Slip

October 29th, 2024 by Mitch Berg

As a good American of rural Scandinavian/Scottish descent, I’m rarely given to sharing optimism publicly.  It’s just not in the DNA.

And, as always, I’m a Trump skeptic. 

The race could still swing either way; there’s a week left for October Surprises (although have of them, mathematically, would be November surprises).

But over the weekend, the Real Clear Politics average finally showed Trump up in their polling average. 

The margin is well within the margin of error – like, in the margin of error’s upper GI tract.  But this is the first lead of any kind Trump has had in the RCP average since Harris’s “surge” after defenestrating the Potato.  And if it holds until Election Day, it’ll be the first time Trump has ever led the RCP average at election time – 2016, 2020 or this year. 

Now, I never bought the “Red Wave” hype in 2022, and I’m not getting on board any bandwagons this year either.  But I think two, maybe three, stories over the weekend got me thinking.

Lifeboats

VIrginia hasn’t gone Republican, IIRC, since the ’84 landlside.

But as Strommie points out, this isn’t your father’s VIrginia:

Harris is still up, but the change in momentum is pretty clear. If Harris is going to have to fight to defend Virginia, that could make for a very long election night for her, and a much shorter one for me.

Self-Inflicted

Over the weekend, NBC News started to rip off the bandaid – Arab-Americans in MIchigan are…not very warm to Harris:

[Michigan state represetnative Abanas] Farhat said the Democratic Party “has missed several key opportunities” to reassure Arab American voters concerned about Gaza. One glaring oversight, he said, is the ongoing decision to supply Israel with weapons for its military campaign in the enclave. He also points to how the Democratic National Convention did not allow a Palestinian American affected by the war to speak, despite giving a platform to the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a slain Israeli American who was abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.

“The time for listening — we’re beyond that now,” Farhat said. “We’re in a phase where constituencies like mine are demanding action in the form of policy change, not just rhetoric change, but in seeing a party that for years this community has been loyal to, standing up for them.”

It’d be reasonable to read the NBC piece and conclude that Harris could lose Michigan’s Arabs – and, possibly, Michigan itself – rather than Trump winning it.

But events over the weekend showed us it might not be quite that simple:

At the Suburban Collection Showplace, 46100 Grand River Ave., a group of Muslim imams from the Michigan Chapter of the Arab American Bar Association took the stage to endorse Trump, expressing their support for his stance on ending the wars in the Middle East.

“We as Muslims stand with President Trump because he promises peace not war,” one of the imams said. “We are supporting Donald Trump because he promised to end war in the Middle East and Ukraine.”

The imams voiced a shared desire for peace, emphasizing that their communities want to see an end to these wars. Joining them was the mayor of Dearborn Heights, Bill Bazzi, who also took the stage to endorse Trump.

I did not have that on my bingo card.  Speaking of candidate just losing states…

Worse

Remember 2016?  When Hillary only carried MInnesota by two points? 

The Conventional wisdom was not that Trump almost won, but that Hillary almost lost; that Hillary was an unlikeable, bad candidate.

So my question, amid the usual overheated rumors that Trump is contending in Minnesota – and I’ve asked this of a number of Republicans – is this:  is Harris a better candidate and more likeable, presidential candidate than Killary? 

 

If Voting In Minnesota

October 29th, 2024 by Mitch Berg

Do the world a favor and vote against Karl Procaccini:

A friend of the blog notes, for those with shorter and less-photographic memories:

He was the legal architect of the lockdown in MN. His appointment was payback for his ability to defend any bad judgment policy Walz had, constitution be damned. Hack. Don’t vote for him, don’t leave it blank, vote for his opponent.

He’s basically Tim Walz’s hired legal help.

It’ll take a miracle to affect a SCOM race – but if we don’t work for miracles, they never happen.

You Are Only Coming Through In Waves

October 29th, 2024 by Mitch Berg

As noted earlier, the polls look all right for Trump – far better, in fact, than in 2016 and 2020.

