So, it’s been quite a year.  

Around inauguration time, I had a job that I really enjoyed, with a few side hustles – a band, my show, and this blog (not that I’ve made any money from it in a long time – partly by choice).  

In February, I got laid off.  As part of my scrambling to keep my bills covered, I signed on at Hot Air – where I write 3-5 posts a week, and make a little money.  

Then came July.  I started the month unemployed – and ended with a day job (details not needed) and another longer-term bet with a startup.   Plus another band (more info to come later).  

So I’m cranking out 12 hours a day – and generally loving it.  But it’s taken time away from the time I’d normally spend tinkering with the blog (which hasn’t been much in a while). 

“So Merg – why not go over to Substack?”  

I might.  There’s a part of me that can’t imagine anyone paying anything to read what I write, but who knows?  It’d certainly cut down on the maintenance woes that are increasingly dogging WordPress.  

A 23 year old habit, rapidly pushing 24, is hard to change.  And let’s be honest, I’m kind of a stubborn guy.  

But yeah, this fall when we get our first cold rainy non-outdoor weekend I may just pull the trigger.  

I’m not saying this is going to win any elections by itself. 

But you might pick up a lot of votes with a sustained, continuous effort to show Minnesotans…

…just who MNDFL chair Richard Carlbom really is. 

I mean, what Minnesotans won’t love the fact that their dominant party is led by a Hermann Göring lookalike with the rhetorical chops of an eighth-grader with a concussion?

I’ve been running this blog under its old design template for (checks watch) 16 years, now.  Not just the visual design (more in a bit) but the code that runs the whole thing in the background.  I’ve been patching it and updating it for literally a decade and a half – longer than most blogs last in any way shape or form – but the wheels were slowly coming off.  

I couldn’t schedule posts, for starters – which in theory shouldn’t be a huge inconvenience now that I’m not carefully following traffic patterns, like I was in the 2000s.  

But I’m very much driven by two diametrically competing forces – 23 years of habits (writing something just about every morning, and having the stuff appear when I want it to) and serendipity (wanting to write whenever and however I want to, and have it appear, again, exactly when I want to).  

Anyway – I’m hoping that updating the template to something that was built after the George W Bush administation will fix some of the technical bugs.  

As to the visual design bugs – oy.  I’d forgotten how much of that is involved in spooling up a WordPress blog.  I’ll be working on ’em as I go, here.  Enjoy the incongruence while it lasts!

Joe Doakes, no longer of Como Park, emails:

Governor Walz plans a special session of the legislature to help Democrat fundraising efforts.  

 

He doesn’t say it that way, of course.  He says it’s to pass gun control legislation in the wake of the most recent shooting. Knowing Republicans are unlikely to agree, Democrats plan to continue using the atrocity to dun their supporters for donations. 

 

“If nobody had guns, nobody would get shot.” Sounds simple, right?  But its First Order Thinking. It’s simple alright, too simple.  It ignores human nature.  

 

Second Order Thinking asks: “Take away ask the guns and what will Bad Guys do? Sit quietly painting landscapes?  Bake cookies, write music, go sailing?” No. 

 

Google “knife attack.” The Bad Guys will not sit quietly, they will substitute a different tool to do their evil, like the mass stabber at the Michigan Walmart. But this time, there will be no armed citizen to stop them.  

 

Take away knives and Bad Guys will use clubs.  Take away clubs and Bad Guys will use the very stones themselves, as Cain slew Able. 

 

The problem is not the guns, knives, sticks, or stones.  The problem is the Bad Guys. And Democrats have no intention of solving that problem.  

 

It’s too profitable. 

 

Joe Doakes 

Until we control human nature, weapon “control” will always fail. 

And trying to control human nature has led to imponderably greater evils than we’ve seen.  

Focus on the Family’s counseling site:  www.focusonthefamily.org/tragedy

Or call 855-771-HELP for a call back from a counselor.  

And here’s today’s music list:

SCENE:   Mitch BERG is having an Old Fashioned at a bar in northern Wisconsin.  Engrossed in a conversation with the waitress, he doesn’t notice Avery LIBRELLE has walked in, wearing a “MEAT IS MURDER” t-shirt.  

LIBRELLE:  Merg!

BERG:  Of, for…the second time this week, how ya doing…

LIBRELLE:  Shut up.   It’s the guns, stupid. 

