Judd Hoff has allegedly been stalking Minnesota State Representative Mary Franson for a while now.
“Stalking”, you say?
Yep.
I got a new neighbor, someone who has protested me for years. Out of all the places he could move to – he chose across the street from me. Every so often, he lets the neighborhood know how he feels about me (and Trump)
“Defendant approached Mr. Cornett with a machete pointed at him to instill fear so that he would comply with defendant’s command to return the flag,” she wrote. “As Mr. Cornett retreated, defendant approached. Defendant continued to keep pace with Mr. Cornett’s retreat all around his vehicle, into the street and back onto the sidewalk. Mr. Cornett felt sufficient fear of being stabbed or killed by defendant’s dangerous weapon, a machete, that he pulled his handgun. Even then, defendant did not stop.”
Oh, yeah – and he’s now the DFL-endorsed candidate running against Franson:
I don’t know why … that party should be loud and proud for their unanimously endorsed democrat candidate. pic.twitter.com/tMIfo9lMMI
Oh, yeah – I suspect that if the GOP endorsed a felon and someone very credibly alleged (with, say, footage they shot themselves, and a loooong social media record) to have stalked his female MNDFL opponent, the media would be humping the story’s leg.
I turn 65 this Summer. I went online to apply for Medicare. Can’t, must apply for Social Security first. Okay, filled all the boxes, established a strong password, set up two-factor authentication, entered the confirmation code, received acknowledgement of the code, so are we done?
No. They’ll send me a letter in the Snail Mail with my final activation instructions. Should receive it in 10-15 days. Then I can finish the set up to have funds direct deposited into my bank account.
Snail Mail? Does ANYBODY use snail mail for ANYTHING anymore? The entire process is electronic (and soon to be digital currency, as well) except for this step which looks like nothing more than a make-work payoff to the Postal Worker’s Union. I’d gladly have offered to pay for them to ship it Fed Ex, had that been an option, but no. Wait for the letter. Hope for the best. What could go wrong? Unbelievable.
And it’s generating the usual clouds of ire from the usual suspects.
I’ve got my suspicions. We’ll come back to that. First (with emphasis added):
Construction on the project is allegedly “expected to begin Fall of 2025.” However, the City of Lino Lakes released a statement on the project saying they have “not received a land use application for this development at this time. No review has been undertaken and no approvals have been granted.”
Should Madinah Lakes be constructed, it would be located “approximately 1.5 miles east of Lexington Ave on the south side of Main Street” in Lino Lakes, with Olson’s Market to the north and The Tavern on Main to the west.
In other words, like a lot of big real estate development proposals, it’s vapor.
In fact, very vapoeous:
Zikar Holdings, the corporation reportedly developing Madinah Lakes, is registered with the Office of the Secretary of State (OSS).
The website for Zikar Holdings states that the corporation specializes “in transforming land into sustainable and inviting spaces where families can flourish and individuals can thrive.” The corporation also says it has “a proven track record spanning over 10 years.”
However, Zikar Holdings only registered with the Secretary of State in December of 2023, and no completed projects are listed on Zikar Holdings’ website. Instead, the company promotes the pending Lino Lakes development and references future projects in Rochester and St. Cloud.
So – let’s recap:
Vaporware development…
…with an Islam-centered vibe
…in the north suburbs.
I’ve got suspicions.
Development Of Convenience: As we noted last week, Democrats are nervous about their polling heading to the fall election. They are particularly concerned about holding onto:
The various suburban seats that went for Trump in 2016, that they won by paper-thin margins in 2022.
A Muslim voter base that is not happy about President Potato trying to split the baby on Gaza, and a far left base that is using that to leverage the larger Democrat party.
If you’re Ken Martin, you have to be thinking that they can’t overturn Roe again, the Biden Administration isn’t going to cough up any positive surprises, Trump’s personality is a stranger to nobody, that if he didn’t suspend the Constitution and declare himself dictator in 2020 he’s not going to do it in 2025, and that most people outside the NPR class are keenly aware they’re not doing better than they were in 2019.
So what’s the wedge that’ll logroll gullible Democrat-susceptible voters to the polls?
Lots of “They’ll BAN ABORTION” for the white progs. And lots of “LOOK HOW MUCH THEY HATE YOU” to the Muslims.
And nothing shores up Democrat wall like trafficking in intersectional victimhood.