But there’s no way to know what’s baked into the “special sauce” in the polls. Did they overcorrect from their embarassing showing in 2016 and 2020? Did they over-overcorrect for 2022? There’s no way to know.

So let’s not get cocky:

I want to make sure readers understand that, given the closeness of this race, the unpredictability (and inevitability) of polling error, and the Electoral College geography, a Harris/Walz victory remains plausible. You are permitted here, for a moment, to luxuriate in the irony that minorities are now the “problem” for Democrats — increasingly detached from what progressives arrogantly assumed would be a permanent relationship of political patronage. But MAGA types should save the smugness for now, if for no other reason than that Harris’s victory, should it emerge, will be properly interpreted as a direct rebuke to them.

I early-voted yesterday – something I’d never have thought about four years ago.

It took an hour to get into the polling station.  This was in Roseville, MN – a very blue suburb. 

Beyond the presidency – flipping the MN House, and ending the ravages of the “Trifecta”, is also at stake.

Two years ago, I resisted the “Red Wave” hype – it never quite smelled right to me. 

This year?  “It’s Trump’s race to lose” is a little more plausible – and thus,  more dangerous.

Drag people to the polls, already.

 

One Week

October 29th, 2024 by Mitch Berg

The election is next week.

As I write this, Kamala Harris’s lead in the Real Clear Politics average has shrunk to under a point, while Trump’s lead in the seven battleground states that’ll likely decide the election is approaching a point. That’s all within the margin of error – but polls tend to undercount Trump, and he’s outperforming both his previous bouts.

So – after two years of chanting about Trump’s behavior after the 2020 election, will Democrats respect the decision if Harris loses?

So, yes, Trump will be elected as the 47th president of the United States, and the liberal talking heads will melt down just as they did in 2016. But what matters most is what happens after the election, and whether the experience of Americans will reflect renewed prosperity, a safer world, and respect for tradition and common sense. Many will try to prevent that, but making America great again should be a unifying goal. “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

I’m not sure the Democrats can let the nation have a peaceful, prosperous four years without repercussions.

Evil-Adjacent

October 28th, 2024 by Mitch Berg

I don’t need a lot of reasons not to vote for Kamala Harris next week.  I’ve documented many of them.

She’s vapid.

World leaders – the ones that aren’t really just French or British or German version of her, anyway (including the Cartel leaders, who are the de facto leaders of Mexico and are world leaders in a sense in their own right) – have contempt for her, and are clearly drooling at the things they’ll be able to get away with if the American people screw this up.

The policies she does support are disasters, for the economy, liberty and the American republic.

She’s not a lot better at assembling a coherent thought than Biden, or go offscript without screwing up than Trump.

And that’s enough.

But it ain’t everything.

She’s got a pretty tenuous grasp of right and wrong.

The LIttle Girl Who Cried “Hitler”

Out of useful ideas, the Giggles/Piglet camaign is resorting to perhaps the Dems’ most loathsome trope:   their opponents are “Nazis” and “Fascists”. 

I stay pretty relentlessly civil – but there is nothing more loathsome, in part because it trivializes one of the most evil ideologies in history to try to win votes from stupid people. 

For which she should rot. 

Then there’s the little matter of her own little problem with authoritarianism.

“My Authoritaaaaaaaaah”

Giggles clearly enjoys the perks – the power – of being in office.

And flexing that power – especially against those who can’t defend themselves against her:

Not that I needed more reasons.  But those are more reasons.

Never Forget

October 28th, 2024 by Mitch Berg

This was the DFL in 2023:

Just want to make sure people remember this for next Tuesday.

Stig Haul

October 28th, 2024 by Mitch Berg

SCENE:  Mitch BERG is glueing a board full of protruding tacks under the surface of a May Lor Xiong campaign sign, when Avery LIBRELLE rides up in an even weirder looking recumbent.

LIBRELLE:  Merg!

BERG: (Visibly stifling annoyance): Oh, hey, Av…

LIBRELLE:  Shut up.   “Trump held a rally in the same place where they held…”

BERG: “Several Democrat national conventions?”

LIBRELLE: “No, it was…”

BERG:  Several nights of the most recent Billy Joel tours?