BERG. So I’ve got a question for you, Avery.   Whenever a spree killer can be tied, however tenuously, to the right, the media and people like you get veeeery serious about dissecting connections to “extreme” ideology.  Like Vance Boelter…

LIBRELLE:  Extreme pro-life MAGAt!

BERG:  …but when it’s someone like the Covenant or Annunciation shooters, whose manifestos were like Gen-Z leftist movie screenplays, full of hate for Christians, Jews, conservatives, Trump…

LIBRELLE:  It’s the guns and only the guns!   And how dare you blame all transgender people!

BERG:  Where did I mention transgender people?

LIBRELLE:  You did. 

BERG: (Turns to stenographer sitting at next stool) Please read back the converstation starting with “shut up”:

COURT REPORTER:  OK.  Starting from where Mist…er, Mizz…er…(looks to BERG with look of inciipient panic)

BERG:  Don’t worry. Just read. 

COURT REPORTER:  OK.  

LIBRELLE:  Extreme pro-life MAGAt!

BERG:  …but when it’s someone like the Covenant or Annunciation shooters, whose manifestos were like Gen-Z leftist movie screenplays, full of hate for Christians, Jews, conservatives, Trump…

LIBRELLE:  I could have sworn I heard you call for the deaths of all transgender people.   

BERG:  You’re thinking of Mayor Frey…

LIBRELLE:  Shut up.  Why are you bringing a court reporter with you?

BERG:  Seems I need one lately. 

And SCENE.  

SCENE:  MItch BERG is ordering an omelette at a local diner.  Too late, he notices Avery LIBRELLE entering the building.  There is no graceful exit. 

LIBRELLE:  Merg!

BERG:  Er, hello, Av…

LIBRELLE:  Shut up.  The shooting in Minneapolis yesterday proved that “thoughts and prayers” aren’t enough.  They were literally praying…

BERG:  So it’s time to doooooooooooo something?

LIBRELLE:  Why the tone of mockery?  I’m serious.  It’s time to…well, it’s time for action!

BERG:  Any action?

LIBRELLE: Anything that works!

BERG:   Great.  So the state’s “red flag law” didn’t work, because for some reason nobody called the authorities about an apparently transgender person saying crazy things. 

LIBRELLE:  Heyyyyyy

BERG:  And to ban guns you’ll have to repeal the Second Amendment…

LIBRELLE:  Which we can dooooooo!

BERG:  You can’t.  You’ll need 2/3 of Congress – you might get 35%, once.  And if for sake of argument you do, then yo’ll need 38 states.  You might get 10, one time.   So that’s not happening.  

LIBRELLE:  OK, wise guy, what do you have?

BERG:  Something that been 100% effective so far in preventing school shootings. 

LIBRELLE:  Oooh,  Go for it. I’m all ears.  

BERG:  It’s a policy used in 1,000 school districts nationwide.  And in 25 years, there’ve been zero shootings at any of them, during school hours, on school property.  

LIBRELLE: Let me guess- religious and home schools?

BERG:  I said districts.  Public. schools.   

LIBRELLE:  OK. So far so good. . 

BERG:  Not a single child harmed.  That’s what we’re going for, right?

LIBRELLE:  Right.   Must be some really progressive policy!

BERG:  They’ve rejected the “gun free zone” label.   They allow staff to carry their own firearms.  Some of them require training, others don’t’, but the point is, anyone thinking about shooting up a school has to reckon with the fact that any teacher, any principal, any janitor, any lunch lady can end them.  

LIBRELLE:  That’s horrible!

BERG:  Why?

LIBRELLE:  More guns ocn’t fix the problem. 

BERG:  First – it’s not “more guns”.  It’s the possibility of any gun.  And if “no school shootings” is your goal, then that seems to have hit the spot, doesn’t it?

LIBRELLE:  That…just…

BERG:  VIolates your sense of moral aesthetics?   

But steam is coming out of Librelle’s ears.  

And Scene.  

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

 

Joe Doakes

Some of the basic functionality behind the scenes of this blog is starting to break down. 

Part of it, I think, is that I haven’t updated the WordPress template since…uh, 2011.  

Hey, it’s not like I don’t have enough to do, is it? 

Anyway – expect some disruption, probably this weekend.  

Well, that post-assassination round of Kumbaya didn’t last long, did it?

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

Why fly deportees to Africa?  Is Trump trying to provoke a constitutional crisis?

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/05/stephen-miller-goes-biden-judge-who-ordered-plane/

My understanding is that the animals being deported are so vicious that their own countries won’t take them.  They’re being sent to the only place that will accept them.  Yes, it’s a Third-World shithole. What’s your point?

