OK, so moving to Canada after threatening it over and over again may be a bit much. 

But changing social media platforms (after two years of threatening)?  That’s a little more doable. 

Last week a friend of the blog emailed:

Blue sky app. Looks and works pretty much like X. Their world views are safe there. They speak very freely again which is good humor. Just search your favorite MN media person they are there. No invite needed.

The FotB was referring to BlueSky – which is basically “X” but an echo chamber for the left.

Y’know – Jack Dorsey’s original vision for Twitter, before being foiled by Elon Musk.

And today:

One week on Blue sky and they really have posted nothing revelant. 

Lots of angry libs

I’m missing a party with both the formerly cool but recently genocidal Bob Collins and Kate Knuth?

I may need to take the weekend to grieve. 

A friend of the blog emails:

I am amazed at this council that, when elected, seemed to be highly liberal, rubber-stamping and with very little differences of opinion. And yet, they surprised me in voting 6 against 1 to not immediately restrict drive throughs in Saint Paul.

Some of the comments from council members were actually thoughtful, as if they were listening to and hearing their constituents. They talked about how constituents are questioning if this was the most pressing issue and they agreed. They seemed to understand how this ban could affect jobs in the neighborhood, jobs currently relied upon by their constituents. They even seemed to understand that a business could just start up elsewhere if we make conditions too harsh. 

Only Council President Mitra Jalali seems to be the out of touch person here. She thinks her constituents are bothered by the Taco Bell drive through (as opposed to maybe they don’t walk that area because of the open drug use of the nearby rehab house – Kimball Court). 

There is hope. I know a broken clock can be right twice a day. But, hey, I will take the win.

 

I am equally surprised. I didn’t expect the Council to resist the Highland Park Prog Lifestyle mafia.

Well, everyone but Jalali.  She continues to fail to impress. Which is a fairly evergreen remark.

Some Democrats are reverting to their mean: they lost because the dumb people didn’t support them, and if they somehow were kept out of the process, and voting were reserved for the deserving, things would be different:

So I thought – how about we continue the thought? Let’s impose more, better standards on the electorate!

How about people who take liberty seriously?

If only gun owners were counted: The electoral map would look something like this:

That’d be a pretty serious realignment.

OK – how about the people who risk everything to be the backbone of our economy?

Entrepreneurs: If only people who started business were counted, the totals would go something like this:

Makes sense.

OK – how about the people who actually pay attention to how government works, as opposed to voting for “joy”, “vibes” or to “protect abortion” in states where its already enshrined as a right in the state constitution?

Civics Knowledge: If only people who could pass a test of their civics knowledge:

Note that there wouldn’t be enough qualified voters in the District of Columbia to register a result.

So, among Trump’s current Cabinet nominees:

• I’ve interviewed designated Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth 2-3 times.
• The wife of Doug Burgum (who by some reports has the inside track for Secretary of Energy) is a high school classmate.
• One of my dad’s students in Rugby, ND was an incredibly ambitious young guy named “Donnie” Gaetz.   He won the state debate championship, went on to win the national championship in college, moved to Florida and became a Republican mover and shaker and eventually president of the State Senate, and was a somewhat frequent guest at my parents’ house through the seventies and into the eighties, and who went on to have a son you may have heard of. 

So, Matt Gaetz for AG. 

As happy as I am with all the other nominees, the only upside I can see to this nomination is it’ll get him out of the House, in time for him not to get confirmed…?

He’d be a reliable Trump ally, and he’d likely go at the DOJ with a blowtorch.   Surely we’ve got better people for both jobs?

I’m not the only one with questions.

I’m old enough to remember when “election denial” was the highest of crimes and misdemeanors.  And if you’re much over four years old, so are you.

But (predictably) not as re Senator Bob Casey in Pennsylvania:

Donald Trump’s stubborn denial of his defeat — his refusal to accept the legitimate election results of 2020 — was bad. January 6 was terrible.

But we saw a similar rejection of election results from Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams two years earlier, and she became a Democratic hero — literally wearing a cape in one photoshoot — and a favorite subject of the Democrats’ celebrity-industrial complex. (And remember, she’s apparently exempt from masking for Covid, while kids sitting right next to her had to stay masked.) She may never become governor of Georgia, but she can always be proud of holding the position of President of United Earth (selected, not elected).