So, you give billions in cash and even more in moral legitimacy to a regime thats sworn its intent to commit genocide, that murders its own people, and that has for two generations run espionage, terror and covert military actions throughout the Middle East and Europe, and they turn around and do exactly what they’ve always said they were going to do?
Put another way: Are you better off now than you were four years ago? If you live in the Middle East (Arab, Jewish or other), or Ukraine and Eastern Europe, no. Biden (and Obama “before” [2] him) unleashed the hell you are currently living in.
Iran launched 185 drones, 110 surface-to-surface missiles, and 36 cruise missiles, with most coming from Iran and a small portion being launched from Iraq and Yemen, the New York Times reported. IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said that, by about 3:00 a.m. local time, a small number of missiles had hit Israeli territory, causing minor damage to a military base in the country’s south.
Neville Chamberlain and Jimmy Carter’s legacies must both be profoundly thankful for Joe Biden.
Inflation is gutting working families’ budgets – but illegal immigration is gutting their paychecks, so the budgets are becoming irrelevant.
The exploding national debt is unsustainable, in ways that could very well make our society unrecognizable sooner or later.
And since “tall tales” are the issue here, we are of cours, led by a President who, on top of being demonstrably senile and corrupt to the bone, is a serial fabulist – about his childhood, education, his first wife and child’s car accident, his career, “civil rights work”, and Beau’s death.
But this is what Tina “The Giggly Butcher” Smith is yapping about.
So does Tim Sheehy actually think Shoreview is farmland? Because I love my constituents in Shoreview but farmland it is not. https://t.co/xGfQzXSJwc
When likely voters were asked if they’re “generally more inclined to vote” for a Republican, Democrat or candidate from another party, 45% said they prefer Republicans, 44% prefer Democrats, 8% were undecided and 3% preferred another party.
Minnesota Republicans are taking encouragement from this – as they should.
The same poll shows Trump and the First Potato in a dead heat:
According to our latest exclusive KSTP/SurveyUSA poll of Minnesota voters, Biden leads Trump 44% to 42%, with 11% saying they’ll vote for another candidate and 4% undecided. The poll has a credibility interval, similar to margin of error, of ±4.9%
“When you have a 2-point race in a presidential year, you’ve got a competitive state,” Carleton College political analyst Steven Schier said. “One that both campaigns will probably pay attention to.”
I’d urge a little caution along with the exuberance:
See that11% “Other Candidate” and 4% in the Presidential poll (and 11% between “Other” and “Undecided” in the House race)? I’m going to guess that, among the Legal Pot and Libertarian and Ventura Party dross, that involves a lot of “Uncommitted” DFLers. Democrat intraparty squabbling is like a couple of bull hogs fighting for the best patch of mud – but being essentially herd animals, Democrat voters almost always “come home”.
The numbers in the House poll refer to generic Republicans versus generic Democrats. It’s contingent on coming up with candidates who are better than generic. There is a strong undercurrent in the MNGOP of the same crowd that made Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Tayor Green into powerbrokers. Someone needs to teach some Minnesota GOP voters what legislatures are for. On the other hand, it shows that for exceptional candidates – people cut from the same cloth as Harry Niska, Eric Lucero, Pam Scott, Walter Hudson and Mary Franson – there is immense opportunity.
The Conventional Wisdom in 2016, when Trump came without two points of toppling Hillary!, was that Trump didn’t “almost win”; Hillary!, being a terrible candidate, almost lost. We’ll see if Trump has increased his cachet, but it’s entirely possible the First Potato is a worse candidate than Hillary! was.
Still, two years into the “trifecta”, we’ve had worse news.
So – why did the ever-so-decisive Minneapolis City Council delay its “minimum wage” hike against Uber and Lyft to July?
To help the soon-to-be-unemployed drivers?
To give the companies a reasonable chance to adjust?
HAH. Naïve peasant!
It’s to save the DFL from itself!
The Minneapolis City Council, in voting unanimously on Thursday to delay enactment of minimum pay rates for Uber and Lyft drivers for two months, offered a lifeline for Democratic legislators embroiled in their own divisions over the issue.
Legislative leaders, who are trying to craft their own compromise that would increase driver earnings but keep Uber and Lyft in the Twin Cities metro, are increasingly concerned that the polarizing ride hailing issue could upend the remainder of the legislative session, which hangs on a one-vote majority in the Senate.