I’m wondering why the country-of-origin issue isn’t being addressed more forcefully.  If any nation refuses to take their own scum back then the immediate finding by the President should be then NOBODY from that country is allowed to enter or remain here.  Refuse entry to everyone, including diplomatic staff.  Throw all them all out.  Don’t think you can dump your problems on us.  

And maybe take it one step farther:  “The criminals being deported are so vicious that their country of origin won’t take them back.  It’s unfair to American taxpayers to feed and house them forever.  But we recognize the courts have said these criminals must be given due process.  Therefore, we intend to give them a free lawyer and a fair trial after which they will be given a first-class hanging.  If any nation objects to the death penalty and wants to take them, let me know and we’ll pay the freight to ship them to you. Be aware that if you let them go and we catch them again, they will be summarily executed and the cost will be recovered from you in the form of higher tariffs.”

That ought to put the cat among the pigeons.

Joe Doakes

Seems like too much fuss.   

Don’t want your citizen back?   Seems to be that’s what parachutes and C130s are for.  

“Oh, gosh.  You got ’em back anyway”.  

And yes, not taking your own criminals back is a solid case for raising tariffs. 

Berg’s 21st Law is about to get its sternest test.  

More in a moment. 

Who knew there was something too extreme for Richard Carlbom?

The longtime DFL strategist, the guy behind getting gay marriage ensconced in the Minnesota Constitution, replaced Ken Martin as chair of the MNDFL after Ken Martin moved on to a star-studded reign at the DNC.  

And his first crisis is something that he’s gonna need another gay marriage or abortion tempest-in-teapot to fix:  the DSA, rotting out his party from the roots. 

The party just nixed Omar Fateh’s endorsement for Minneapolis Mayor:

 

DFL Party Chairman Richard Carlborn says the decision to remove the mayoral endorsement comes after a review of the challenges found “substantial failures” in the DFL convention’s voting process, and “acknowledgment that a mayoral candidate was errantly eliminated from contention.”

The CRBC findings after the review show that the voting system for endorsement produced a very inaccurate count of the first, undercounted by 176 votes. 

The findings also state that the entire Ward 5 credentials books were lost by the Minneapolis DFL, causing delegates to have to re-establish delegate status. Additionally, the master check-in sheet at registration was not properly secured.

Huh. So – corruption all the way down…

…according to the DFL?

This is the sort of battle we’ve seen pretty much every major cycle in the DFL:  the crazy activists pick crazier candidates (remember when Keith Ellison was the rational moderate against Matt Pelikan in 2018?) and the state party steps in and jams down the person they want.  

So is the state party strong enough to upend the city party?

U of M professor, clad in a terror scarf, calls for “dismantling” the US:

I seek to dismantle the United States.  I hope you seek to dismantle the United States. And if that isn’t your politics…OK? (Hahahahahah). I speak as if everyone has this commitment.  And the thing is, you should have this commitment.  This is the goal…

As she prattles on for a while about “decolonization”, she should start by rejecting the money and job paid for by those “colonizers”.  

Can a civil society survive when society spends more time and effort protecting criminals than the law-abiding citizen?

The Mayor of Boston just made her, and presumably her city’s, priorities pretty visible:

Now, you might say it costs nobody anything – the victims are alive, the attacker dead. Expressing (misplaced) sympathy isn’t going to kill him again, or endanger the victims. Is it?

I see your logic, and raise you Mary Moriarty (open and expand the thread):

But here’s the money quote:

A source familiar with the case told us that charges were declined by Mary Moriarty’s office because the victim was able to fight back.

Got that?

If you defend yourself, that’s all the justice you need.  (How much do you want to bet the intended victim only evaded assault charges because he was a teenager?)

We are getting to the point where the lesson is the one people in all low-trust societies eventually get to; it’s better to handle “Justice” by yourself.  To do the job, to not talk to the police – even enforce the practice – and make offender examples on your own.  

I’d ask “is this what you want”, but this is  the DFL we’re talking about. 

The smartest woman in the world, decided to sound off about crime in the District of Columbia:

we’re starting to see this, along with “a little bit of crime is one of the things you put up with to live in a major city” – the kind of gaslighting rationalization used by the class that ran New York City before Rudy Giuliani took over.

it’s really very Orwellian: convincing an entire population that crime = normality, and seeking normality is the aberration.

and you’re seeing plenty of this from the Minneapolis booster crowds, in between their videos of crowds of people at street fares and families riding around the placid lakes far from the centers of crime; here you go, I’m a Republican tough guy from Maple Grove with your F350; here’s crime-ridden Minneapolis”, as if two things cannot only be possible, but be possible around the corner from each other.