LIBRELLE:  No, it was…

BERG:  Several Democrat national conventions, including both of Jimmy Carter’s nominations and Bill Clinton’s 1992 coronation?

LIBRELLE:   Knock it off!

BERG:  Led Zeppelin had a concert there.  They filmed it.  I think it was called…

LIBRELLE:  Don’t!

BERG:  “The Triumph Of The Will Remains The Same!”

LIBRELLE:  I hate you.

BERG: “The all-star 1979 ‘No Nukes’ concerts?”

LIBRELLE: “NO! It was…”

BERG: I got it!  Where former GOP presidential candidate Wendell Willkie led 20,000 African Americans in June, 1943 in the largest Civil Rights rally of its era, calling for equal rights and for victory against Hitler.

LIBRELLE : Seriously, stop it, or I’ll…

BERG: “The NYC stop on Beyonce’s 2023 tour?

LIBRELLE: “STOP IT!”

Rides away

And SCENE.

I Heard It On The NARN

October 26th, 2024 by Mitch Berg

Jen DeJournett is leading American Majority’s voter turnout effort. Find out more here.

Live in Bloomington? Vote “Yes” on the city question to repeal Ranked Choice voting. Find out more about Residents for a Better Bloomington and their push against RCV, in Bloomington and statewide.

And here’s today’s music list:

The Big Gotcha

October 25th, 2024 by Mitch Berg

Walter Hudson is a first-term representative from Albertville.  He’s been in the minority his entire legislative career – so has been able to have relatively little legislative impact.

And. yet the DFL is spending a lot of effort trying to sandbag him – clipping one of his speeches out of context (maybe more on that next week, and possibly on the show this weekend)…

…and this:

https://twitter.com/MinnesotaDFL/status/1849454171965026758

Let’s forget for a moment that this is the party whose leader, Tim Walz, had this to say about a clearly senescent Joe Biden…

https://twitter.com/StarTribune/status/1808661777795752057?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

…scant weeks before joining the team that defenestrated the POTATUS for being to senile to campaign (but not hold the nuclear football until late January).

Regular Guys

October 24th, 2024 by Mitch Berg

“Why do you shooters get so anal-retentive about details?”

Because when you get details wrong with a gun, people get hurt, go to jail, or both.

Lucas Kunce, a former Marine Jagoffosaur [1] and candidate for the US Senate against Josh Hawley, is reaching out to win over “Regular Guys”.

WIth him, he took Adam Kinzinger a bunch of union guys, and an entourage of reporters to the shooting range for some guy time. 

It’s fair to say Kunce spun the results for all he was worth:

https://twitter.com/LucasKunceMO/status/1848886246749184008

A richochet clipped one of the reporters.

Where did they screw up?

Let us count the ways:

  • Shooting at steel targets – at 10 yards.  That’s pretty much guaranteed to richochet.
  • Eye protection?  Kinzinger apparently wanted to protect his hairdo. 
  • Oh, yeah – they had a box of Tannerite on the firing line.  If that ricochet had hit that instead of the reporter, it would have made a bigger headline than a boom. 

Here’s hoping that reporter’s insurance company takes Kunce to court (I have little. hope he’d do it of his own volition).

So – how is that battle for blue-collar guys going?

[1] UPDATE:  I’m told the title is “JAG Officer”, short for Judge Advocate General Officer, or military lawyer. 

I regret the confusion.

We’re #1!

October 24th, 2024 by Mitch Berg

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

We’re Number 1!

Viewed from the bottom up, that is.   Or you might say, “dead last.”  Potato, potahto.

It’s talking about fiscal policy and, well…

A newly released analysis of fiscal policy ranked all 50 states with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ state coming in first and Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in last.

