SCENE: MNDFL Headquarters. Two staffers – a communications person and a researcher who is also a bit of a prankster, are talking, sotto voce.

COMMS STAFFER: He’ll never go for it.

RESEARCHER: Betcha $20.

COMMS STAFFER: (Pulls out a 20). You’re on.

Just then, Ken MARTIN, generalissimo of the MNDFL, walks into the room.

MARTIN: “OK, whaddya got?

RESEARCHER (barely suppressing a snork): “OK, so, research shows that people loooooove (chokes back giggle) lots and lots of selfies of politicians gluttonously stuffing their faces”. (COMMS STAFFER has to turn away).

MARTIN: “Good stuff. I’ll put out a memo”.

MARTIN leaves the room.

COMMS STAFFER forks over the $20.

RESEARCHER: Like taking candy from a baby.

COMMS STAFFER: Shoulda know. But…shouldn’t we tell Generalissimo Martin?

RESEARCHER: Nah, he’ll figure it out. Nobody is that stupid.

MERE DAYS LATER:

Note: The giant bean came in second in the “Giant Vegetable” catetory. The winner was Rep. Andy Smith (DFL Rochester)

COMMUNICATIONS GUY: “Noooooooooooooooooo!

RESEARCHER (Burying head in hands) “What hsve I done?”

And SCENE

The deeply conservative sheriff of Jim Hogg County, Texas, has decided to remove its school resource officers from schools in that rural central Texas county.

Sheriff Jimmy Bob Throckmorton yesterday announced that the Jim Hogg County School District had put bizarre and unworkable restrictions on his deputies.

Oops. Did I say Sheriff Jimmy Bob Throckmorton of Jim Hogg County, Texas? I meant the comfortably left-of-center Sheriff Dawanna Witt, of Hennepin County.

Not sure how that slipped past SITD’s copy-editors.

So we’re reliably informed that Downtown Minneapolis is back.

But that it desperately needs Target to force its workers back into the office.

Reporter Brianna Kelly spent months talking to downtown Minneapolis businesses about the flexible hybrid approach of downtown’s largest employer, and the impact it is having on the local economy.

“You know, everyone wants Target to be back; we need Target to be back,” Kelly said. “They’re a huge part of the entire ecosystem downtown.”

The story behind the story is this: if the wellbeing of Downtown Minneapolis is that dependent on a single employer, that whole “Minneapolis is a Cold Flint” comparison is looking better and better, and I don’t say that with any great joy.

Fill in the usual “Can you imagine what’d happen if, say, Ron DeSantis were to take a cheesecake photo with a group of swimsuit models?” boilerplate.

You can pretty much fill in the stock responses from memory.

So here’s Senator Klobuchar at the State Fair:

And “The Velvet Hammer”

Has the feminism correspondent at MPR seen this yet?

“Democrats get ‘the job’ done” has been the latest affectation from the Big Left noise machine.

They added an intersectional twist over the weekend, as the Democrat “selfie offensive” continues:

The responses were likely not what “The Democrats” expected:

I’d go so far as to say the only female governors who’ve gotten “jobs done” were Republican women.

…is apparently…

…uh…:

…reciting scientific reality.

In a video clip that surfaced this week, the musician, who grew up in San Francisco, asserted, “When God made you and me, before we came out of the womb, you know who you are and what you are. Later on, when you grow out of it, you see things and you start believing that you could be something that sounds good, but you know it ain’t right. Because a woman is a woman and a man is a man. That’s it. Whatever you wanna do in the closet, that’s your business. I’m OK with that.”

So to recap: according to the SanFranChron, “Insanity” is something that wouldl have been considered too obvious to bother saying 15 years ago.

Senator Erin May Quade assumes DFL voters aren’t that bright, critical or well-informed.

She was commenting about the GOP Debate from Wednesday:

Now, if you haven’t been in a coma or getting your news from the Strib for the past 20 years, you know:

• It’s families of color that use most vouchers, because they want them, because public schools most often fail their kids, and b)
• it’s the Left that’s re-segregating society – including with public schools.

Maye Quade is counting on reaching “voters” know don’t know and wouldn’t care if they did.

With the upcoming retirement of Lori Gildea, Governor Klink yesterday promoted Justice Natalie Hudson to the Chief Justice slot.

