Joe Doakes, formerly from Como Park, emails:

The most common rejoinder to my concern the 2020 election was stolen is: “It’s not possible.  The conspiracy would have to be too large.  Someone would talk.”  What if it’s not a conspiracy? What if it’s a shift in attitude?  What a significant portion of the public believes crime is no longer wrong?

Have you noticed the way people drive?  Stores closing because of rampant shoplifting?  Carjacking rates through the roof?  Why now?  Why are all the rules being ignored?  What changed? I posit a general attitude shift.  The rules don’t apply to me.  I can speed, shoplift, rob people at gunpoint, and you know why? Because F-U, that’s why.

It’s even more pronounced in the “legal” system.  The New York judge with his bullshit $350 million fine.  The defamation jury with its $83 million verdict.  The Hawaiian judge who decided the Aloha spirit is superior to the Second Amendment.  These are examples of the same attitude that makes ordinary people think it’s okay to commit crimes.  I suggest that same attitude made election workers think it was okay to help steal the election. They didn’t need a centralized bureaucracy giving orders to minions.  Everybody just did a little extra by themselves, ran a few ballots through twice, disqualified a few Trump ballots or shifted them to Biden.  Why not?  Who’s going to stop them?  Keep counting until we have enough – it’s the Al Franken model (and the basis for the recent joke that the 49er’s found 3 mail-in touchdowns so they actually won).

The lawless attitude is getting worse and more focused.  Donald Trump is the new Emmanuel Goldstein from the book “1984.”  He’s the designated enemy.  He’s the one person it’s okay to hate. There is no punishment, no insult, no disgrace too vile for him and it’s okay for anybody and everybody to play the game, even using taxpayer money to hire your lover to bring baseless charges against him.

RINOs say “you better not change the rules, you won’t like living under the new rules” but that’s a bluff and Liberals know it. Trump didn’t prosecute Hillary because our side is ‘better than that,’ we don’t ‘stoop to their level.’  Yeah, but that also means there’s no penalty for cheating, lying, stealing, rigging, perjuring . . . so why not do whatever it takes to win?

That judge who imposed the $350 million fine and banned Trump from owning any business for three years, feels safe.  He knows he won’t get overturned and even if he does, he’s still the hero of the courthouse back corridor and the bar association luncheon. He’s not afraid of being impeached, his house won’t get burned down, he won’t lose his pension, he’s safe, same as the cheating election officials and crooked businesses paying off Hunter. Hillary and Biden won’t even be charged, must less railroaded, the way Trump has been.  And they know it.  And we know it too, which may be part of the reason people feel like the rules don’t apply anymore.  Certainly they don’t apply to the big-shots.  Why should they apply to me?

There is no remedy for a pervasive lawless attitude within the Constitutional system.  The Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch, the Judicial Branch, they’re all in on it.  The Administrative Deep State, they are, too.  The Fourth Estate – the legacy media – up to their eyeballs.  Running for school board, voting harder, boycotting Budweiser – none of that can overcome the pervasive bias in the system.

The only way to shift the attitude back is to go outside the Constitutional framework of government to restore respect for law and order.  That’s the destination too many Conservatives are afraid to reach.  Because once we conclude the system is broken and cannot be fixed from within, the only conclusion is we must throw out the system and replace it.  That’s insurrection.  That’s a revolution.  That’s a civil war.  It’s the end of the nation as we know it and it would throw the entire world into an economic depression if not a literal Dark Age.

I’m terrified there’s no other way to stop the slow-motion train wreck, because I can safely predict I’ll be one of the first people rounded up and shot for my opinions.   The only questions are which of my “conservative” friends will rat me out, and which of my liberal friends will be helping load me into the cattle car?

Joe Doakes, no longer in Como Park

The US – especially the rural US, but even the bigger cities – used to be a relatively high trust society. It’s not anymore. I’d say “the consequences will be dire”, but they pretty much already are.