The libertarian Cato Institute released the report, which graded states by spending, revenue and taxes. The top ten states in the rankings starting at the top are Iowa, Nebraska, West Virginia, Arkansas, South Dakota, Montana, Hawaii, Georgia, Idaho, and Vermont…

In 2019, Walz’s budget would have added ‘$2 billion more in new spending and taxes would increase by $1.3 billion to pay for it, with the rest of the money coming from an existing surplus.’ But he compromised with the legislature, and the final tax increase was about $330 million annually. Walz also pushed for higher gas taxes and higher vehicle fees to raise about $1 billion annually for transportation, but those increases were rejected.

Walz pushed for more tax hikes in 2021. He proposed adding a new individual income tax rate of 10.85 percent above the current top rate of 9.85 percent, a surtax on capital gains and dividends, and a hike to the corporate tax rate from 9.8 percent to 11.25 percent. The proposals—which would have raised about $1.6 billion annually—were rejected by the legislature…

Walz hit the middle class with HF 2887, which raised taxes and fees on vehicles and transportation. The increases included indexing the gas tax for inflation, increasing vehicle registration taxes, raising fees on deliveries, and raising sales taxes in the Twin Cities area.

 

 

No choking in the finals in this contest…

One Day At DFL HQ

October 23rd, 2024 by Mitch Berg

SCENE: In a conference room at the MN DFL headquarters. Chair Ken Martin is sitting along one side of the table with Gretel STROMBERG and Inge “Lucky” CARROLL, the executive director and chief social media meme-buffer at “Minnesotans United for All Conservative Causes”, the state’s primary non-profit political action committee that is no way, no how connected with the DFL, you racist pig. Across the table sits Chad MANBUNFRONDSON, upper midwest outreach director for the Harris/Walz campaign.

MANBUNFRONDSON: So here’s the new ad we’re thinking to get out the vote in Minnesota.

(Clicks remote.  Ad flickers onto the screen)

https://twitter.com/KamalaHQ/status/1845531301958369452

(MARTIN, CARROLL and STROMBERG look at each other.  The silence is a little awkward).

MARTIN (finally):  It’s pure genius!

(CARROLL and STROMBERG applaud politely in the background)

MANBUNFRONDSON:  We just figured that after seeing her husband’s performance during Covid, where treating the state like a bunch of addled infants for 19 months got him re-elected, that we literally couldn’t go broke betting on the stupidity of MInnesotans.

STROMBERG and CARROLL (simultaneously):  You got that right.

MANBUNFRONDSON:  So, presuming the media vetted the Governor and his wife sufficiently…

(MARTIN, CARROLL and STROMBERG look awkwardly at each other. before bursting out laughing.  MANBUNFRONSON, late to the joke, joins them). 

MANBUNFRONSON:  (Catching is breath) Yeah, I know.  No matter how often I come here, I still can’t get used to this place. 

MARTIN (Summoning a butler with a clap of his hands):  Let’s celebrate!

And SCENE

To Everyone Voting Harris To “Save Democracy”

October 23rd, 2024 by Mitch Berg

And People can vote for whoever they want to. It’s still a fairly free country.

But I’ve had a few people in my circle say they’re voting for Harris and Walz to “save democracy”.

When I read that ,I try to grasp how much one must ignore – willfully or not – to believe that Harris and Walz [2] support the American republican (small-r) system of popular, federalist government.

How do I count the ways?

1. Harris wants to abolish the Filibuster.

So what, you say? The filibuster gets in the way of “Getting things done?”

That’s the point. Most of what makes America great is that unless there is *overwhelming* agreement about something, it’s either going to get watered down, or just go away.

And that’s a good thing – a 50%+1 vote majority can’t jam everything it wants down on the other 49%. Both sides are *accountable*, and both sides *matter*.

WIthout the filibuster, the US will turn into France or Greece – with policies seesawing back and forth with changes in power.

Getting rid of the filibuster destroys a key pillar of trying to run a country where people don’t necessarily always agree with, or even like, each other.

What do you suppose that gets replaced with?

2. Harris supports gutting the First Amendment.

Harris supports (and gained power in part via) big tech censoring dissent. She’s cozy with Big Tech, and she wants that to count:

Democrats across administrations keep floating the idea of having a cabinet-level “disinformation czar” – which is another way of saying “someone who make sure all the news fits the official narrative”:

Governor Walz, for his part, ran a snitch line, and signed into law a “thoughtime database”. There is no way for a citizen to get *into* the database or find out what’s in it.