To review, Abrams’s denial of election results was forgivable, Trump’s was the trigger for “the worst attack on democracy since the Civil War,” in Biden’s words, and now Casey’s denial is just a prudent desire to see every vote counted. You don’t have to be Columbo to recognize a suspicious pattern in which a Democratic candidate’s denial of election results is excusable, but a Republican candidate’s denial of election results is a dangerous threat to American governance.

I had a hunch that pendulum was going to swing back, and hard, yet again.

SCENE:  In a conference room at the headquarters of Minnesotans United for All Progressive Causes, a blindingly Scandinavian-looking suite of offices in a pre-war building in Saint Paul.  On one wall, a window looks out on a stunning vista the Mississippi River.  Through the other, rows of cubicles staffed by interns making fund-raising calls, as a couple of college-age boys tear down Kamala Harris posters and throw them in the trash.

In the conference room are:

• Moonbeam BIRKENSTOCK, community engagement manager.  She’s wearing a blue bracelet.
• Inge “Lucky” CARROLL, head meme-buffer.  She sports a new, blue Celtic Thorn tattoo on her wrist.
• Gretel STROMBERG, executive director.  She also has a blue bracelet. 
• Ken MARTIN, Chair of the MN DFL
• Martina ROBBINS, Liaison director for Planned Parenthood of Minnesota.  She’s wearing blue bracelets on each wrist. 
• Chad MANBUNFRONDSON, Democrat National Committee field staffer based in Minneapolis, and current romantic partner of Gretel Stromberg.
• MyLissa SILBERMANN, Reporter for National Public Radio’s Saint Paul bureau, covering the “Fake News” and “Diversity” beats, and no way no how an active participant in regional progressive politics.   Her hair is newly-died blue. 

All look visibly cried-out. 

STROMBERG:   OK.  So, that could have gone better.  But (she says, visibly trying to convince herself), it’s a new day.  Onward and upward.  What do we say?

EVERYONE (grumbling).  We’re not going back.

BIRKENSTOCK (slightly more chipper): Tuuuuurn the page!

(The exhortation is met with grumbles). 

STROMBERG:  OK.   We’re going to get on top of the new plan.  Inge?

CARROLL: Yes.  We’re going to get women to adopt the “Four Bs – it’s a South Korean trend where women swear off dating, sex, marriage and having kids with men”.

BIRKENSTOCK:   I already broke up with my boyfriend.  

STROMBERG:  I actually ditched my partner .

MANBUNFRONDSON:  You what?

STROMBERG: Oh, yeah.  I’m  not going back…

MANBUNFRONDSON:  But…but… (tearing up a bit) Not even if I wear the Schoolgirl outfit?

MARTIN:  (a little perplexed). Hang on, Gretel. Isn’t Chad always an ally?  I mean, he wears an unironic man-bun and ran White Dudes for Harris of Minnesota…

STROMBERG:  The cause is the cause. 

(The women all nod.  Martin looks around, fall silent. MANBUNFRONDSON leaves the room, in tears)

SILBERMANN:  So that means…

CARROLL:  No dating.  No sex.  No marriage.  And noooooo babies.  None.   Complete cut-off. 

STROMBERG:  Sounds like genius.

(Everyone applauds – even Martin, gingerly – except for ROBBINS)

ROBBINS:  Wait.  No sex?

CARROLL:  Yep.  Even for your husband. Sorry. 

ROBBINS:  Oh, that train left the station five years ago.  No, here’s the problem (pulls out iPad, shows it around the table):

ROBBINS: This ingenious plan of yours will leave us broke. Busted. Bupkes.

(Silence around the table, as the murmer of the fundraising and MANBUNFRONDSON’s sobbing filters through the glass wall)

BIRKENSTOCK:  Well, the legislature will appropriate money to make up for it! 

CARROLL: Yeah!  We got the trifecta!  

STROMBERG:  ONE MINNESOTA!

MARTIN:  Uhhhh, kind of a good-news, bad-news situation, here…

SCENE pulls away to the middle of the fundraising floor, to the sound of the womens’ blood-curdling screams. 

And SCENE.

Last night, someone on social media had a slightly different angle on the weekend rally featuring Governor Walz. 

Earlier in his failed VP bid, he said “to some people, “socialism” is just neighborliness“.