George Soros and his, uh, “activist” investment operation are set to take a controlling interest in Audacy, the nations’ second-largest radio station chain:

The Soros investment firm, which is listed alongside other Audacy lenders that are members of the “ad hoc first lien group,” is poised to have its debt converted into Audacy stock as part of a restructuring of the company.

Audacy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year in order to reduce and restructure its $1.9 billion debt, converting most of it into stock.

“Through the restructuring, Audacy and its debtholders will undertake a deleveraging transaction to equitize approximately $1.6 billion of funded debt, a reduction of 80 percent from approximately $1.9 billion to approximately $350 million,” the company said in a Jan. 7 press release.

There were a number of critical reactions as word spread on social media that Mr. Soros’s investment firm is set to assume a major stake in America’s number two radio station chain.

There’s concern from the right that Soros might turn Audacy’s stations into a huge progressive media nexus.

I’m less convinced. Audacy’s major holdings in the Twin Cities are a couple of the bigger music stations, and the once-mighty WCCO. If progressives took complete control of ‘CCO, I’m not sure we’d notice any more than if they’d taken over the Strib.

Minnesota, 2024: The DFL says 46 days of early voting and “no excuses needed” mail in voting doesn’t make voting (for the DFL) easy enough; demands more:

Given that young adults are least likely to own a car, and many 18- and 19-year-olds do not even have a driver’s license, it can be very difficult for them to reach early voting and Election Day voting sites,” Pursell said as she explained the parameters of the legislation, which is being backed by Secretary of State Steve Simon.

The House Elections Committee voted to place the bill on the general register on a party-line voice vote. The bill has no companion in the Senate. No Republicans in the hearing expressed support for the bill, which one member said amounts to a fiscally irresponsible “unfunded mandate” for counties.

Minnesota, 2030: The Minnesota DFL, claiming early voting and polls that come to you if you’re a prog kid at Gustavus is still not easy enough, proposes to simply enter votes for all newborns for the rest of their lives, on birth (or when they would have been born, if the mother “reproductive freedomed” the baby).

Today’s music list:

By the way – the Legislative Evaluation Assembly’s annual gala is coming up – and the deadline for tickets is Monday!

My former network-mate Steve Deace is the keynote speaker – and he’ll be talking about a subject not just near and dear, but dispositive to this blog’s heart, the evolution in Conservative media.

Check it out and sign up here!

This got some headlines yesterday: a group of Somali Muslim families in Saint Louis Park pushed back against the school board, with the aid of a couple of conservative public interest law firms, and forced the district to allow their children to opt out of LGBTQ content in school.

I’ve added emphasis:

This change comes after two public interest law firms, True North Legal and First Liberty Institute, sent letters to the school district saying the district’s previous denials of opt-out requests violated the First Amendment and state law.

In 2023, six Muslim families requested that St. Louis Park public schools provide notice before LGBTQ-affirming books were discussed in class. These families, who emigrated from Somalia over the last two decades, also requested the ability to opt out their children from participating in the curriculum.

According to previous press statements from the two law firms, third- and fourth-grade children who were members of the six families were exposed to LBGTQ content in October 2023. These LGBTQ-centric readings were also allegedly accompanied with the teacher’s commentary on LGBTQ identity. This situation caused “significant confusion and distress” amongst the six families.

The school district was reportedly, uh, not cooperative. Contrary to some social media palaver, this affects parents of all faiths at SLPS.

The system, naturally, is not amused:

It’ll be interesting to watch the bureaucrats response.

Its a fine day to pounce.

There was a mass shooting in Kansas City, at the post-Super Bowl celebration.

The anti-gun crowd, dare I say, pounced on it…

…briefly.

And then…:

That means the shooter/s is/are:

• Transgender
• Gang members

Hope you placed your bets fast!

“Things that can’t be sustained, won’t be”.

China is headed for some serious problems – as we’ve discussed not so long ago.

Russia is having its own problems – not the same, but similar. Russia in its current form is not sustainable .

And that may well be the bad news:

Very much worth a watch.