It’s not just Harris, and it isn’t just statements from 2019:

It’s not just conservatives raising the alarm:

And let’s not forget that Big Media is very, very on board with putting the finger on the scales to get the results they want:

Which is, literally, a promise to disinform the public.

If a Republican had done anything of the sort, Democrats would be screaming about the “chilling effect on dissent and democracy” that is.

*And they’d be right*.

3. Harris supports gutting the 2nd and 4th Amendments.

Since you’ll ask – the 1st and 2nd Amendments *are* litmus tests to me. How someone treats your right to speak, your freedom of conscience, to organize, and to protect your life, family, property, community and freedom, tells you a lot about how they’d treat other civil rights.

And in this particular quote, Harris showed that she’s perfectly fine trashing the 4th Amendment right to privacy with it:

4. Harris wants to gut the separation of powers

My whole life, the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has been left-of-center or (from about 2000 to 2017) pretty much deadlocked. Democrats were fine with that – “elections have consequences”. So we conservatives got some good SCOTUS appointments – and the Democrats are going crazy:

https://kamalaharris.com/issues/

“[Harris] will also support common-sense Supreme Court reforms—like requiring Justices to comply with ethics rules that other federal judges are bound by and imposing term limits—to address the crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court.”

And who’s going to enforce those rules and limits?

The executive branch.

The Supreme Court, which is supposed to check and balance the power of the Executive and Legislative branches, will become subordinate to the President; the executive branch will be able to yank the leash of any justice that displeases them.

If you don’t think that’s a direct attack on how “democracy” is run, I’d love to hear how.

As far as packing the court goes – do you really need to explain the effect this will have on respect for the institution?

5. Harris and Democrats are open to abolishing the Electoral College.

The Electoral College (EC), along with the structure of the Senate, was part of the agreement that smaller states – Delaware, Rhode Island, Vermont – made with the bigger ones (Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York) to ensure that American “democracy” wouldn’t turn into the equivalent of “two foxes and a chicken voting on what’s for breakfast”.

Without the EC, the President will always be decided by California, New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas and maybe Ohio. There will be no need for Presidential candidates to even show up outside those states.

And it’d violate the contract by which the smaller states agreed to share power with the Federal Government. And what happens when you violate a contract? [3]

6. And all of that is just about “protecting democracy itself”.

It doesn’t get into the many other reasons I could never support Harris or Walz.

They support:

trashing the free market:

– Open borders.

– A foreign policy that *enables and encourages* the likes of Xi, Putin and the Mullahs. Diplomacy only works if it’s combined with the sense that there’s a nasty surprise behind it. Harris – the “last person in the room” – has been involved in more Biden administration fiascoes than any human should be allowed to; the Afghan collapse, Ukraine (Biden publicly told Putin he could invade *just a little* [4]), and the conflagration in the MIddle East (hint: saying “Israel has a right to exist, BUT they need to give Hamas and Hezb’allah a cease fire so they can re-arm, reorganize and try to exterminate Jews again later is *not* a coherent policy).

(Trump, for all his flaws, brought more progress than the Middle East has seen since 1978. Harris and Biden are benefitting, btw, from that – the fact that the Saudis, Egyptians and Jordan aren’t joining in with Iran against the Israelis is something kind of new.)

And for all the palaver about Trump “disrespecting” NATO, it served its purpose – starting NATO on the path toward becoming a serious defensive military alliance, rather than yet another bureaucratic salon.

Look, Trump is far from perfect – I didn’t vote for him in 2016, and I remain a Trump skeptic on many levels. I can’t stand his personality cult (or any personality cult in politics).

But January 6 was a riot, and even the FBI has cleared Trump of any substantial involvement. His statements about the 2020 election were way out of line…

…BUT even if Trump *was* trying to undercut democracy, our federalist system *did its job*, exactly as designed. In the grand scheme of things, nothing Trump did (or was alleged to have done) affected the handover of power, or the functioning of our institutions.

