Normal states: “[sighing, shaking heads]. OK, whatever, Minnesota. Are you done yet?”

Minnesota: “Oh, hell no. Texas, you better keep that ICE agent in custody during our extradition hearing!”

Texas: “Er, yeah. About that. The Supreme Court in “In Re Neagel…” says that while Federal law enforcement agents are doing federal law enforcement-y things, they are federal, not state, jurisdiction. So until the actual issues are resolved…”

Minnesota: “But…but…DUE PROCESS”

Normal states: “This IS due process”

Minnesota: “‘Due process’ means ‘we get what WE want!'”

Normie states: “That’s not what it means.”

Texas: “Also FU”

MN: “HEY!” 

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I haven’t talked – here, anyway – about last week’s primaries.  I’m a little astounded, to be honest – Minnesota Republicans defied Trump’s misguided endorsement and the misdirecting bleating of “Action 4 Liberty” and voted for Michele Tafoya for Senate and Lisa Demuth for Governor. 

Neither is a perfect conservative.  Either were the most conservative candidate who could win.  Not saying they will – although Peggy Flanagan is vulnerable, and an October surprise from the Feds would make the governor’s race interesting. 

But let’s talk about the opposition. 

Alycia Gruenhagen is running a write-in campaign against Tafoya, calling her “pro-choice”.  Which is technically true – she’s got the same stance as President Trump has, and as I recall Gruenhagen was a solid Trump supporter.   She’s one of a group of Minnesota Republicans who apparently believes that a vote is representation of one’s aspirations, not a way to push policy.   

I keep asking them this.  

Let’s say there’s a candidate – call them Candidate A – who favors abortion until birth and after.  She’s got 45% of the vote before the election. 

There’s a moderate – Candidate B – who would ban abortion after 12 weeks.  B has 40% locked up.  

There’s a hardliner, Candidate C, who would bulldoze Planned Parenthood and salt the earth.  C has 1% of the vote.  

If you are a pro-lifer, there are five options (since voting for “A” is presumably a no-go)

1. You can vote for B, reducing A’s lead.  If enough follow suit, B could win. 
2. You can vote for C, which doesn’t reduce As lead and making B’s path to victory one vote harder. 
3. You can write in someone else.  Again, doesn’t reduce A’s lead.  
4. You can abstain.  Same result. 

Any choice but #1 makes a pro-infantide victory more likely – in effect, making your pro-life vote a pro-choice vote.  

Ms. Gruenhagen seems to have blocked my comments on her website, so the logic must be an issue…

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

President Trump has instructed the Secretary of War to cut back on US participation in South Korean military exercises.

That’s the right move, akin to warning European nations they need to take over their own defense. We’ve been guaranteeing Europe with our military since 1940 and South Korea since 1950. Enough is enough, too much is plenty.

After all, the purpose of the American government is to secure the blessings of liberty for American citizens, not other people all around the world, says so right in the Constitution.  “America First” is the right reason for the order. 

But President Trump went on to explain that he has a great relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and is pissed that South Korea didn’t participate in US military action against Iran. Those are the wrong reasons. South Korea has no duty to aid our Iranian adventure.  And we should be offering peace, commerce, and honest friendship to all nations (at least to those not chanting “Death to America”), entangling alliances with none. 

Still, doing the right thing is doing the right thing, even if he’s doing it for the wrong reasons. Keep doing it.

Joe Doakes

 

I think the ROKs are likely able to take care of themselves these days. 

Unlike Europe . 

I have been crazy busy with my business (more later), so I haven’t been blogging nonstop about the primaries like I might have a few years back. 

But I’m about as excited as I allow myself to get, under the circumstances. 

I’ve got Republican friends who are upset that the GOP-endorsed candidates got pretty much ignored this time around.  After the convention, Walter Hudson had a great question:  what is the endorsement worth?  If it doesn’t come with advancing name recognition and funding in the primary, then to what exactly is one being loyal?

Anyway – let’s talk about the races:

Senate

I’ve got Republican friends who said Michele Tafoya was a non-starter because of her stance on abortion.  

These are also die-hard MAGA voters who want Trump to run for a third term.  

They have the same stance on abortion.   Identical. 

And neither Senator will vote on any abortion related issue – because Donbs three the issue back to the states.   The only abortion related vote that’s on the Senate’s docket is the hearings for whoever replaces Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas when they someday leave the bench.  Who would you rather have voting on that – the “imperfectly” conservative Tafoya or the DSA-adjacent Flanagan?

Choose wisely. 

And it’s nice to have a Senate who’s not “Dead Candidate Walking” right out of the gate for a change – remember Royce White, Kurt Bills and Mike McFadden?  No?   After a decade and a half of watching the top of the ticket drag the down-ballot races, it’s fun seeing a race where the top might just  have a shot at lifting the rest of the field.  

Governor

Is Lisa Demuth a perfect conservative?  No.   And as Speaker for two years with an evenly divided House and a DFL Senate and Governor, it’s a given that she’s got her name on some bad votes.  Divided government leads to horse-trading.  There’s a frightening share of MNGOPs that think yelling loudly about the purity of ones principles wins races and slashes DFL power. 

She wasn’t the most conservative candidate in the primary.  But I think she’s the most conservative who can win.  

Who was the last statewide elected GOP official?  Tim Pawlenty.  

The haters called him “RINO”.  

The rest of the state called him “Governor”. 

Remember that – having a GOP governor?   Able to veto bad laws and sign good ones, and use the bully pulpit for fiscal sanity/. When Minneapolis was a beacon and the streets were safe?

All the evidence available showed Mike Lindell would have dragged the ticket (even before his self-immolation on immigration).  And there’s a solid chance to flip the Senate, with 1-3 DFL seats feeling. pretty squishy (Kupec, Seeberger and especially Hauschild).  If we don’t lose a bunch of other seats because of yet another self-inflicted wound at the top of the ticket, we could flip the seat, take CD2 back, and be I a good position for the 2028 races with, hopefully, a presidential bump.  

Why would we want that, after all ?

Joe Doakes. no longer from Como Park, emails about the situation in Ceuta, the Spanish enclave on the coast of North Africa currently being deliberately swamped by military age Muslim migrants:

Learn the lesson of “Camp of the Saints.”  Sink the ships. Machine-gun the beaches. Or flee and surrender your country to the invaders.

 

Or – in the interest of an ounce of prevention being worth a belt of cure, stop giving the impression you’re open to getting stormed.  Trump set that bar in the right place – but God help the US if we get a DSA president in three years.  

In the Daily Wire world, I genuinely like Ben Shapiro.   I often enjoy Michael Knowles.  

But I tolerate Matt Walsh most days.   He has just enough flashes of brilliance to get me past the fact that he’s built an entire career on trolling people.   Which is generally the part I like – he does that part well.  

It’s just that occasionally he botches up the other part of the job – thinking and reasoning.  

Like this:

Has Walsh ever met a college athlete?  Especially a really good one?

Clark is a 24 year old woman who’s spent her entire life training to be, not a social crusader, but an athlete.   Part of that has been learning to go along and get along with the “mean girls” on her teams, in her middle school homeroom, wherever.   

She may need to be that crusader – or, more accurately, some may want or need her to be that crusader.  

But answer honestly – is there anything in what you’ve seen of Caitlin Clark so far that makes you think she has ever wanted to be anything but a basketball player?

Sophie Cunningham seems to have that gene.   Go with the horse that wants to run that race, Walsh.