreporous peasant
Re: SOPs

Secret Service,

Am I remembering wrong, or wasn;t there a time when “threatening a current or former President” was worth investigating, if not actually chargable?

Just curious – Rick Wilson, NPR’s sole GOP source and former head of an organization that had a bit of a “predators in leadership” issue, was on Twitter the other day:

Call me naive and old fashioned, but this kind of thing seems like your turf.

That is all.

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

Stores are now locking up underwear to prevent shoplifting.  That’s backwards – we ought to be locking up shoplifters – but assuming Liberals will continue to own the DA’s offices so the sensible option is out, there’s still a better way to prevent shoplifting without forcing all of us to live in the gulag.

When you walk into the store, there are two doors.  The door to the Right will not open without a credit card.  The door to the Left is open all the time. 

Inside the store on the Right, it’s a normal store.  Grab a cart, walk around, browse, touch stuff, load up your cart, scan everything at the checkout which automatically bills it to the credit card you used to get in, take your stuff to your car. 

Inside the store on the Left, there are touch screen kiosks like McDonalds in front of a chest-high counter topped by plexiglas.  Touch the items you want to purchase.  The machine spits out a ticket.  When your number is called, go to the counter and pay the clerk, who gives you a receipt and passes your order through the secure pass-through door (like the Walgreens drive-through drawer, only bigger).  No pay, no merchandise.  

Yes, it would be possible for people on the Right to steal stuff.  You could do that now, at the self-service check-out at Cub.  So the store has employees watching and if you get caught, they charge it to your card and then they ban your card from accessing the store again.  From now on, you pay cash on the Left side like the other thieves.

Advanced options might include curbside pickup for online orders, or home delivery for a small additional fee, you know, the way things are done in an ordinary high-trust First World nation, the way America used to be.  That was nice.  I miss that.

Joe Doakes, no longer in Como Park

This – well, the “door to the left” – was exactly how grocery stores worked, until a little over 100 years ago, when the A&P chain invented the shopping cart and accessible shelves. You went to the counter, you told the clerk what you wanted, and you waited while he/she got your stuff and bagged it up.

Of course, we had a high(er) trust society back then.

I saw “The Fall of Minneapolis” again last week.

Now, when I first mentioned seeing it a few months back, a few smart people whose opinions I never discount asked “is there anything new that the courts didn’t settle?”

That brings up a couple of questions.

In our society, we usually think that if a court – an impartial jury of our peers, a couple of adversarial attorneys patiently digging out the facts, a fair and impartial judge facilitating it all via “due proces” – decides something, that’s that. The truth has been found.

There’s problems with that.

The was this guy, James Fleming, a Facebook friend, shooter and criminal defense attorney. He used to snap at people who referred to “due process” by itself as a reason to trust something. Paraphrasing: due process isn’t a guarantee of fairness, much less justice. It means the proceedings all check the same checkboxes and standards. The fairness and justice is all in the details.

So – how can that go wrong?

Years ago, I was *very* tangentially involved in the case of a man who’d been accused of a fairly grisly rape and murder in 1982. He had been kind of a lowlife, a petty criminal and drug addict, the kind of guy you’ve seen on a thousand episodes of “Cops” insisting to the officer “I have NO IDEA whose gun and cocaine that is!” He was tried, convicted and sentenced to death.

The courts settled the matter.

A decade and change later, a group of people did enough digging and agitating on his behalf to get the attention of “The Innocence Project”, a group of pro-bono lawyers that works on what they believe to be unjust convictions.

The lawyers found that the original conviction had been secured via:
– A jailhouse snitch with a history of perjury whose testimony nonetheless was allowed
– A District Attorney hiding exculpatory evidence.
– An incompetent public defender.

The exculpatory evidence included forensic evidence that, with modern DNA testing, could have shed some light on who the attacker was. But it vanished as completely as whispering “due process” in the wind.

After years of legal wrangling, the lawyers found the evidence – and with more modern DNA testing, determined that the man, who’d been convicted “beyond a reasonable doubt” after “due process”, couldn’t have possibly been the murderer. In 2003 he was released, after 21 years on Death Row.

And he’s not alone. In the past 50 years, *185* inmates have been released from Death Row. Not granted new trials. Not commuted to lesser sentences. *Released* from Death Row to the world – because their “convictions beyond a reasonble doubt” were in error, due to perjury, official misconduct, incompetence, and even some honest but terrible mistakes.

