Unpopular but correct opinion: Somalis are no different than any other 1st/2nd gen immigrants; some are criminals; most aren’t.

What does ALL the fraud have in common?

The DFL. The non-profit system. And Walz’s “inability” (heh heh) to control it.

You can say the circumstances under which Somalis were brought here – a Clinton-era State Dept. program that gave money to non-profits to settle them here, to benefit the DFL – were a little suspicious. You might have a point.

So – what does that lead us to?

The non-profit/government complex – the system that transfers taxpayer money to non-profits to do pseudo-government-y things, only without any accountability.

“Without any accountability? What do you mean?”

We’re at a billion dollars in fraud * so far*, and sources tell me there’s an even bigger wave on the way; we’re STILL just scratching the surface.

Seeing a pattern?

By the way, while there are a lot of immigrants – the illegal ones – that we need to deal with, people with TPS[1] aren’t them; they are already closely monitored. Somali with TPS – there are 200 of them in Minnesota – aren’t the problem.

I interviewed a counterterrorism expert once; he said 15% of Somali have *some* sympathy with terrorists, almost all of it passive. And that we learn about them from the *other* 85% who want nothing to do with that.

So if you want to knock out this state’s fraud problem, let’s go after the real villain; the non-profit/government complex, and the people who have *at best* mismanaged it, and at worst created it.

[1] Not to me confused with Somali creating TPS reports…

How open is the state’s ruinous new “family leave” law to Minnesota businesses?

The Legislature has barely begun to count the ways.  

Representative Marion Rarick is counting:

There is literally nothing preventing an entire extended family from chucking daily life on the company dime for six months – on the honor system.   

I know businesses that have already left Minnesota due to this provision.  

Why, it’s almost as if putting a bunch of Sandy Feists and Andy Smiths into a room with unlimited authority was a terrible idea.  

I saw this graph over the weekend – and it’s gotten me thinking.

It shows how children in Finland during the Finnish Civil War who became communists and socialists tended to see themselves as, or be, less successful than their fathers, both in occupational and educational terms. In this data set, the pattern became clearer the higher up the educational and occupational scales one went.

Having observed a lot of socialists and other dyspeptic leftists in my time, I don’t think the pattern has changed much in the past 100 years (see:  Woody Kane). 

Here’s the problem. 

“Gen Z” sees itself, statistically, as uniquely burdened by economics, frequently seeing that as the “legacy” of previous generations leaving them nothing.   

And this particular failure has many fathers; yes, the educational system that taught them to embrace victimhood; their Millennial siblings and aunts and uncles who set the example of building identities around one’s maladies.  And, to be honest, yes – an economy that is currently top-loaded with workers from a couple of very large generations, and a list of other confounding factors – tax rates, zoning laws, the advances in technology that are disrupting traditional job markets – that give the Zoomers some difficulties of their own.  

So – does the “socialist loser son” metaphor apply to an entire generation?

That’s going to take some un-doing.  

Something most Democrat have a hard time comprehending:  healthcare tracked the regular consumer price index until about fifty years ago…

…when government stepped in to “make healthcare more affordable”.  Which worked about as well as it did with education, retirement, housing and every other thing government subsidizes.  

The invincible ignorance is a little vexing:

Of course, smart people know that high risk plans aren’t “uninsured” – they’re plans for people at high risk, which may optionally be subsidized. They made a lot of sense, especially when young, healthy people could balance out the system by buying the “catastrophic” care (aka “low risk”) plans, which were super cheap and covered accidents and devastating illnesses and not much else, and most of us of a certain age had when we were in our 20s, if we had insurance.

Say this to a DFLer, and all they hear is a buzzing noise in the background. 

How to explain economics to a DFLer? 

I asked myself – what is the only kind of business a DFLer understands?

Coffee shops.  

The vast majority of DFLers who list themselves as “small business owners”, own coffee shops. When DFL politicians go into the community to meet “small business”, those businesses are coffee shops 99% of the time.  

So – how to explain risk pools to someone whose only economic frame of reference is the coffee shop?

Maybe something like this:

DFLer:   Healthcare its broken.  

Normie:  So let’s say you know someone whose caffeine addiction is so intense that Starbucks or Caribou don’t cut it anymore?

DFLer:  Send them to Dunn Brothers!

Normie:  Why?

DFLer:  Because they might need a higher-caffeine content blend to get the jolt they need.  

Normie:  Even if it costs more?

DFLer:  Sure, but there’s ways to make up the difference.  And if they need coffee, it’s worth it.  

Normie:  So…why would you not just require everyone to pay Dunn Brothers prices so everyone gets the same caffeine?