The council has come under immense pressure to reconsider their minimum rates since the wide-ranging effects of Uber and Lyft pulling out have become more clear: some 10,000 drivers likely losing income without unemployment benefits and tens of thousands of convention-goers, commuters, bar hoppers and people with disabilities needing to find different transportation.
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, and House Majority Leader Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis, met recently with a half dozen members of the City Council to request the delay and remind them of the stakes of a deal, as well as the city’s significant legislative agenda at the Capitol, according to several people present or briefed on the conversation.
So they found an issue where out-radicaling each other isn’t bringing them votes.
Weird. It can be done.
BTW, if I were the CEOs of Lyft or Uber, I’d tell the CIty Council to go pound sand unless they all came to my headquarters on their knees to kiss my butt on live television.
I wonder what “intellectual self-defense” looks like, legally? Because this woman is an immediate danger of destroying or gravely injuring the national intellect.
As we noted yesterday, the sports bar “A Bar Of Their Own” – which opened on March 1 to paeons of praise and wall-to-wall coverage from local media – has a unique-ish marketing hook; the TVs are all tuned to womens sports.
That’s all well and good. I support anyone and everyone bringing a new product or service, or bar for that matter, to the market and letting the market decide.
But, again as noted yesterday – if I were the proprietor of another sportsbar, I might be wondering what marketing hook I could come up with to get pretty much every single news outlet in town to come back, not once but several times, to provide breathless, adulatory coverage to my establishment?
“A Bar Of Their Own” (henceforth ABoTO) got the sort of gauzy, soft-focus, “lifestyle” coverage – sometimes not just bordering on cheerleading, but sailing right past it it into borderline unseemliness – that money can’t buy .
But – what if money did have to buy it?
How much free advertising (called “Earned Media”) did ABoTO get over this past few months?
Method To (March) Madness: Advertising costs money. And while rates and revenues have dropped sharply on traditional broadcast and print media over the past decade and change, it’s still not cheap.
So here’s what I did:
I took the six biggest media outlets in the Twin Cities, other than Shot in the Dark and the Northern Alliance; WCCO (Channel 4), KSTP (Channel 5), KMSP (Channel 9), KARE (Channel 11), MPR and the Strib.
I figured out how many times each of the outlets ran stories on, or prominently referencing, ABoTO. This is the “Story Count” for each outlet.
I multiplied the number of stories by the number of “newscasts” on which the piece of hard hitting journalism appeared (the “Newscast/Publication Count” in the table below. (In the case of the Strib, this refers to many days it appeared in the paper).
I multiplied the number of appearances by an adjusted, estimated spot ad rate. See “Assumptions”, below. That gave us a “Total Advertising Equivalent”.
Now, the goal is to provide a ball-park figure, not an academic or legal disquisition. But just so we’re clear, I made a few assumptions.
Assumptions: Here’s what I included and excluded, and why.
I included unique stories that appeared on the station website. Some outlets run the story online multiple times on the same date with different headlines. It’s a marketing thing.
I counted the number of newscasts that would have likely run the story. (With the Strib, I figured a story would run in one day’s edition).
I assumed each outlet would run the story for one day’s worth of newscasts. I know that the story ran for longer than one day on some TV stations, but I had no way to measure that.
I left out longer-form pieces, like appearances on “magazine” or “features” type shows (“Twin Cities Live”, “The Jason Show”, “Good Day” and the like).
The rates, I fudged – downward. A one minute spot on a major metro TV station newscast runs (according to local broadcast sources) between $1,000 and $1,500. There is of course a quantity discount (and the amount and frequency of some outlets coverage would seem, if only sarcastically, to appy), and ratings do count; I gave a 10% bump to Channel 4.
The rate and number of appearances on MPR are a semi-educated guess.
The rate at the Strib is evel less educated, and is based on the price of a prominent display ad.
With all that understood, here are the numbers:
Station
Story Count
Newscast/Publication Count
Total “Spots” (Broadcasts/Publications)
Rate per “Spot”
Total Advertising equivalent
WCCO TV (Channel 4)
3
7
21
$1,100
$23,100
KSTP TV (Channel 5)
5
11
55
$1,000
$55,000
KMSP TV (Channel 9)
6
15
90
$1,000
$90,000
KARE TV (Channel 11)
6
7
42
$1,000
$42,000
MPR
2
2
4
$150
$600
Star Tribune
5
1
5
$2,000
$10,000
Total
$230,700
The estimate is inexact – there might be other ways of estimating the numbers, but I can’t think of many objectively better – and I’d be amazed if any of them showed less benefit to ABoTO.