So – given the facts that:

• Big Left has been supporting Trump for the nomination, indirectly and directly
• Among the top-tier GOP candidates – DeSantis, Haley and Trump – Trump performs most weakly against Biden.
• Notwithstanding that, Trump is all but cleared for landing as the nominee, months before the convention
• Democrats – at least, the ones that aren’t gaslighting us that the President is in fine fettle as evidence by his immense accomplishments – seem to be “suddenly” confronting the notion that the President isn’t all there. But not many of them.
• But some Republicans are calling for someone to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Biden from office.

Am I the only one who thinks the Democrats would love the GOP to lead the defenestration of Biden?

The Legislature is back in session. And the DFL lost no time trying to extend last session’s jamdown.

Gun control? Yep, they got it:

Details here.

Of course, the bill will get dissected in court, if it gets passed. Best to make sure it doesn’t – which means if you’re not a member of the MN Gun Owners Caucus, you should be.

Senator Isa Perez-Vega may be a contender to pass Erin Maye-Quade as the most cloyingly annoying DFLer in the Senate.

Possible saving grace for this session? It’s an even-numbered year – and DFLs from Greater Minnesota are getting nervous about how the Faerie Raenbow Agenda from last session is going to go over in Eveleth. In this case, Sen. Hauschild – who currently occupies Tom Bakk’s old seat – and a clear case of nerves over making Minnesota a “sanctuary state”:

And with a one-vote majority in the Senate, it’s making a bit of a difference.

The DFLers in Greater Minnesota have to be looking at…:

• Joe Biden’s escalating unpopularity. Trump doesn’t have to win the national election for them to still lose their seats in counties that are, or are drifting, red.
• The disproportionate impact of DFL policy on rural Minnesota

…and thinking it just might be time to reel in some of the worst excesses.

Hope Hauschild takes the hint on Isa Perez-Vega’s idiot bill.

A few phone calls and emails might certainly help him make up his mind.

Another campaign, another flap about Trump vs. NATO:

On the one hand, Trump’s rhetoric about NATO is…not “reckless”, so much as annoying.

On the other hand? At a policy level, Trump strenghened NATO – and his rhetorical, er, “unpredictability” seems to have caused America’s would-be enemies to sit out the aggression and wait for the US to change leadership to someone like, well, Obama and Biden.

But now, as in 2016, the NATO members complaining the hardest are the ones – like Germany – that didn’t get the actual message; hold up you end of the damn deal.

To be fair, Gemany’s spending has risen by something like 30% – although the Bundeswehr has thirty years of sloth to work off; the Luftwaffe’s fighter force at one point was 8% action-ready, the Army is a glorified Boy Scout troop that’s 1/6 of its 1992 size,

(And don’t think we’re not looking at you, Canada, whose Navy is about as old and decrepit as, well, the US’s current leader).

And then on the other hand there are the countries that didn’t need to get the message: Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and the other former “Warsaw Pact” nations.

Gang carjacks an SUV, goes on a Tarantino-ready crime spree:

The only real question: what ethical and moral gymnastics will Mary Moriarty go through to make sure none of them serves a moment in prison?

As noted below, the legislative session starts today.

And the DFL is swinging for the proverbial fences:

In case you can’t read below the fold:

The effective date of August 2023 would criminalize any gun owner in Minnesota who complied with the new Universal Background Check law, which also went into effect on that date.

If the DFL jams it down – and remember, this bill died in committee once already, but it’s a whole new session – that won’t be the end of it:

It should go without saying – but if you’re not at least getting and acting on the MN Gun Owners Caucus’s email blasts, to say nothing of contributing and volunteering, consider this an invitation.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, for people who love to control other people:

And right back atcha – happy first day of session to all you DFLers who treat it like an orgy!

Hang onto your wallets. The same bureaucrats who connived with the City of Minneapolis’s ruling class are, uh, “reimagining” again:

“We’re going to talk about how we’re going to reimagine downtown,” Adam Duininck, Minneapolis Downtown Council president, said at the annual meeting. “Our story’s going to continue to be centered around public safety, inclusion and reimagining the future of downtown.”