DFLer:  That’s just crazy.  You’re caffeine-ily illiterate.  

Hmm. 

It’s just crazy enough to try.  

Joe Doakes, ex-Como Parker, emails:

Had the in-laws over for dinner. Things were going fine until my brother-in-law had to tell me all about Trump remodeling the Lincoln bathroom, how excessive it is. Not the East Wing ballroom, a different project that I had never heard of. 

Trump really does live rent-free in Liberals’ heads. Wonder if it’s lonesome in there, wandering around in all that empty space?

Joe Doakes 

 

Oh, empty is one thing it’s not.   Lots and lots of ’em wandering around in that space.  

My question:  what will they replace it with in 2029?

I suspect we all know the answer to that.  

Joe Doakes, once of Como Park, emails:

New York City Mayor Mamdani: Free Day Care for All!

Minneapolis Somalis: One-Way Ticket to New York, Please.

Joe Doakes

 

I suspect a few unindicted fraudsters are dusting off their resumes.  

So I’ll admit it – I gave Mayor Frey about a 51% chance of beating Omar Fateh last week.   

But I figured that if Frey did win, the results would look a lot like the 2021 “Defund the Police” initiative vote; 

• Progressives, especially feckless young white ones, voting for the radical change
• People who had something to lose from that radical change – people in North Minneapolis who already live with crime, and people in Linden Hills and west of the Lakes with something to lose – would vote against. 

And lo and behold:

The blue precincts went Fateh; the tan (?) ones, Frey.

And who’d thunk it – Fateh took the urban-life theme parks like Marcy Holmes and Northeast below Broadway, and the toffs in Kenwood, and the wannabe starving artists in Whittier.  

The North?  Linden Hills and Nokomis?  West of the Lakes?  All Frey.  Even Longfellow thought Fateh was a radical too far.  

Color me amazed.   

Perhaps mores – the defeat of Katie Cashman leaves the DSA unable to override the mayor’s veto for the first time in years.    That’s gotta smart.  

After their debacle in 2021, the DSA said they’d be back in force for 2025.  They weren’t gonna let that happen again.  

And yet here we are.  

I’m sure they’ll be back again.  The next election is always the crucial one.  

But if this was indeed the perigee for leftism in Minneapolis (and I remain to be convinced), and the city is going to have to deal with slow decay rather than flaming implosion – well, that’s a slightly better grade of crisis, isn’t it? 

Democrats: “Hahaha!   Mamdani is mayor and New York hasn’t collapsed yet!”

Normies:  “Well, he doesn’t actually get inaugurated for another 7-8 weeks…”

I’m going to start a pool for when Mamdan and his underbosses…er, staffers start complaining that Trump is behind the Mayor’s increasingly obvious failures.   Give him a three month honeymoon and some time for reality to sink in.

I say June 15.  

Other bets?

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

The media will try to spin the elections as a devastating loss for Republicans and repudiation of Trump.

Virginia has reliably voted for Democrats for years. New York City, the same.  That’s not a change, it’s business as usual. The real surprise would be if traditionally Republican districts flipped Democrat. 

Which could happen next time if Republicans keep kicking people out of the big tent because they are not ideologically pure enough.   That tactic might be morally satisfying but it doesn’t win elections … just ask the Libertarians.

Joe Doakes

 

 

 

Yep.  Virginia was “dog bites man”.  NYC was more like “dog licks dog” – the inevitable collapse of a far left society moving into overdrive.  

The fact that Jack Ciatarelli made it a fight in New Jersey, again, is a sign that there’s hope.  

And I never thought I’d say it, but did not expect Jacob Frey to beat out Fateh.  I suspect it means that the same crowd that turned out to reject the “Defund” initiative four years ago is still not amused by the DSA’s antics.   I’m going to need to look at the city’s results, but I’m going to go out on a short sturdy limb and guess that the same areas that bludgeoned the “defund”ers – the North Side, Phillips and the like – came out for Frey, while the white prog areas like Powderhorn and Whitter were all Fateh.  

How about Linden Hills and Kenwood?

I’ll follow up on this.  

Democrats, 2023: “Wow, Marjorie Taylor Greene is a stupid bimbo!”. 

2025: MTG joins the crowd trying to seize control of “MAGA”. 

Democrats, today: “It’s time to take a second look at the wise, stateswomanly MTG”. 

(Aside: Tucker Carlson, Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes are all also vying for control fhte right). 

Democrats, 2026, probably: “It’s time for us to take a second look at Tucker Carlson, Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes. They are “the good right wingers””.

This is, by the way, the Boehner Inversion to the Reagan Corollary to Bert’s 11th Law in action.