But the things Harris is proposing [5]? They WOULD change how our democracy works. Very much for the worse. They are a bigger threat to American self-government than anything Trump did, and certainly more than anything he’s *seriously(* proposed doing [6].

Joy doesn’t keep the world safe. Brat vibes don’t put food on the table. The American federalist system is stronger than mean tweets.

So I’m voting for Trump – *to protect our democracy”.

(PS – I’m a relentlessly civil guy. But responding with one of those passive-aggressive “laugh” emojis is going to get you called out).

[1] But everyone else is doing it, so sue me. Not literally, of course. It’s still a free-ish country – Walz’s “thoughtcrime” database notwithstanding.

[2] When I say “Harris” or “Walz”, I’m also including plenty of prominent Democrats who are likely to be influential in any administration they run.

[3] “Haha, Merg. That was settled in 1865!”. Well, no. It was settled in 1776.

[4] The “Just the tip” of diplomacy – and as we’ve seen this past two years, it’s worked about as well on the world stage as it did after prom.

[5] Saying “That was 2019! She’s changed!” ain’t gonna cut it. She herself says “My principles haven’t changed”. And if you’re holding things Trump said in 2006, in completely different contexts, against him, we need to have a word about this.

[6] And if you come back and say “he SAID he wants to be a dictator on day one!”, that was yet another dishonest edit. He’s going to roll back a slew of Biden executive orders, and reinstate a few of his own – all legitimate Presidential duties. Getcher shinebox.

 

Attention, America

October 23rd, 2024 by Mitch Berg

Looking for a good review of Tim Walz’s reign?

Look no further than Minnesota.

Seen on the roof of the Governor’s mansion:

I call that a PhD-level troll.

Staged!

October 23rd, 2024 by Mitch Berg

SCENE:  Mitch BERG is walking to a GOP fundraiser in one of the Twin Cities.  He walks around a corner and almost slams into a distracted Avery LIBRELLE.

BERG:  Er, excuse me…oh, hi, Aver…

LIBRELLE: Shut up Merg.  Drumpf did a completely fake staged appearance at that McDonalds!

BERG:  Huh.  A politician doing a staged, fake appearance for purely political reasons?

LIBRELLE:  Yes and…hey, the world is going cloudy.  What’s up?

BERG:  It’s called a flashback.

LIBRELLE: Ooooh….Weird.

AOC pretending to be in handcuffs.

LIBRELLE: It’s making me dizzy.

BERG:  Uh, I don’t think that’s what’s doing it.  Anyway, just a couple more.

BERG: So you were saying…

(But LIBRELLLE appears to have passed out).

BERG:  Huh.

And SCENE.

The Proverbial Trunk Full Of Ballots

October 22nd, 2024 by Mitch Berg

Over the weekend, a courier hauling boxes of ballots was observed leaving his trunk open for about ten minutes as he ran another errand.

The driver got fired – but the story hasn’t quite gone away yet.

Secretary of State Simon rained down his anger…

…on the courier.

But it turns out, the bonehead was anyone who believed Steve Simon when he said Minnesota had the bestest, mostest sucurest election system in the universe.

This is a violation of the law that Simon is supposed to enforce:

So I don’t know about you, but I get the impression that there’s more than one “bonehead” involved. 

Road Nowhere Near Taken

October 22nd, 2024 by Mitch Berg

I met Cenk Uyghur – host of “Young Turds” – once upon a time. 

Now, I’m a pretty polite guy.  And I had bigger things going on than having to waste time on the guy. 

So even though my first impression of the guy was pretty awful, it never occurred to me to uncork on him quite like this:

 

Fair. And accurate.

But I’m glad Hassan did.

UPDATE:  I’m told his show is called “Young Turks”.  I regret the error. 

FROM THE. HISTORY FILE: This clip from Election Night 2016 will never not make me smile:

It Shouldn’t Surprise Me…

October 22nd, 2024 by Mitch Berg

…that Democrats are illiterate about history that’s less than a quarter of a century old.