Duininck, a former head of the Met Council, is a lifelong DFL fixture; his imagination has given this blog a lot of material over the years. While the Southwest Light Rail debacle wasn’t entirely his fault, he was part of the ocntinuum of bureaucratic arrogance and, shall we say, less than exceptional capability that has turned that project into the flaming dumpster it’s been since its inception.

And now, with the Downtown Council – the crowd that brought you the redevelopment of Block E – they want to “Reimagine” again.

Downtown safety continues to be a concern for some Minnesotans.

Taking a look at 2023 city data, violent crime is down about 14% downtown compared to 2022.

Why do they never compare crime with, say, 2016?

Anyway – this is far from the first time the “in” crowd has tried to “reimagine” downtown; efforts go back to the disastrous “Urban Renewal” effots in the ’50s and ’60s, the building of Nicollet Mall in the ’60s and ’70s, the building of the Metrodome in the ’80s, the rebuilding of the Nicollet Mall in the ’80s, Light Rail, the de-building of the Metrodome and its replacement with Darth Vader’s fishing cabin, Betsy Hodges’ exquisitely expensive Bauhaus rebuilding of Nicollet Mall in the 2010s…

…and the’re not done with Nicollet Mall:

Looking ahead, city leaders said there will be challenges, but 2023 was a turning point to reinvent what downtown could be.

“On Nicollet Mall, we can have a fully pedestrian world-class mall. We can set a tone for other cities to follow,” Frey said. “Why can’t it be more like Times Square? Why can’t we have digital billboards off and tons of light and activity? Why can’t we use that excess revenue to do more programming to make sure that there’s activity 100% of the time?”

Another goal has been to get people back in the office downtown.

“On Nicollet Mall, we can have a fully pedestrian world-class mall”.

What – again?

Could someone just buy the Downtown Council a “Minecraft” subscription?

The free market could, of course, settle this inside a generation – if there were a free market in force downtown.

Downtown Minnepolis is in the state it’s in because of politics – the spring from which government planning flows, and the arthritic yet flighty decision making process that comes with it.

SCENE: Mitch BERG is having a coney at the Gopher. Lost in the flavor, he doesn’t notice Avery LIBRELLE walk in.

LIBRELLE: Merg!

BERG: Oh, shhhhiiiiiure is a wonderful day for a Coney…

LIBRELLE: Shut up. You’ve been slandering President BIden.

BERG: Nope. I’ve been pointing out that his behavior reminds me of my mother during the first year or two of her battle with Alzheimers. I take no partisan joy in saying that whatsoever…

LIBRELLE: Joe BIden is the most on-top-of-it intellectual giant we’ve ever had in the Oval Office…

The Television over the bar is broadcasting the news.\

BERG: You were saying?

LIBRELLE: Joe Biden has always been senile, and was actually a GOP black op against the Democrats.

BERG: Of course it was. (Yells) Hey, guys – carry opponent here!

(A crowd of regulars chases LIBRELLE from the bullding as BERG finishes his coney.

And SCENE.

Minnesota “needs” 381 “cannabis dispensaries”, according to the same people who claimed that the state would have 20,000 Covid deaths, “best case”, by July of 2020.

And if you think that’s a curious number to arrive at, you’re right:

Now that recreational marijuana is legal, Minnesota will need nearly 400 dispensaries to comply with state law, a new study reveals.

The law requires one dispensary for every 12,500 Minnesotans. That totals to a minimum of 381 cannabis dispensaries across the state.

Why that exact ratio – a ratio higher than the ratio of McDonalds restaurants to Minnesotans?

Well, y’see, there was a study:

Participants in the study included Minnesotans who have consumed marijuana within the past year. Of those participants, 83% reported cannabis consumption at least once a month. Forty percent reported consuming cannabis “daily or almost daily.”

Still doesn’t make sense?