So – do I think the answer to “is it true?” is “the courts have spoken?”

Let’s just say I believe in (grudging, conditional) trust but verification. Throw in a heaping dollop of skepticism about the integrity of public officials and systems.

More later this wee4

The Sentencing Guidelines Commission has issued a report on how gun crime is dealt with in Minnesota.

It’s pretty putrid:

OF 958 convictions for gun crimes in MInnesota for a year ending last June, 413 had their mandatory minimum sentenes waived.

That was for the entire state. Any guesses on how that breaks down with Metro vs. Greater MN numbers?

Let’s look at the big stats – convictions and minimum sentences – for the four largest metro Counties:

Literally half of the people conviced of committing a crime with a gun in the Metro are given less than the state’s minimum sentence for the act – double the rate of the rest of the state.

Brandon Herrera is one of my favorite Guntubers.

I watch him mainly for his detailed, frequently off-color, mostly hilarious, and technically interesting gun takedown vids. He’s sort of like Ian McCallum, only gleefully NSFW.

This clip – going over a lawsuit by one of the victims of a (thankfully) failed mass murder attempt against a long list of gun and accessory companies whose products weren’ t involved in the incident – is worth a watch.

Again – language exuberantly NSFW.

The interesting part is at the end; Herrera challenges the defendants to not settle this specious, frivolous lawsuit out of court, and the viewer to hold them accountable if they do.

I’m going to try to find the list (and the current status of the case).

Blue City governments apparently think banning matches will prevent fire.

No, it hasn’t quite gotten that stupid ytet. But give ’em time.

Banning guns (in the hands of the law-abiding citiizen, at least) is a pretty common…conceit? Deflection? Fig leaf? Anyway – the notion that barring law-abiding citizens from using legal things to do things they weren’t going to do in the first place will affect crime (positively) is the sort of thing you have to believe to be a modern Democrat.

But that sound you hear?

It’s the bottom of the intellectual barrel being scraped.

Philadephia bans ski masks in some public places.

Because crime:

“The City of Philadelphia has been under siege with individuals who use ski masks to commit crimes. It’s caught onto not just young people, but young adults who have made this a particular thing to do,” Phillips told CNN. “The Philadelphia Police Department can’t tell who’s a criminal and not a criminal, which makes it difficult for crimes to be solved in Philadelphia.”

Sarah Peterson, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, told CNN, “The administration will review the legislation, and in the meantime looks forward to our ongoing work with City Council on the urgent matter of ensuring public safety.”

The Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in people wearing various face coverings including ski masks, “complicated policing” because mask mandates made it easier for criminals to conceal their identities, Philadelphia Police Department Deputy Commissioner Francis Healy said during a committee hearing in November.

Philadelphia has a crime problem.

Too many ski masks? Could be.

Could also be all the depraved leftists:

Place your bets.

Someone walks up to you with a baseball bat. They say they want to kill you.

Your response is “no, I don’t want to get beaten to death with a baseball bat”.

Looks like you have a standoff. A controversy. A conundrum.

Someone else steps in and asks “How about we compromise? Will you settle for a traumatic brain injury?”

It’s the middle way, after all. The guy with the bat might even say “sure, I just wanna hit you, hard!“

You might respond “No – in fact, I don’t want anyone hurting me in any way. At all”

And the buttinski responds “Why won’t yiou compromise?”

Who’s right?

You?

The guy with the bat?

Or the person striving to find the middle ground between the two of you?

If your response is “I’m putting my foot down; nobody is hitting me with a bat for any reason at all“, and the other to ask “why do you hate the guy with the bat?“, does that change anybody’s mind?

Point being, sometimes the middle path, the compromise, is not the most moral path forward.

SCENE: In a drab back room at MNDFL headquarters on Plato Boulevard, two DFL communications staffers, Evan BRYANT (Macalester 2021) and Moonbeam BIRKENSTOCK (St. Thomas 2018) are pecking away at their iPhones, poring over their social media plan for the week.

BIRKENSTOCK: Chairman Martin says people are starting to get tired of crime?

BRYANT: Where?

BIRKENSTOCK: Oh, rednecks in Fridley and Bemidji, mostly.

BRYANT: Yuck.

BIRKENSTOCK. I know, right? But their votes still count…

BRYANT: For now

BIRKENSTOCK: LOL, right? Anyway, we need to put out something that shows the administration and the Attorney General are engaged on crime.