And over the weekend, the guy who called over half the nation “Nazis” hopes we can look at each other as neighbors.

So apparently his goal is to come back to Minnesota, take your stuff, and put you in a camp?

Minnesota’s Department of Veterans Affairs sends its regards to all of Minnesota’s veterans…

…of, uh, Soviet-bloc service.

(If you know, you know.  If you don’t, someone will fill you in in the comments).

The highlight of the entire internet this past week has been Justine Bateman – best known as “Mallory Keaton” from “Family Ties”, let’s just say 20 years ago.  

She’s a filmmaker today.   And she’s turning her eye to the parade of leftist rage TikToks that’ve happened since the election. 

Like this one (it’s a short thread – click to read):

The humor is dry enough to make an Englishman put down his tea and say “I say, that is dry humour indeed”. Cold and dry like a great martini when out snowmobiling.

You can see the whole series on X at “#SocialMediaVideoCritiques – but I’ll give you another right here.

One of the more surprising results from election night:  the nation is more…not “conservative”, probably.  More Republican, anyway. 

The New York Times released a “shift map” of election result shifts, by county.

It’s live and interactive here – and it’s an interesting read. Each red arrow is a county where the vote was more Republican than it was in 2020. Note that many of the blue arrows in red states – I’m looking at you, Oliver County North Dakota – are counties where the GOP vote dropped from the 90s into the 80s, for example.

More interesting still – the demographics behind those shifts.

In every category but “people with lots of years in schools”, the anti-Trump reaction of 2020 has more than recouped – in some cases (the urban vote, young people), way way more than recouped.

After a senseless tragedy, people – almost invariably conservatives – are told to never, ever dare to “politicize” it [1]

46 year old Anthony Nephew of Duluth apparently politicized his family’s tragedy for us over the weekend, murdering his wife and son, his ex-partner and son, and checking himself out afterward.

According to the London Daily Mail (far and away the best rouce for Minnesota news that doesn’t kiss the DFL’s ass):

[Nepohew] also appeared increasingly concerned about the prospect of a Trump-led government.

‘My mental health and the world can no longer peacefully coexist, and a lot of the reason is religion,’ he said in July.

‘I am terrified of religious zealots inflicting their misguided beliefs on me and my family. I have intrusive thoughts of being burned at the stake as a witch, or crucified on a burning cross.

‘Having people actually believe that I or my child are Satan or, the anti-Christ or whatever their favorite color of boogie man they are afraid are this week.’

He had also accused Republicans of ‘making it harder for women to leave’ domestic violence relationships, writing ‘Gilead here we come.’ 

Gilead is an apparent reference to the Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian republic which overthew the United States and stripped away women’s rights.

 

Huh. So you mean a decade of saying a political candidate is the plague makes the least stable among us think he’s…a plague?

[1] Spurious references to Naziism and Fascism apparently excepted.

Governor Walz came back to Minnesota late last week. 

And at a rally – is that the right word? – in Eagan, he started the process of…

Speaking for myself?

Govenor, you called me and half this state “Nazis”. 

You will never be my “neighbor”.  There will be no forgiveness.

More generally?  Call me cynical, but no, he’s not extending an olve branch. He’s rebooting – from two years of absolute power (“When you have political capital, you use it!” was his line when the trifecta started its ravages) to trying to set the stage for having to convince Repblicans to work with him.

And, if I may be even more cynical, to set himself up as the plucky, peace-seeking victim when they shoot down his agenda in total.

And just to be clear – the MN GOP had better shoot down the Walz/DFL agenda like Capone’s guys bouncing the rubble of Bugsy Moran’s crew at the Valentine’s Day Massacre.  We’ve waited a long time to be shown an alternative.  It’s time. 

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):

Trump won. Perhaps you saw it in the papers.

So now what?

David Strom’s got the prescription at HotAir. One of a huge list of pullquotes:

Trump didn’t run to be a modest correction to the status quo, and he didn’t win because of any particular policy proposal. He won because a majority of Americans are disgusted by our establishment and how it has abused us. 

Trump has a mandate. He must use it to remake the power structure in society. 

Squishy Republicans in the House and Senate will hem and haw, squirm and squeal, and they will speak of caution and the midterms. 