Just remember – the whole thing is a wealth transfer from taxpayers to the political class that employs the bureaucrats that’ll administer this inevitable soon-to-be boondoggle.

Now it makes sense, right?

Bob Beckwith was the FDNY firefighter who stood with then-President Bush during one of the moments in my life when I was proudest to be an American.

It occurs to me there’s a generation for whom “FDNY” isn’t instantly mentally associated with tragedy, heroism, and that particular moment 22 years ago.

So, yesterday the DFL told us that “People like getting “free” stuff”.

Er, wait. Sorry.

It wasn’t technically the DFL. It was the “Minnesota Reformer”, aka “MInnesota Independent v 2.0“.

Anyway, there was a poll:

What an odd little thing to report on. People like “free” stuff? Stop the proverbial presses.

And on a Tuesday, just before the session, in an election year.

Wonder why?

Aaaaaah.

Makes perfect sense now.

So, Erin Murphy is the new MN Senate Majority Leader, replacing Senator Dziedzik (whom I wish the best in her ongoing battle with cancer).

What this means is that the old “Labor” coalition that ran the DFL and often Minnesota has been demoted to the back seat. Dziedzik’s father was a long-time Northeast MInneapolis politician who was a perfect metaphor for the coalition; blue-collar, from Northeast or the Iron Range, pretty much your typical Perpich voter.

Murphy represents the, uh, great leap forward for the DFL: Metro, public employee union, and not one degree behind The Squad in terms of perfect “progressive” credentials.

Anyway, here we are:

By the way – has anyone noticed that, if you left all anthropological terms out of the rhetoric, the “improvements” the DFL is making are the same kind of thing a farmer does to take care of a herd of livestock?

As opposed to free people?

This is a piece from 2020. It’s been slightly updated.

Today would be Ronald Reagan’s 114th birthday

I’ve been writing about Reagan – who, along with PJ O’Rourke, Solzhenitzyn, Dostoevskii and Paul Johnson is the reason I’m a conservative today – as long as this blog has been in existence.  His eight years were not perfect, and I don’t beatify my presidents, even if they’ve been out of office for over three decades.  His last term wasn’t as stellar as his first, and his last two years were very difficult.

Still and all, he was the greatest president of the second half of the 20th Century, and head, shoulders and ankles the best of my lifetime.

But in these difficult times, after two terms of a President who promoted  fear and malaise in the guise of “change” and “doing something”, and four years of another for whom “conservative principles” were a tactic to be slipped on and off like a power tie, it’s worth remembering Reagan’s example; when times seemed at their most dire, Reagan walked onto the scene with a smile and a vision, and a backbone of steel, and cleaned up the mess lefty by his failed predecessor – something our next president will need even more of in 2024.

And the most important part? He did it by unleashing something that many, then as now, thought was dead – the inner, optimistic, take-charge greatness of the American spirit – something that feels largely beaten into submission as this is (re)written, in 2021.

Oh, there are those who say “today’s GOP wouldn’t nominate Reagan!” – to which I used to respond with a contemptuous sigh, before telling the critic to listen to “A Time for Choosing”, and tell me who it more resembles; Arne Carlson, or Rand Paul?

In the Trump era party, where the GOP regards spending as just as inviolate as the Democrats do, and when the worst communists aren’t across the Oder river, but roaming our campuses?   It’s simultaneously possible that the GOP wouldn’t endorse him, and him (or an heir to his legacy) is exactly we need more than anything .

Reagan’s gone. But that spirit, the one he understood, almost alone among American politicans of his era, lives on in the American people. Half of it, anyway.

So Happy Reagan’s Birthday, everyone!

NOTE: While this blog encourages a raucous debate, this post is a hagiography zone. All comments deemed critical of Reagan will be expunged without ceremony. You’ve been warned.

You have the whole rest of the media to play about in; this post is gonna be gloriously one-note.

(This post was originally written in 2017, and has been slightly touched up for 2021). 

Just another day at Lakeville North last Tuesday.