BRYANT: Let’s do this:

BIRKENSTOCK: Oh, that’s good.

BRYANT: But someone just left a comment.

BIRKENSTOCK: (Reading a reply on Twitter). “So how about rampant violent and property crime, and half a billion in fraud committed by DFL constituents and contributors?”

BRYANT: Hmmm – tough one.

BIRKENSTOCK: I got it. Tweet out this photo of Lt. Governor Flanagan feeding Ellison and Governor Walz corn dogs at the State Fair!

BRYANT: I’ll caption it “#OneMinnesota”.

BIRKENSTOCK: Brilliant.

BRYANT: And on message!

And SCENE

“Unruly teens” in Chicago attack a Tesla during one of their periodic galavants around their “room to destroy”. Police were reportedly standing nearby.

The Tesla driver used some of that torque for self-defense:

The cops no doubt have the guy’s license plate, so there’d be no need for them to chase and arrest the guy if they do want to prosecute him. Safe to say the “kids” will suffer no consequences.

Still – flit about, find out.

(…since it sounds like “sobriety” is in short supply in government circles)

Dave Hutchinson. Dan Wolgamott. John Thompson (not a DWI, but certainly over the legal limit of entitlement and rage). And now DFL legislator Briona Curran – who, it could be fairly said, was a little buzzed the other night:

Perhaps Ken Martin and Co-Governors Klink and Flanagan need a new motto.

With all respect due, I humbly suggest:

One Point Six Minnesota.

Thoughts?

Mike Casey is running for the GOP nomination in CD4.

Jim Schulz, former MN Attorney General candidate, is with the Minnesota Private Business Council.

And here’s today’s music list:

As we noted the other day, Target is closing nine stores in four, blue, cities.

The news brought out a flood of expert social media opinion from people who have never worked in the productive private sector. “Target is just using teh crime to cover up teh realz reazons they’re closing” was the big line around mid-week.

Including this, from our long time acquaintance, Molly Priesmeyer.

You may remember Molly – and “award winning journalist“ who is never let the fact she doesn’t know anything about a subject stop her from writing about it.

She turns her keen-eyed expertise to the world of business:

Let’s be frank – many things can be true simultaneously.

Business ain’t easy. Balancing supply, demand and asking price isn’t for the faint of heart, and that’s before you get into taxes, regulations, and externalities like regular “shrinkage”.

WIth all that, though, Target’s been in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and even NYC for literally decades, through good times and bad, ups and downs in markets, the works.

And the closures aren’t spread across the entire market.

As far as Target’s security? Not sure if they’re better than the FBI – but let’s say they perfected teh art of store security. That means they catch thieves, grifters, swindlers and other ne’er do wells.

And then…

Well, Target may do a lot of things, but rthey don’t run any county attorney’s offfices. Or any city councils, especially the ones making laws like shoplifting less than $900 doesn’t even warrant a charge, much less a sentence.

Target’s big, but not that big.

Perhaps “award winning journalist” Priesjeyer has some insight on the facts that aren’t apparent from, well, the facts. I’m all ears.

,,,that Minnesota can’t win championships?

Citing the rise in meth-related crimes and low revenue, Target is closing nine stores in Nebraska, Kentucky and Montana.

Just kidding. They’re in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and New York City:

Target is closing nine stores in major cities across four states, claiming theft and organized retail crime have made the environment unsafe for staff and customers – and unsustainable for business.

The big box chain is part of a wave of retailers – both large and small – that say they’re struggling to contain store crimes that have hurt their bottom lines. Many have closed stores or made changes to merchandise and layouts.

Of course, the hecklers are out in force; “crime can’t possibly be that bad…”.

It’s not clear that crime is growing significantly more serious. But as economic fears grow amid inflation and rising borrowing costs, shoplifting often comes with the territory, industry watchers say.

Somehow I suspect that’s not the reason these small businesses in Oakland were bucking the narrative:

Target was not the only retailer to raise concerns about retail crime today. Approximately two hundred Oakland business owners closed up shop for a couple hours Tuesday morning and held a demonstration to bring attention to crime plaguing the area.

Target was not the only retailer to raise concerns about retail crime today. Approximately two hundred Oakland business owners closed up shop for a couple hours Tuesday morning and held a demonstration to bring attention to crime plaguing the area.

If there were just some sort of connecting thread…