This is the spot where a lesser writer might throw in “doing this is more fun than watching most women’s sports” – but as I noted yesterday, I’m distantly related to women’s nordic skiing royalty, and let’s be honest, who doesn’t love beach volleyball, so I’m going to let that trope go.
Anyway – I guess if you’re thinking about opening a business, the path to free advertising is clear.
The law requires nominees to be certified at least 90 days before the general election, and Biden won’t become the official nominee until the Democrats hold their convention in Chicago — less than 90 days before the general election. Biden will miss the deadline by 12 days.
So, apparently when Democrats say that their voters are too stupid to follow things like Voter ID laws, they might just be projecting.
Easy. Lie about how the pig has always had bright red lips.
That’s the tactic CD8 DFL candidate Jen Schultz is using to try to convince voters President Potato is somewhere north of worthless.
Interesting comparison of economy under Reagan & Biden. Many believe economy under Reagan was remarkable. (Graphic from Real Time) #MN08pic.twitter.com/xVBikfwNoW
— Jen Schultz for Congress MN08 (@RepJenSchultz) April 7, 2024
By picking numbers from the beginning of Reagan’s era, rather than, say, 1985, and assuming that people susceptible to voting for Jen Schultz either don’t remember the truth or are too intellectually bovine to question her.
PlumpJack Cafe in Olympic Valley – which is among a group of eateries owned by a company Newsom founded in 1992 – is hiring a part-time busser who “will aim to assist the food server … to ensure guest satisfaction during all aspects of the dining experience,” according to a ZipRecruiter posting.
The job listing states the salary for the busser is $16 an hour plus tips.
But a food service worker would make more working at a McDonald’s than at the high-end restaurant and bar thanks to the new $20 fast food minimum wage that went into effect Monday.
Fast food restaurants under Newsom’s law includes any place without table-side service that has more than 60 locations around the country – which seems pretty oddly specific, targeting McDonalds and skipping Chilis…
…or the PlumpJack group, where you can get a steak for $90 with tax and tip.
Perhaps you’ve heard – there’s a sports bar in Minneapolis that focuses on women’s sports.
And heard.
And heard.
And heard some more.
Now, don’t get me wrong – I wish “A Bar Of Their Own” all the best. I wish pretty much any private-sector business kills it in the market; I’m with pretty much any entrepreneur – even if I’m not necessarily a patron [1]
But if I owned a “regular” sports bar who might be looking at all that free coverage, I might be looking to make all “journalists” pay up their bar tabs.
A Bar Of Their Own has gotten a lot of free advertising from Twin Cities media.
How much?
Come back tomorrow.
[1] Heck, come Winter Olympics time I might even patronize a “female sports” focused bar, since I’ve got distant family among the elite ranks of Women’s XC Skiing.
To: DOJ/DHS/FBI/Deep State From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous Peasant Re: McCarthy Called, He Wants His Scare Back
Feds,
Just a quick detour into music history:
OK – with that out of the way:
BREAKING: The federal government has been illegally surveilling and building profiles for Americans in secret portal called DSAC for those who oppose firearm restrictions, lockdowns & vaccine mandates, and or support border security and are labeling them as domestic extremists. pic.twitter.com/4QAEov4jay
According to this “independent” anti-gun sock puppet account, teachers are paragons of virtue who must be trusted even more than parents, including on childrens’ pre-adolescent decisions to neuter themselves – with the the odd exception…:
Florida private school teacher (Andrew Fierle, 43) has been arrested for sex crimes against former student.
Under Florida law, teachers can carry guns inside schools.
An armed teacher has even more power to intimidate and coerce a teenage student. pic.twitter.com/XMnA4iqpvD
— K-12 School Shooting Database (@K12ssdb) April 7, 2024
…unless they choose to avail themselves of the means, or live in a state that allows them to choose to avail themselves of the means, to defend their charges from violent attack at school, in which case are presumed to be (if you’ll pardon the expression) loose cannon until proven otherwise?
I swear, sometimes it’s exhausting trying to follow the left’s logic.
I was trying to remember how long it’d been since I [1] last threw an “alt-media” party. The semiannual Minnesota Organization of Bloggers parties were not just a regular feature of our annual calendar, but among the social highlights of my personal calendar during the MOB’s . We did them generally twice a year – but the last one was almost 11 years ago.