Those darn Swedish and German kids mixing it up again.

Fortunately, the administration was focused like a laser beam on the real problem:

That’d be the kids distributing the video.

The Government/Industrial complex has learned from the DFL/Media complex: If nobody hears about an incident, it never happens. And if all they hear is your version of the incident, then that’s “the truth”.

SCENE: It’s a darkened back room at Minnesota DFL headquarters. Ken Martin and an attendant perp-walk a figured in handcuffs with a bag over his head into a room at the faaar back of the building. They sit him down and pull the bag off, revealing Rep. Andy SMITH (chucklehead jagoff, Rochester). DIsoriented, SMITH blinks and adjusts to the dim light as he notices the people around him.

SMITH: Er…who are you?

MAN 1: I’m former state Representative John Thompson.

MAN 2: I’m Representative Dan Wolgamott

WOMAN 1: I’m Representative Brion Curran.

MAN 3: I’m former sheriff Dave Hutchinson.

MAN 4: I’m William Davis, former communications genius.

WOMAN 2: I’m Julie Blaha, state auditor.

MAN 5: I’m Matt Roznowski, , DFL comms guy and tough tough enforcer.

SMITH: Wow. So – what are you all in for?

CURRAN: Same thing as you.

SMITH: Uh…what’s that?

HUTCHINSON: Keep you out of sight.

SMITH: Why?

BLAHA: So the media doesn’t accidentally get curious and cover any of us.

THOMPSON: RIght about now, you’ll be…

(DAVIS pulls up SMITH’s twitter account)

DAVIS: Just like they did for me.

Everyone nods, goes back to quietly passing the time.

And SCENE

Remember this episode – one of the events boosters of Downtown Minneapolis have hung their hat on as a symbol of their commitment and capability?

It’s the 1999 move of the historic Schubert Theater [1] – a $14 million move that was part of a $42 million (in 1999 dollars – call it about $73 million today – as part of one of the various downtown revitalization efforts that happened before downtown got devitalized. The Cowles family pumped a pile of money into turning it into a community art space – home to a dance theater and other arts companies.

Well, Downtown Minneapolis is gonna downtownminneapolis:

The Cowles Center for Dance and Performing Arts announced Wednesday that it would end its dance programming at the Goodale Theater as of March 31. The downtown Minneapolis center’s educational and community programs will, however, continue through the end of the 2023-24 school year in May.

“It became clear, probably several months ago, that Artspace, our largest donor and administrative partner, was having their own financial troubles, which wouldn’t allow them to sustain their level of giving to the Cowles,” said Joseph Bingham, co-director of the Cowles Center. “We’ve been working in the background to kind of figure out what that meant financially and figure out either a Plan B or whether that meant potential fundraising or another partner in the picture.”

According to Bingham, two weeks ago, Cowles staff found that Artspace’s financial picture couldn’t sustain the performing arts center.

It’s unlikely that financial disarray in an arts organization is directly connected to the crime and economic malaise that’s been Downtown’s dominant feature this past four years.

But for at least some people – in this case, Libertarian Burnsville City Councilwoman Cara Schulz – one other social and literal contagion had something to do with it:

I wrote Cara to clarify. There was literally an email saying “good riddance and a pox on your house, as it were”, or words to that effect.

But yet another unused building certainly isn’t going to help things.

So – here’s the current plan:

• Some major network picks up my show. Maybe weekday afternoons.
• I turn the building into a broadcast studio (a la Keillor at the Fitzgerald) and conservative event center.

[1] Ho Lee Crap. 25 years?

I’ve been pretty open about it for going on four decades. I don’t like Donald Trump.

Let me be more clear; I don’t like people with the public persona people like Donald Trump cultivate.

But personality and social media aside, Trump accomplished things.

My biggest problem with Trump?

His personality cult.

Like this particular piece of…work.

PS: Just so we’re clear: everything you can say about personality cults can be said equally about anti-personality cults. The more insipid (to say nothing of deranged) Never-Trumpers are just as bad.