Don’t let them betray the millions of Americans who genuinely voted for the Trump Vance Musk Kennedy Shanahan Ramaswamy team. You don’t assemble a dream team to play T-ball. 

 Bureaucrats must be fired. The military leadership must be changed. The Department of Education should be axed. The FBI should be moved out of Washington. Entire agencies should be ejected from Washington and dispersed to the states. Anthony Fauci should be investigated, and when it is proven he committed perjury before Congress he should be jailed. 

It’s time to clean the Augean stables, drain the swamp, or whatever metaphor you like to use for cleaning up a huge mess. It’s not just the policies that were bad; the entire system has been corrupted and must be replaced. If a #resistance exists, as it did in Trump’s first term, it must be rooted out and destroyed. 

 

Trump’s first win reminded me of Jesse Ventura – nobody, least of all he, expected it. He governed creditably – even estimably – but there was the impression he was winging it.

Not this time. It can’t go that way. 

Burn the swamp. 

Because to borrow a phrase – I’m not going back.

Elliot Engen is a young hotshot on the MNGOP bench. He just won his second term representing HD36A.

It wasn’t long ago that the DFL was trying to get a jump start on his political obituary:

He deleted the tweet – like, in the last hour or so – but the internet never sleeps:f

Tuesday’s results:

• Engen:  54.07%
• Janelle Calhoun (shouldn’t that be Janelle Mka Ska?):  45.83%

I don’t get to spike a lot of balls, but I’m spiking the ball. 

While I don’t endorse Bono’s threat to “drive a car off a cliff” after a Trump election, nor Rob Reiner’s to “set himself on fire” (and doubt Cher get a bullet into her head with all her various, uh, augmentation), I do believe that if Trump plans to be a “dictator”, one useful act would be to make sure the celebs who promised to “move to Canada” and/or “leave the US” if Donald Trump were elected to actually deliver on it. 

To wit:

• Alec Baldwin
• Whoopi Goldberg
• John Legend
• Chrissy Teigen
• Rob Reiner
• Barbara Streisand
• Cher
• Nancy Pelosi
• Hillary Clinton
• Megan Rapinoe
• Tom Hanks
• Amy Schumer
• AOC
• Lady Gaga
• Bill Gates
• Jane Fonda
• Madonna
• Mark Ruffalo
• Kim Kardashian
• George Clooney
• Hunter Biden
• Oprah
• Robert De Niro
• Samuel L Jackson
• Miley Cyrus
• Travis Kelce
• Bobbi Althoff
• Rashida Talib
• Stormy Daniels
• George Soros
• Diddy
• Eminem
• Ellen DeGeneres
• Sean Penn
• Sharon Stone
• Ashley Judd
• Tommy Lee
• Bryan Cranston
• Billie Joe Armstrong

Furthermore?  I’ll volunteer to serve a cabinet-level (albeit temporary) “Undersecretary of Transportation fo Relocation”

One of my biggest beeves with Donald Trump over the past four years has been the cult of personality around him – the wave of Scaramuccis and Loomers and other camp followers more partial to chanting points than issues.

But the Democrats tried to out-cult the cult.  Kamala Harris was a terrible candidate who ran a vapid campaign wrapped round brat vibes, Instagram moments and “Joy”. 

It was the Trump camp that ran on issues:

But this election, despite how the propaganda press tried to frame it, was not mostly about Donald Trump. The New York Times is at it again this morning, talking about Trump’s “cult of personality.” But Trump didn’t run on personality, he ran on the issues. He talked relentlessly and effectively about inflation, the border, and war and peace. True, he digressed more than some of us would have preferred, but his policy messages came through loud and clear.

It was the Democrats who tried to run on the cult of personality. The record of the Biden/Harris administration was indefensible, so they didn’t try to defend it. Harris avoided talking about the issues as much as possible, going so far, on multiple occasions, as to refuse to say what her position on an issue is. She was, as one pundit put it, the “no comment” candidate.

Instead of substance, the Democrats chose to run on personality and identity politics. Vote for Kamala because she is “kind” and “joyful”–never mind that she is such an obnoxious autocrat that she can’t keep a staff together. Also, vote for Kamala because she will be the first woman of color to be president. Whoopee. And most of all, of course, the Democrats tried to run against the personality of Donald Trump.