But they keep doing it:

Forget for a moment that this episode occurred on the orders of Bill Clinton’s disastrous Attorney General, to placate Fidel Castro (who is no way no how Justin Trudeau’s father). 

It’s also crap; employer ID verification backed with police enforcement will do the vast majority of the deporting, as people head back south of the border to avoid trouble.

Just like they did after 2017.

(This could, one day, be a Minnesota Highway Patrolman grabbing a kid whose custodial mom wants to trans him, from his father…)

“We Own This City”

October 21st, 2024 by Mitch Berg

For a while, after winning complete lopsided electoral sweeps in Minneapolis or Saint Paul, the DFL victory parties would break out into chanting the line in the title.

Ownership has its privileges, as they way – but local DFLers sure seem to be squiggling away from any responsibility for that ownership.

A friend of the blog emails:

It was a town hall meeting to talk about the mess that is the Hamline Midway Neighborhood. The question was what is the city doing with Snelling University. The corner is so trashy, there is litter everywhere. 

Our council member for the area, Mitra Jalali, proposes that the priority is trees and bicycle lanes.

She says it’s either that or a place for people to park their cars.

I mean, I suppose if we eventually get rid of all of the residents and businesses in the area, then no people will be there, thereby eliminating litter.

But, I have to believe, looking towards the thriving areas of St Louis Park’s West End or the shopping area in Eagan that Jalali is probably prioritizing the wrong thing.

All of Melo’s reporting of quotes on X from that meeting are pretty entertaining as the elected people try to dodge any responsibility for where we are today in St Paul. 

 

https://twitter.com/FrederickMelo/status/1847060735181902197
This tweet is one from a rather large thread on the meeting. Worth a read.

Thats right, Councilwoman Jalali – it’s the design of the streets.

I’m adding emphasis to this next bit:

Worth looking at- Sandy Pappas saying she actually rides Green Line (but was getting a ride home from husband after the meeting). Leigh Finke saying that millions of dollars were given to DNR for trees and “they spent it in outstate which didn’t need it” so this year, gave “even more money” to Met Council “who has to spend it in the metro area.” 

Yup, our problems are not enough trees …

 

 

 

 

Until the city gets serious about crime, drug-dealing, vagrancy and vandalism – all of which are epidemic at Snelling and University – the new trees would just serve as canvasas for taggers.

Sort of like that freaking Loon at the southwest corner of the intersection. 

More on that later this week

Things On Your Bingo Card For 2024

October 21st, 2024 by Mitch Berg

Why, yes – this was on mine!

When a hurricane like Helene or Milton ravages coastal communities, already-strained first responders face a novel, and growing, threat: the lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles, e-bikes, and countless gadgets. When exposed to the salty water of a storm surge, they are at risk of bursting into flames — and taking an entire house with them.

“Anything that’s lithium-ion and exposed to salt water can have an issue,” said Bill Morelli, the fire chief in Seminole, Florida, and the bigger the battery, the greater the threat. That’s what makes EVs especially hazardous. “[The problem] has expanded as they continue to be more and more popular….”

“…“They burn hot, they burn fast, and they’re hard to extinguish,” Morelli said.

 

Can’t wait until someone does a comparative study about how EVs and gas cars compare when stranded in blizzards.

WUPHs: It’s Not Just Minneapolis

October 18th, 2024 by Mitch Berg

In 2015, I spent some time in Detroit on a business trip.

And even then, before Covid, downtown Detroit felt…vibrant.  Fun.  There was stuff going on in the evening.   There were places to go, things to do, people around and about. 

Companies were paying people good money to buy or rent downtown and walk to work. 

Things felt pretty decent…

…in about a square mile downtown. [1]

Go outside that square mile or two and it became…well, Detroit.

But I come not to praise Detroit, but to bury WUPHs – White Urban Progressive Homers, people who tie their identities so close to their cities that it squeezes out all humor, and all thought itself.

It’s not smack. It’s actual journalism, when referring to the ravages of two generations of non-stop corrupt Democrat governance on a city.

Like Detroit.