At their twice-a-year peak, we drew 120 people; bloggers, blog readers, NARN fans, even some leftybloggers and members of the MSM.
When the NARN celebrated it’s 10th anniversary in 2014, I joked about getting a tenth anniversary party together – but it never happened. Partly because the NARN had evolved from a big group show to 2-3 guys at any given time. Partly because the blogging community that had been such a vital dynamic achievement in the 2000s had been supplanted by social media, and by everyone’s real lives.
Jack, Brad and I figured it was high time we fixed that. And Saturday night, at long last we did.
The NARN 20th anniversary party was last Saturday night. Jack, Brad and I, following the formula for responses I remembered from the MOB days, expected maybe 30 people. The total through the door was somewhere north of 60 – with 50 in the room at one point.
“The room” was at Exchange Food and Drink in New Brighton – a great venue with fantastic food and some honest pours. They also expected maybe 30 people (because that’s what I’d told them), so the one water covering the party room was scrambling like Fran Tarkenton (kids, ask your parents). But he pulled it off. I’ll try to be less modest next time – and. if you’re looking for a lovely place for a party, a date or lunch with your co-workers, I recommend 10/10.
Anyway – it was a fantastic time. And I realized how much I missed throwing these kinds of get-togethers. My life has been poorer for lack of them, and it’s not a mistake I’m going to make again. There will be another.
More later!
[1] and my various colleagues, of course – Brian and Chad and the guys way back when, Brad and Jack today.
I was always afraid the activists had too much control, [the FOB’s spouse] was confident that the state wouldn’t do something this stupid. But, it is getting talked about in mainstream media now. It’s probably really going to happen, isn’t it?
The FOB is talking about the “Plan” being pushed by “advocates” to replace I94 between the downtowns with a “boulevard”.
Normally at this point, of course, I’d say it’s just another racket to transfer money from the taxpayers to the non-profit and consultant “advocate” class. They can write puff-piece reports and squalls of PR material on the indirect public dime, build entire careers out of yapping about vaporware projects.
But the people who love to play with the levers and buttons and knobs of government have gotten their hands on this, so I’d say the odds are pretty decent that a lot more money will be spent on this.
The obvious question is, what happens when an untstoppable money-squandering force (the drive to gut 94) meets the immovable money-squandering object (the drive to put a deck over the freeway to rebuild Rondo)?
It appears the Vegetable In Chief has browbeaten Netanyahu into letting Hamas live to rape, burn and mutilate another day:
Very discouraging news out of Israel today that the IDF is pulling its forces out of southern Gaza, supposedly to “rest, regroup, and re-supply” after four months of hard fighting. Let us hope this is true, but one can’t help but suspect that this move may be in response to demands from the Biden Administration that will inevitably lead to a permanent cease-fire which will amount to a Hamas victory, because Hamas will have survived a hard Israeli punch but will now have time and room to rebuild. (Axios is now reporting that Biden delivered an ultimatum to Netanyahu.)
Biden appears to be well on his way to making Jimmy Carter look like a foreign policy titan:
When I heard the news of the IDF strike that killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen, my first instinct was that the aid workers were set up by Hamas through false or deceptive intelligence sent to the Israelis. We know Hamas uses civilians as human shields and welcomes civilian casualties as a means of propaganda, and foreign civilian casualties are the best propaganda of all. Maybe an Israeli officer was hasty and had a twitchy trigger, but I doubt it. In any case, it gave the feckless and craven Biden Administration the excuse it needed to break with Israel (as I predicted it eventually would), in the biggest betrayal of an ally since Munich in 1938.
And I hope you can join Jack, Brad, a few dozen of our closest friends and I tonight at Exchange Food and Drink in New Brighton, 7 PM until we finish or 10PM, whichever comes first!
The world’s major powers are rattling their sabers as they spar in secondary theaters.
The economies are in the hands of people who love to tinker with the levers and buttons of the Big State.
And young intellectually over-stimulated but underendowed bobbleheads are romping and playing:
THIS SATURDAY: Revolutionary Communists to march to the Wells Fargo Center, demanding that big banks be nationalized under workers' control. Calling on all workers not to vote for either the Democrats or Republicans, come November. Starting 1pm at Minneapolis City Hall. pic.twitter.com/bqt6jPJmFZ