 

The fact that Trump is in a second term should mean – I hope – that he spikes the ball on those issues over the next four years.

It was 20 years ago when Hugh Hewitt released “If It’s Not Close They Can’t Cheat”.

And he was finally right. 

As this is written, Wednesday morning, Donald Trump has 277 electoral votes nailed down.  Trump could actually get over 300 – as this is written, Michigan, Arizona, Alaska and Nevada and their 35 votes are still up in the air, but trending toward Trump.

The US Senate has flipped, and. might actually get to 56 GOP votes.  

The US House is still very much up in the air, and likely will be for a while, but the GOP has flipped several seats and, as far as I know, lost none.   If I had to bet, I’d say they hold the majority, and the trifecta.  

Speaking of trifectas – the DFL’s is at least hobbled.  As this is written the MN House is tied at 67-67, with a few recounts underway.  I’m not sure what happens with a tied House – Lisa Demuth and Melissa Hortman arm-wrestle for the gavel?  I’m going with Lisa. 

Some good news – Anoka rejected municipal trash.  That is something worth celebrating.

The Piglet is over.

I got home after 2AM.  Posting may be light today.

Crystal K, charter MOB member, has a scathing review of life in Tim Walz’s Minnesota.

Read the whole thing .

There are too many pullquotes to run them all:

Our lives under Harris-Walz could be yours if we don’t vote to stop it.

The good news is that America has been in bad shape before and recovered. Minneapolis was dubbed “Murderapolis” in the 90s, but crime had come down significantly by the end of Republican Tim Pawlenty’s two terms as governor. The gas lines and exploding interest rates of the Carter years led to the Reagan recovery because people were sick of their plummeting standard of living and voted their way out of it.

We can do this. We too can vote our way out of this. We need to do it. My mom can’t work forever, and I will lose the home my husband and I worked so hard for if this doesn’t turn around. Our children, grandchilden and great-grandchildren deserve a future that’s much better than life is now. 

I hear there are about three persuadable people in the country right now. But since my family has lost three Republican men since the last presidential election, I’m hoping to persuade at least three people to vote Republican if they haven’t yet, or if they were planning to sit it out, please don’t. Hungry children and exhausted widows are depending on you. We could use some joy.

 

Fingers crossed.

Not that there’s a lot of doubt – the last Democrat I voted for was in 1996, and that was probably the only one since I voted for my mom in 1984.

But yeah, while Trump isn’t my favorite human on earth, and I wrote in Scott Walker in 2016 and held my nose voting for him in 2020, I’m voting for Trump and Republicans down the ticket for better reasons than usual this time.

