Are Brzezinsky and Scarborough trying to save their jobs?

Or are they trying to belatedly act like “journalists?”

It’s a coin toss as far as I can tell. 

But one things’ for sure – while good deeds might not go unpunished, failing to “denormalize” the “Literal Hitler” certainly won’t:

(Side question: Why is it that everyone who comes to leftist punditry after a career of yapping about grown men chasing balls around fields and courts inevitably such an idiot?)

But there are some – what do I say – “leaks” on the left:

But their purity police never sleep.

Watching today’s Left self-immolate is the perfect Christmas gift

To:  Brian Stelter, CNN
From:  MItch Berg, obstreporous peasant
Re:   Brendan Carr

Mr. Stelter,

You tweeted this about Brendan Carr, President-Elect Trump’s pick to head the FCC:

Just curious – what is it you think Carr is wrong about?

That is all.

…is that not only can you “appropriate” an indigenous culture to your rhetorical ends,  you can agglomerate indigenous cultures together into whatever custom mix you want to make whatever “point” you please.

For example, the term “Latinx”, which purports to consolidate widely disparate cultures (Puerto Rico has little in common with Central America, and less with Argentina and Chile).

Another example:  Er…

…this:

Perhaps the Maori of New Zealand might want to do something to nip this in the bud before white progressive women drag their culture over the shark with them?

Why are Democrats pushing so hard to bring Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia into the union as states?

The answer will become pretty clear in 2032.  People are voting red with their feet.  And Congress and the Electoral College are going to change. 

Texas and Florida appear likely to gain two seats apiece.  The Carolinas, Georgia, Arizona, Utah and Idaho are all contenders for another vote apiece. 

In the meantime, New York and California appear likely to lose 1-2 seats apiece.  Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and West Virginia all appear to be contenders to lose seats.  

A swing of as many as (checking my math) nine electoral votes (and House Seats) from the Democrats to the GOP appears likely. 

The population of Puerto Rico has about the same as Utah, which has six electoral votes (presuming an honest census – which I do not, but for sake of this argument let’s say it is for bow).  DC?  Yep – three electoral votes.  

Kinda explains it all, doesn’t it?

Progressives – in this case, a guy who was telling us Joe Biden was stronger and more with it than Chuck Norris in his prime until two hours before Giggle defenestrated him – are not cool with RFK Junior running the DHHS:

So – RFK Jr. is driving his uncle’s car off the bridge and leaving the NIH and Medicaid to drown slowly?

I can’t be the only one to think that, can I?

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

Biden administration undercounting murders, revising history, setting the stage for a “murder surge” when Trump takes office and murders are honestly reported.

Joe Doakes

 

Let’s not think for a moment that Big Left is giving up after the November 5 landslide.

Governor Walz on Twitter, over the weekend:

Lt. Governor Flanagan, who uses her Native heritage like Walz uses plaid shirts:

That might explain them missing this bit of news:

The shift is striking because a Brookings Institution analysis published after the 2022 midterm elections found Native Americans still “solidly Democratic in their voting preferences.” Looking at data from an African American Research Collaborative poll with a nationally representative sample of Native American voters, the Brookings authors noted that in “House races across the country, Native Americans supported Democratic candidates at 56% relative to 40% of Native Americans who reported voting for Republicans.”

Seventeen counties with majority-Native American populations swung toward President-elect Donald Trump by ten or more percentage points. Just as with black and Hispanic voters, Native Americans had concerns that extended beyond the identity politics and left-wing virtue signaling of Democrats and the Kamala Harris campaign. Nationally, a whopping 65 percent of Native American voters went for Trump.

Apparently “stolen land declarations” aren’t as important as a decent economy and, perhaps, taming of the federal bureaucracy that’s sandbagged so much of Native American society.

Either way, I suspect if any more elections go like this, Prog politicians will stop “celebrating” Native American month, and you’ll start to see Sunny Hostin calling them “Native White Supremacists”.

To:  “Prez”, Dim Little Progressive Social Media Bulb
From:  Mitch Berg, obstreporous peasant who passed Econ 201
Re:  Not The “Own” You Think It Is

“Prez”,

Re your sentiment expressed over the weekend:

I mean, saving more money is good for you – might make you a conservative, eventually, actually.  

And unless you save that money in a coffee can in your closet, it’ll go to a bank, which’ll circulate the money around, further helping those who are participating in the economy to grow things. 

Not sure that’s quite the “own” you think it is. 

Even less so than dumping Twitter to join “BlueSky”, really.

That is all.

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.