Much more troublingly, he appointed Karl Procaccini to replace Hudson as associate justice.

And to my mind, Procaccini has all the makings of the very worst kind of judge (emphasis added by me):

Procaccini, 40, took a lead role in drafting the executive orders that Walz used to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Walz said Procaccini exhibited “steadiness, humility and an exceptional legal mind” during that difficult period. 

“There is no one more prepared for the rigors and challenges that come with this important position,” Walz said.

A justice who conjured up the rationale to make let Governors Klink and Flanagan play Mussolini and Evita for almost two years?

“With the departure of Justice Gildea, Governor Walz had an opportunity to select a pragmatic voice and ensure Minnesotans have a diverse set of views on the Minnesota Supreme Court,” said House Minority leader Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring. “Instead, he picked the chief architect of the 2020 lockdowns and mandates that destroyed businesses and kept our kids out of the classroom with zero judicial experience to serve on the state’s highest court.“

The last Republican appointee, G. Barry Anderson, will hit mandatory retirement age right in the middle of Klink/Flanagan’s current term.

Sweet dreams, all who care about limited government.

In writing this, I realize I may have a case for another Berg’s law – in a place run by progressive, every alternative to your current politicians is worse than the one you have.

People might’ve thought “what could be worse than having Al Franken as a senator?“. I give you… Tina Flint Smith.

But I digress.This was him on Twitter, yesterday, apparently either watching the debate, or having someone feed him, factoids about it:

I mean, it is ignorant enough to be something Senator Smith might say:

But I think it does the truth a disservice to just chalk it up to ignorance.

Wait just a doggone minute.

I read this earlier today:

Now, wasn’t it just 2-3 months ago that Ken Martin, Governor Klink and Co-Governor Flanigan, the brodudes in the MNDFL Communications office and the chattering hamsters of the DFL Legislative caucuses telling us they’d “fully funded” education?

Why yes.. It was:

And yet they never actually defining what “full funding” meant…

…oh. Yeah. Now it makes sense.

…an academic who is also one of the architects of modern “woke” culture not publishing any academic work in four years is…well, raising eyebrows:

Boston University Professor Ibram Kendi has not published an academic paper in at least four years, according to his Google Scholar profile.

The professor, who popularized the term “anti-racism,” wrote at least two children’s books in the same period.

Professor Kendi is currently “on leave” from his job as the director of his own Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, which he founded after leaving a similar role at American University.

On the other hand, among leftist academics, four years is kind of a piker. Get back to us when he’s gone a solid decade or more, like this old friend of ours.

Overdoses.

Public solicitation and delivery of prostitution.

Open drug dealing.

Gang activity. Robberies. Muggings. Assaults

No, I’m not talking about the House DFL Caucus offices. I’m talking about the big Metro Transit stations in Minneapolis.

And what’s the remedy?

According to Metro Transit and its big government stakeholders: murals.

Metro Transit is turning to murals in an effort to make its bus and light-rail stations more welcoming.

The latest installation is at the I-35W and Lake Street Transit Station in south Minneapolis, a busy hub that’s been plagued by graffiti and where two people were wounded in a shooting this spring. Police data also show there have been two robberies near the station this year.

Local artist Kada Goalen spent six weeks and 90 gallons of paint transforming gray and beige concrete walls and pillars into a vibrant spectacle featuring giant songbirds against a backdrop of color.

Let’s cut to the chase: what this is is not a serious attempt to make Transit less onerous at best, dangerous at worst.

It’s yet another transfer of money from taxpayers to the favored clients of the political class.

The part of me that works with engineers knows that for every decision where engineering meets design, there is an elaborately calculated rationale.

And the other part of me thinks that the eighth-grade prankster in so many engineers has just pulled the prank of a lifetime.

In the game of cheap rhetorical card tricks, the latest card up your average garden variety Leftists sleeve is saying “Define ‘Woke'”, and then plastering a sanctimonious smirk on their face as the good guys try to arf up a definition for something that isn’t really meant to be definite.

To some extent, Big Left uses terms like “woke” as a game of “Bring Me A Rock” – trying to answer a question whose parameters you don’t understand – or, ultimately, one of those greased pig contests at the county fair, where kids chased after a slicked-up piglet as the adults laugh at the hijinks.