1. Because May Lor Xiong, GOP candidate for CD4, actually shows up in the district.
2. Because violent crime, even after “dropping” since 2020, is still up by about a third over 2018.
3. Because there are better ways to reform a police department than gut it.
4. Because unlike earlier crime waves, this time the governments of Minneapolis and Saint Paul think the criminals have a point…
5. …and that you’ve kinda got it coming.
6. To spite everyone in “George Floyd Square”
7. And “Anti”-Fa
8. And the Minnespolis Go-Pro Bros.
9. And all the “pissed off women” trying to turn their emotional instability into a political weapon.
10. For families trying to make it as families in this messed up world .
11. To stick it to Deniece Specht and Randi Weingarten.
12. Because the DFL squandered $19 Billion in “surplus”, which they knew well was not really a surplus in the first place…
13. …and raised taxes 40%
14. Because Governor Piglet passively coddled the rioters in 2020. 
15. Because Gwen and Hope Walz actively supported them. 
16. Because Piglet excused the rioters depredations.
17. Because Ilhan Omar would be tickled pink if Hamas had managed to exterminate all the Jews. 
18. And to whiz on Betty McCollum. 
19. To support the Somali who broke with the DFL last weekend.
20. To show solidarity with the good Republicans of CD8, who over the past few years turned a solid Democrat district into solid Republican territory…
21. …and with the folks in CD7, who won’t send another Democrat to DC for generations.
22. And with the folks in CD1, who have been warning the rest of the nation about Governor Piglet with their votes since he left Congress (they voted for Johnson in 2018 and Jensen in 2022). 
23. Because while I am a forthright non-fan of Donald Trump, he will do much less damage to this nation’s constitutional fabric than Giggles and Piglet.
24. Because Tim Walz ran on “One Minnesota” – and promptly made it clear he was talking a about authoritarian, forced “unity”. 
25. Because Tim Walz lied about the science during Covid, and then covered it up.
26. Because Tim Walz had the worst record of any governor regarding long term care patients…
27. …and nobody dared hold him accountable.
28. Because Walz created a snitch line.
29. And because the DFL enacted a thought-crime database.
30. And the DFL passed a law that protects “attraction to minors” under the MN Human Rights Act. 
31. And while if you are a noncustodial parent who brings your child to Minnesota for a private education, the state will beat you like you owe it money, they will use the State Patrol and the Attorney General’s office to protect your spouse with Munchausens by Proxy, provided they steal your kid to bring them to Minnesota for “gender affirming care” – aka chemical and surgical neutering.
32. To end the “Trifecta”.
33. To make Tim Walz a lame duck, and give his successor – Flanagan?  Hortman? – an uphill road to getting the office.
34. To chastize the local media for letting Piglet skate for 20 years with no scrutiny whatsoever.
35. In the hope of draining the swamp.
36. To persuade all our vacuous, useless celebrities…
37. …and overwrought influencers, to actually follow through on moving to Canada (even though, shhh, Canada doesn’t want them).
38. To drop a Daisy-cutter in the Culture War.
39. Because a Trump victory will put the entire Star Tribune, KARE11, MPR and WCCO newsrooms on Paxil for the next year.  And I’ve got a bunch of Glaxo stock.  #WinWin!
40. Trump believes America is a land of opportunity, not a cesspool of inequity that targets the”outs”
41. I’m voting for Trump because he hasn’t called me a deplorable.
42. Or a bitter, gun-clinging Jeebus freak.
43. Or garbage.
44. Or a Fascist, or a Nazi.
45. And he doesn’t represent people who think men are, as a gender, superflous…
46. …or the enemy. 
47. To show modern academia who’s boss.
48. Because the Electoral College is a vital part of helping a nation full of people that don’t like each other much, actually function.
49. Because the threat of the filibuster helps filter out a lot of bad ideas – it’s what stands between us and being a cold Greece.
50. And because the Supreme Court needs to remain independent of Executive Branch control
51. Because Trump is a meritocrat, who favors rewarding innovation and entrepreneurship…
52. …and Democrats are the opposite of that, always. 
53. I’m voting for Peanut the squirrel.  Because he can’t…
54. …although if he lived in Chicago, Newark or Seven Corners, he probably could.
55. A Harris win will give DEI a new tank of gas.
56. To teach all of our “best and brightest” that they are responsible for their own “safe spaces”.
57. Because Piglet passed a universal gun registration program…
58. …and an “ex-spouse empowerment ” law…
59. …and supported a bill that would have confiscated 2/3 of all firearms in MInnesota in a generation. 
60. And Kamala Harris wants a forced buyback of AR15s…
61. …while condescendingly cooing “nobody’s coming for your guns”.  There are few things I hate more. 
62. For families – which Democrats are trying to subordinate to the state.
63. To stick it to Erin Maye Quade. 
64. While tariffs are a bad idea, Trump used them before to enforce good behavior among other nations. 
65. Because “America First” under Trump means looking out for our interests (not our “social purity”) first. 
66. Because I miss a foreign policy where dictators are afraid of us.
67. Because the border should mean something.
68. And so should citizenship.
69. To start the process of pushing progressives back down the route of their “long walk through the institutions”.
70. To throw a finger at the deep state.
71. To hopefully compel all those celebs and influencers who wannt to “move to Canada if Trump wins” to do it.
72. Because any step toward taking the Minnesota executive branch is a step closer to finding out the truth behind our electoral system.
73. Because under Trump’s first term, the world was a safer place.  The world’s tyrants were legitimately worried about that bump in the night, and showed it.  There’s a reason Putin, Hamas and Xi held their water from 2017-2021. 
74. And there’s a reason 2021 saw the collapse of Afghanistan, 2022 the invasion of Ukraine, and 2023 the invasion of Israel.
75. And there’s a reason Israel and Ukraine are ramping up their efforts now; they’ve been worried about a possible win by Giggles and Piglet.
76. To honor the solidiers of the 1/125 Field Artilllery, who went into the Sandbox without their Command Sergeant Major so Klink could run for Congress.
77. I’m voting against Giggles and PIglet because they think the road to peace in the Middle East is for Israel to let Hamas re-arm and try again. 
78. And because Trump got the Middle East to the brink of peace, and may just finish the job.
79. I’m voting Trump for a free Iran. . God willing.
80. I’m voting Trump so there’s at least a chance the five Americans being held hostage in Gaza right now to come, alive – or ever.
81. Wages grew way faster than inflation under Trump’s first term.  No – way faster.
82. Because Harris wants to replace Equality with Equity.
83. Because Harris wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on doling out political patronage to people the Democrats want to vote for them.
84. Because Harris is obsessed with Marxist-style class politics…
85. …and government spending to rectify the non-problem. 
86. Harris promotes a culture of supporting sustained weakness to enabling strength, economically, and in foreign policy terms.
87. Because Harris thinks she and Biden put in a good day’s work with the collapse in Afghanistan. 
88. For the 13 servicepeople killed at Bishops Gate….
89. …and all the Afghans who died trying to get out, and since then (thanks to SmithStCroix).
90. And all the Afghan women who got stuffed back into burquas afterward.
91. Because Harris wants to systematize the view that all imbalances are the result of discrimination.
92. Because the fact that the DNC thought Tim Walz would score votes among regular guys.
93. To spite “White Dudes for Harris” – the worst piece of patronization I can recall ever. 
94. And to mock “the Handmaid’s Tale” and everyone who refers to it. 
95. Because, whatever you think about the slogan, Trump does believe America is great…
96. …and will work on a policy level to keep it that way, and
97. Harris and Walz don’t, and won’t.
98. And that, right there, is all we should need to know. 
99. Because I want to make Orwell fiction again.
100. For my kids, who are trying to create a life in the big world…
101. …and my oldest granddaughter, who spent way too much time locked down in a state of artificial panic…
102. …and so her little sister never had to go through that again to benefit the DFL.
103. For everyone immigrant business person burned out during the riots…
104. …and every business smothered by Piglet’s idiot approach to Covid…
105. …and every cancer patient who died while Piglet locked down clinics…
106. …while opening bars and big box stores. 
107. …and every senior – every grandma and great-grandpa – who died, alone, their families barred by the police from visiting them in their final days.
108. And for my mother, whom I didn’t dare move to Minnesota after her husband died, leaving her in a memory care in North Dakota for six miserable month. 
109. For that alone, I need no more reason.  Fuck Tim Walz, and anyone who puts him on a ticket. 