I pity the next Democrat moron, who tries any of this with me.

Back during blogging’s glory days between about 2004 and 2011, people new to the medium used to ask me what it took to write a successful blog.  

I told them “stick to a schedule”.  Didn’t matter if it was two pieces a day, or once a week, or twice a month – but pick a schedule and stick to it.  

And I’ve largely done that for the past 23 years.  

But you might have noticed – output’s been a little light this past few months.  

Part of it has been priorities.  I got laid off from my day job in February.  Which, given that I approach job-hunting with maniacal intensity, meant rather less time for writing than normal; when I’m on the beach, I start grinding out resumes pretty much as soon as I have my coffee. 

And then, as I noted last March, I fortuitously wound up getting picked up at HotAir.com, writing with my old friends Ed Morrissey and David Strom.   I get paid for what I write there.  Not a ton, and certainly not enough to pay my bills – and it’s a slightly different kind of blogging than what I do here.  But it’s a nice side hustle.  

To go with my other side hustles – the NARN and my band. 

Which made for a spring and summer of cranking out stuff for Hot Air, band gigs, and above all cranking out resumes.  416 of them in 19 weeks.  

Given a choice between feast and famine, I’ll take the feast.  I landed a day job about a month back.  A contracting job, limited to 40 hours a week.  The bills are paid and then some.  

And then I connected with a startup which eats up a chunk of my spare time during evenings and weekends.  

So, commitment-wise I’ve been trying to stretch two pounds of sausage casing to cover five pounds of sausage.  

Oh, yeah – and I’m coming down with a summer cold.  

Shot in the Dark isn’t going anywhere.  That habit I told everyone to develop back in the first paragraph still barks at me every morning at 5AM, just as it did int 2003.   It’s been a constant thing for me for what feels like a lifetime.   It’s also my show prep – and God and Salem willing, the NARN isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.  We’ve got a country to save.  

Anyway – output’s not going to stay down.  And I’ve got a project or two that might just rear their heads in the near future, after I’ve gotten over the whole “going from unemployed to overemployed” thing. 

But pardon a brief slowdown while I take some zinc and maybe try to get six hours of sleep tonight.  

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

You know you’re sitting in the cheap seats when . . . .  

 

My question – what’s he looking at?  And where’s his buddy for the other one?  Bathroom break?  Went for a Coke and a hot dog?  

 

Joe Doakes

Perhaps placing bets on the Millers game…

George Will has deserved plenty of flak over the past 40 years or so.  

And he’s caught some for this interview here.  

And I think the flakkers got it wrong:

I think what he’s saying here is “let New York voters FA, so the whole nation can FO”.  

I mean, it’s going to happen anyway. 

Lets you wondered what Omar Fateh’s actual priorities might be: 

Not fixing potholes.  

Not making a city in economic freefall into a destination again. 

Protecting illegals from the boogeyman.  

Minneapolis is in the best of hands.  

…and maybe you can call me a cynic, but when I heard NPR and the BBC hyperventilating about the first female umpire in MLB history, I have to admit I wondered if a story like this…

…was pretty much iunevitable.

Patrick Hedger is with Netchoice.

Today’s music:

SCENE. It’s December, 1944.   Bastogne, Belgium.  The men of the 101st Airborne Division are surrounded, defending the vital road junction, as seven German divisions close in. 

Men of Company F, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment – just down the line from the famed “Easy Company”, not the same guys at all – are coming out of their foxholes after a German bombardment. 

PRIVATE JEB RANKIN (a farm boy from Alabama):  Hoooo-iiiie, that was something.  

TECH SERGEANT FOURTH CLASS ANDREW “ANDY” PILSNER (the platoon radioman):  I heard Lieutentant Ratchett in Third Platoon got blown up.  (The others shake their heads in that “glad it wasn’t me” manner). 

PRIVATE FIRST CLASS GUISEPPE “JOE” RANDAZZO (a former streetcar conductor from Southie in Boston):  Rattled my fillings.  

STAFF SERGEANT WILLIE BUXTON (a Montana rancher turned NCO, and the platoon sergeant):  Everyone OK? 

CORPORAL JAMES “JIMMY” STEVENS (a former rendering plant worker from Indiana):  Crissake.  Why do we do this.  