But I love seeing smirks decaying into dejection, or better yet rage; it’s one of my life’s great joys, in fact.

So what the heck: let’s define “woke”, once and for all. For the ages.

Con Text: First, the rules:

• We’re defining it from the modern white progressive context. The term is appropriated from Black America, a relationship under whose convenient cover those white progressives scamper when you start getting close to their terms: “You just hate black terms!”, or some such dogwater.
• Leave your suggestions, or feedback on my suggestion, in the comments.
• Threadjacks of any kind, left or right, will be removed without comnent.

So let’s give this a ahot.

Rough Draft: Here’s Take 1.

“Woke: Noun: A pseudoreligious social and political philosophy that ascribes all dissent from social progressive beliefs to “systemic” problems, demands acceptance of those beliefs rather tha toleration of dissent, and calls for conversion of non-believers by social persuasion or coercion.

Go to it.

A friend of the blog emails:

Should we start a list?

The friend started with the list below, which includes Minnesota companies that are abandoning operations in Minnesota, or moving lots of jobs out of state.

• 3M expansion in South Dakota
• Shutterfly
• TE Connectivity

Any more?

I’d like to make this a running list.

“Civilians shouldn’t have guns. Leave it to the experts”.

Some people are asking “why are IRS agents shooting?”

Those people would probably be a little alarmed to know that the Departments of Energy, Education, Interior, even HHS, have armed agents, and even access to “SWAT” teams.

I had an avocational acquaintance once upon a time who worked for the Department of Justice. He was a nice enough guy – and a preeningly arrogant old-school east coast liberal Democrat who’d gone to an Ivy League school and grad school as a third-generation legacy. His contempt for the law-abiding citizen’s right to keep and bear arms was legendary.

But he went to a session the BATFE threw at a government shooting range, to orient Federal employees to various kinds of firearms. He spent a day at the range, firing a bunch of handguns and a Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine gun, under (purportedly, given the story above) close supervision from the BATFE agents involved.

And, voila, he considered himself one of the chosen people with the secret handshake that should be allowed to be armed.

Because he’d “had training”.

Unlike all of us hoi polloi who’d been plinking away for decades, naturally.

With redistricting, former senate minority leader With the “party of women“, Melissa Lopez Franzen, got pushed out to make sure Ron Latz didn’t wind up unemployed

But no worries about Melissa. She’s DFL. Once they are elected to something, the system takes care of them:

The University of Minnesota on Wednesday announced it has hired former Senate Minority Leader Melisa López Franzen as its next chief lobbyist at the State Capitol.

Beginning Aug. 28, López Franzen will be the U’s executive director of government and community relations, where she will oversee lobbying efforts for all five of the U’s campuses and lobby her former colleagues.

I did say they take care of their own, right?

With her new role with the U, she will join a growing list of former Minnesota lawmakers turned lobbyists, including former Sens. Tom Bakk, Patricia Torres Ray, Chuck Wiger and Jeff Hayden.

By the way, – go ahead and read the story, in the “Minnesota, Reformer”, yet another publication, sponsored by progressives with deep pockets.

See if party affiliation is mentioned even once.

UPDATE: but I will give this to the reformer: some of the inconvenient facts did make it in:

Nothing weird there at all.

Remember – it’s the most transparent regime in history.

Ping: Scalia warned after the Obergefell same-sex marriage decision that it’d open the doors to use the law to de-normalize things that’d been normal for all of human history.

Pong: Massachusetts – the Caliifornia of New England – rejects an adoptive couple, Mike and Kitty Burke because, as practicing Catholics, they would merely love a gay or transgender child, rather than aggressively affirm the child’s orientation:

“Kitty expressed that she does not believe in gender affirming care for children,” the report noted, adding that she referred to such care as “chemical castration” and said she doesn’t believe that people can choose their pronouns.

Mike Burke, meanwhile, told the social worker he has many friends who are gay or lesbian and has attended several same-sex weddings. He told the social worker he would likely attend his child’s wedding if they married someone of the same sex. 