Or, if things keep going as they are, Minneapolis.

[1] I have no idea how Covid might have affected that state of affairs, but I’m not optimistic.

Angie Craig: MODERATE! MODERATE! MODERATE!

October 17th, 2024 by Mitch Berg

Remember Angie Craig?

Every two years she dusts off the ads with her four-wheeling around the back roads of her district, hanging out with the good ol’ boys in LeSeuer County, trying to appear “moderate”. 

Remember Yusuf Haji? 

Probably not.  He’s running for Dakota County Commission. 

Seems pretty innocent, right?

Turns out Haji’s got friends in low – and left-wing – places:

Turns out, not so much.

Haji is affiliated with “Our Revolution Twin Cities” – a group that wants to defund the police, among a dog’s breakfast of other bad ideas. Here’s an X thread with more on ORTC.

MInd you, this is in the same community that just had two cops and a firefighter killed by someone who would have been in jail but for the DFL’s other dilution of the criminal justice system.

Thing is, this area – the DakCo Commission, the various House districts (Gabriela Kroetsch is a strong GOP challenger in HD55A), and of course Angie Craig is vulnerable enough that this district is considered a plausibly contested race. 

So if you live in the south burbs, don’t be fooled.  Haji is a Moriarty – and Angie Craig is sucking up to the radical fringe that is no longer a fringe in this metro.

Debacle

October 17th, 2024 by Mitch Berg

Video smuggled out of Kamala Harris HQ after the Fox interview last night:

This should help affect the votes of the four undecided voters out there.

These outtakes give you a pretty fair idea how the interview went:

https://twitter.com/AngelWest/status/1846883611070681399

A little more seriously? I didn’t get fooled by the “Red Wave” hype two years ago – I’m never quite that optimistic – but there’s a difference in the air these days:

Trump could still lose this – it’s not that hard to picture. 

But I’m looking forward to the election night broadcast, if only to see how all these horse races turn out.

UPDATE: Judge for yourself:

Never Forget

October 17th, 2024 by Mitch Berg

Say what you will about abortion – but as we get close to the elections, let’s remember the “debate” that the DFL jammed down in the ’23 session.

https://twitter.com/WalterHudson/status/1617361583432421377

I actually wrote this post during the last session – one of those “let’s make sure it doesn’t go down the memory hole” things. 

And while the DFL sure seems proud of what they did, they get quiet about it when talking with audiences outside Minnesota, now that the Piglet is running for Veep.

WUPH

October 16th, 2024 by Mitch Berg

JD Vance’s visit to the Third Precinct brought out, if not the worst of the plagues facing today’s Minnesota, at least the most comical: the WUPH. 

The White Urban Progressive Homer.   Generally a 20-30-something male, employed in the non-profit, public or academic sector, part of the laptop class, single, socially mobile, mostly self-focused. 

And they seem to obsess relentlessly about the zipcode they live in – or at least parts of it:

Because to a WUPH, “business” means “something they pay money to that supports their lifestyle”: restaurants, bars, coffee shops, bookstores…

…which are, let’s be honest, things I also love about living in the city.  

But being a WUPH isn’t so much about the zip code you live in as it is about the zip codes you don’t live in:

Because behind every “All Are Welcome Here” sign is a person who really doesn’t like people who aren’t like them:

I mean, I get it – Minneapolis is a beautiful place…

Here’s a lake thats been here since before there were humans in Minnesota. Therefore everything in Minneapolis is fine. Go about your business, peasant!

…and has cool stuff to do if you have money and don’t mind (or mock any observation of) some of the risks of modern Minneapolis. I mean, I fell in love with the place once upon a time, enough to uproot my whole life and move there.

You know how they say the worst, most arrogant condescending New Yorkers are the ones that were born in Albany? 

A get a little of that vibe from the WUPH – people who seem to think a place’s natural beauty and social amenities impart worth on people who live there is…

Which, to my New York example, is about as parochial as the Lutheran church gossips in the basements of the churches in Woodbury and Forest lake that I suspect so many WUPHs originally come from in the first place. 

 

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