Two stories emblematic of what tomorrow’s election means:

In New York City, a Marine veteran is on trial for murder for defending innocent bystanders against a man who was very blatantly threatening them:

The city has actively abjured enforcing public order; if you want to crap in public, mug or bully or terrrorize or attack people, close streets, run roughshod over the rights of others, the city could scarcely care less.

Misgender someone?  Exercise “bodily autonony” against Big Pharma? Own an unconventional pet?

Or try to protect innocent bystanders from the breakdown in order?

Suddenly they’re interested. Very, very interested.

There are many things at stake tomorrow. This is a big one.

Remember, when you go to the polls, that this is what our “elites” think the immigration crisis is about:

The borders they will enforce are all cultural.

And if you’re reading this blog, there is likely no trip to Martha’s Vinyard in your future.

New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi gets put on leave for having a “relationship” with RFJ Junior.

In the meantime, Lori Sturdevant, Rochelle Olson, Keri Miller and Esme Murphy have spent the decades (five of them in Sturdevant’s case) all-but-literally sending mash notes to three generations of DFL candidates – and bupkes.

Gotta confess, I didn’t see this coming:

But knowing some of the people involved, and even some recent history, perhaps I should have expected at least some Somali to take umbrage at the sense of entitlement the DFL feels re their votes.

Of course, I’d have to wonder if this endorsement happened after the vast majority of the local Somali population voted early.

Still – if the 5th CD and Minneapolis GOPs can keep this dynamic going – and I have confidence that they can – this could make the municipal elections next year a lot more interesting.

…were any needed, that nobody on the Harris/Walz campaign has ever actually met a straight adult male:

Because guys go to vote like they’re a bunch of girls at a bar going to the bathroom together.