He also said he would likely not consider any type of gender affirming care for a child under the age of 18….In a later email, the social worker noted that the Burkes “have a lot of strengths” and “really seems to understand adoption/foster care.” However, she wrote, “their faith is not supportive [of LGBTQ+ youth] and neither are they.”

Is there anything Scalia wasn’t right about?

Transgender woman deadlifter breaks Canadian women’s record.

By over 200 pounds

You can tell it’s a woman. It’s the pink socks.

Mary Moriarty broke with a couple decades of Henco Prosecutor tradition and used the State’s sentence enhancement for using a gun in a crime:

Wait – wut?

A north Minneapolis man has been sentenced to 15 1/2 years in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release for illegal possession of a firearm after engaging in a shootout in north Minneapolis.

Charges in the Dec. 20, 2021, case say police found Dominique Marquise McCaskel with a gunshot wound to his neck and shoulder on the 3600 block of Aldrich Avenue North after responding to a report of a shooting.

According to the charging document and dispatch audio at the time, police subsequently located surveillance video that showed McCaskel walking at the location as a suspect vehicle rounded the corner. McCaskel was seen on video running toward the suspect vehicle and an exchange of gunfire ensued. Casings were initially located by police, and a witness came forward and showed police where the gun was that had been in McCaskel’s possession at the time of the gunfire exchange and shooting. Police also found that McCaskel had several suspected fentanyl pills and cash on his person.

The Feds did it?

Yep. I was just yanking your collective chain. Moriarty has never used the state’s sentence enhancement for using a gun in a crime. Either did Freeman before her. I don’t know that Klobuchar ignored it when she was Henco prosecutor, so I won’t say one way or the other, but let’s be honest, probably not.

In Ramco? Choi has never used it – his office even specifically denied it was an appropriate charge in a case where it was clearly precisely appropriate. Either did Susan Gaertner before him. Either did Tom Foley before her.

Hennepin County is letting the Feds do the heavy lifting.

Huh. Wonder why?

Mike Norton the vice chair (and maybe acting chair, after this fiasco) tweeted this yesterday:

Mayor Mompants and the “Ban the Cops” City Council are “Conservative”, according to Mr. Norton.

Well, no .

“Less Communistic” works.

Also true for movies, literature, art, theater, even standup comedy:

I’m not inclined to care much about whether someone who produces something I want, need or enjoy “hates” me – least of all with anything remotely artistic. Especially with music – consuming which gives the artist almost no money unless you buy merchandise or go to a concert.

You produce some piece of music I love, but you hate me? Laugh’s on you.

But the cartoon is correct in that the left has grown as entitled about art as they have about, say, minority, female and gay voters.

The German left is trying to push the German right out of the public square.

Actual classical liberals call it correctly:

By the way – one of the “gotchas” that isn’t, that the left likes to throw around these days, is “conservatives can’t even define “woke”[1]”.

I like to ask them in response “define ‘far right””.

[1] It’s nonsense. “Woke” in its white “progressive” context is the attempt to impeach society for a set of ills endemic to the human condition, to prescribe political and social “fixes” for them, and to persuade, bully or gaslight society into acquiescing.

I pride myself in being able to turn DFL English into Honest English.

Example:

Translated into “Honest”

While other states are getting agenda-porn out of middle schools, MN is writing a different story.  

And by “writing”, we don’t mean the actual kids. They can’t write for s**t now, and it’s not gonna get any better.

And by “story”, we mean “checks that shovel more money into the greedy maw of an unaccountable Dept of Education that’s already made countless corrupt DFL-linked nonprofiteers wealthy.”

I’m happy, as alwatys, to help.

“
“

Every DFL politician’s social media feed is raving about this puff piece from HuffPo which christens Tina Smith “the Velvet Hammer”.

The Velvet Hammer?

I can think of lots of adjectives to add to Smith’s hamfistedness. Velvet ain’t one of them.

And what usually happens after you see DFLers posting “attagirls” over inexplicable media. puff pieces?

Some dirt comes out on them. .

For example – during the session, the DFL noise machine broke out into a round of praise for Rep. Finke. It went from zero to 60 in three seconds, as if the Representative had just pulled someone from a burning building Clearly something had happened.

That something was Finke had charged across the House floor at another representative over retweeting a trans-skeptic account.

So am I too cynical in asking “what dirt is coming out about Smith?”