RANDAZZO (Sardonic):  To defend democracy.  

RANKIN (earnest):  To liberate Europe.  

SECOND LIEUTENANT LLOYD MOUNTEBANKE (A Yale Business School graduate who is the platoon leader):  That’s incorrect.  

RANDAZZO: Sir?

MOUNTEBANKE:  This is why we’re fighting:

RANKIN:  We’re sittin’ here thousands of miles from home, so…people can kill babies, sir?

RANDAZZO: Ma’Donn (crosses self). 

MOUNTEBANKE:  You heard the woman.   Carry on.  (Exits into the woods as suddenly as he appeared)

STEVENS: (Sotto Voce) That doesn’t seem right…

BUXTON:  OK, men, that’s enough jawing.   You heard the Lieutenant.  We’re fighting to kill babies. Now get some top cover on those foxholes.  

And SCENE

The good news:  Bloody Mary Moriarty is not running for re-election as Henco Attorney.  

The bad news? It’s so she can focus on “transforming the office” even further:

“I ran for this office to do the hard work; the work that desperately needed doing and the work the voters chose when I was elected in 2022 by 16 points,”Moriarty said in the release. “We’ve become accustomed to elected officials who don’t deliver results and end up more invested in clinging to power than doing the work of the people. That is not me. As I have weighed whether I wanted to spend the last year and a half of my term focused primarily on campaigning or continuing to transform this office, the choice became clear. I want to focus on running the office, rather than running for office.”

The worse news?

Remember – the Cano Corollary to Berg’s 21st Law is called a “law” for a reason:

In Blue city electoral politics, “blue” never gets “lighter” or less “progressive”.  There is only one electoral direction – more “progressive”. 

A symptom of this is when one sees people just barely to the left of a city’s Overton Window referring to the progressive politicidans and institutions in power as “Conservatives” or “Republicans”.  

When Alondra Cano seems like a sane, rational stateswoman, the Frey Corollary is in effect.

Worst – ergo most likely – scenario:  Moriarty spends the rest of her term gutting whatever vestiges of traditional law and order might remain her her office, turns it over to someone who will be subtly running to challenge Omar Fateh, Keith Ellison or Ilhan Omar from the left one day.  

SCENE:  It’s a typical weekday at the MNDFL headquarters.  Richard CARLBOM, the chair, is meeting with activist Avery LIBRELLE and Moonbeam BIRKENSTOCK, party executive Inge “Lucky” CARROLL, as well as Betty Rae TORSTENGAARDSEN, from the (possibly fictional) progressive blog “MinnesotaLiberalAlliance.Blogspot.com“.  She was Lac Qui Parle County Dairy Princess in 1987, and voted “most likely to end up as a freelance political writer” by her sorority at U of M Morris in 1992.

LIBRELLE:  So polling is showing that Minnesotans are getting concerned about the amount of fraud in Minnesota government.  

CARROLL:   I say we do what we always do – bully voters into silence.  

BIRKENSTOCK:  It worked well during the Same Sex Marriage issue in 2012!

CARROLL: (Sotto voce) Brown noser…

CARLBOM: (Beamingˆ). Yeah, those were the days.  But I think we need something different.  The other side has given up the illusion that Minnesota is the same as the one Garrison Keillor talked about.  We need to step up the game. 

LIBRELLE:  How?

CARLBOM:  Hear me out.   We don’t just double down.  We dec-tuple down.  

CARROLL:  We make fraud…cool!

BIRKENSTOCK:  Sort of like “celebrate your abortion” for graft!

LIBRELLE:  How do we do that?

CARLBOM:   We run a campaign showing DFL pols, stakeholders, non-profiteers and the like, revelling in the wealth they’ve gained from…somewhere.  

BIRKENSTOCK:  Show Omar Fateh driving down the street in a Bentley!

CARROLL:  “Don’t you want to be like Omar?”

LIBRELLE:  So pitch defrauding the state as…

CARLBOM:  The ultimate social program.  

CARROLL:  I like it!

And SCENE

When Ilhan Omar says things like this:

…is she:

1. Telling a truth so broad that it is in effect a lie (white men are the second largest racial/gender group in the country; nearly all violence is intra-racial, and there are more of them to perpetrate and be victims, and hypothetically to become terrorisrts)
2. Lying (white men commit proportionally less violence against black men than vice versa)
3. Referring not to violence but to logic and honesty, in which case she’d best fear me?

Thoughts?