“A Gaffe is what happens when a politician accidentally tells the truth.
— Michael Kinsley

Governor Walz may have committed a gaffe the other day:

He’s being too modest.

With its proposed ban on liquid fuel, the DFL is working to ensure that no matter where you grow up or go to school, you have to stay in your community.

That might not be the result of this episode – at least, I but this past Tuesday Shivanthi Sathanandan, a Minnesota state DFL executive who advocated defunding the police gets the living crap beating out of her by carjackers.

And yep, she was one of those DFLers::

In her June 2020 post, Sathanandan thanked two Minneapolis City Council members for their “radical leadership” in working to “dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department.”

“We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department. Say it with me,” she wrote.

This past Tuesay, Sathanandan it was in her own yard when…:

“Four very young men, all carrying guns, beat me violently down to the ground in front of our kids. The young men held our neighbors up at gunpoint when they ran over and tried to help me. All in broad daylight,” DFL Second Vice Chair Shivanthi Sathanandan wrote in a public Facebook post, which included a picture of her face after the alleged assault.

“Look at my face in the picture. This is the face of a mother who just had the sh$t beaten out of her. A mother whose only thought was, ‘let me run far enough and fight hard enough so that my kids have a chance to get away.’ This is the face of a mother who just listened to her four-year-old daughter screaming non-stop, her seven-year-old son wailing for someone to come help because bad guys are murdering his Mama in the backyard, her neighbors screaming in outrage … all while being beaten with guns and kicks and fists,” she said.

It’s not Sathanandan’s job to add that if any of those neighbors had responded with the kind of force that could have ended the assault, Mary Moriarty would likely have prosecuted them far more harshly than the carjackers themselves.

But unlike some previous victms, who’ve blamed “the system” and themselves, Sathanandan reaches a rational conclusion:

“And I have rage. These men knew what they were doing. I have NO DOUBT they have done this before. Yet they are still on OUR STREETS. Killing mothers. Giving babies psychological trauma that a lifetime of therapy cannot erase. With no hesitation and no remorse,” she said.

“We need to get illegal [!!! – Ed.] guns off of our streets, catch these young people who are running wild creating chaos across our city and HOLD THEM IN CUSTODY AND PROSECUTE THEM,” she said. “Look at my face. REMEMBER ME when you are thinking about supporting letting juveniles and young people out of custody to roam our streets instead of HOLDING THEM ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS.”

.

It’s natural – and in some cases appropriate, and in Sathanandan’s case documentably true. The DFL does in fact own the situation. And I do pile schadenfreud on the

But I’m going to urge people to take the opportunity to see the opportunity, here. Sathanandan may never become a law-and order conservative – but Minneapolis got where it is incrementally, and any improvement will be at least as incremental.

And if you’re so inclined, pray for those kids. The fruits of the politics of the parents shouldn’t be visited on the kids.

Much less their neighbors.

UPDATE. There is speculation that this is staged. Some are make a plausible case. The blood doesn’t look like any head laceration usually looks (and believe me, I’ve had a few), and she takes a pretty composed-looking photo for someone with a broken leg.

OTOH: the hoax, if it is one, benefits conservatives, and even the Frey administration, against whom the Minneapolis DFL is mustering money and votes.

Not saying that’s not plausible – but why?

It’s amazing…

…how many descriptions of Communism apply to the modern DFL.

Hope you’re enjoying your long weekend dedicated to a movement that mistook “two decades of inflated wages when the US was the world’s only functional economy, while Japan and Germany and South Korea were bombed flat and India and China were busy with socialist noodling and starving themselves back to the 1800s and unable to manufacture anything more complicated than motor scooters” for an eternal entitlement.

And they still do:

Senator (gag) Smith: go ahead. Put a bunch of workers – with or without union cards – in an open field. See if a factory or a workshop or, since you’re a DFLer and it’s your only perspective of the private sector, a coffee shop springs up around them.

We’ll wait.

Well, tomorrow I’ll wait. I’ve got labor day plans.

I saw this tweet from Governor Klink, and it brought me back in time almost (cough cough) years, to when I was trying to decide what to do after college:

And I clearly remember my thought process when figuring out where to move, and why:

1. If a condom breaks, will my future nonexistent girlfriend be able to abort it even up until birth?
2. If we have a kid, and get divorced, and that kid decides to transition genders, will I be able to get the custody order ignored?
3. Can I afford the rent…not now, per se, but at some indeterminate point in the future, when a hodgepodge of government programs have some promised effect, whatever it is?
4. Can I get paid leave from the job I neither have nor, honestly, have really figured out what it’ll be, yet?
5. Will other kids coming after me be “prepared” for the jobs I’m trying to get?

Kudos, Governor Klink. Nailed it.

Is it just me, or was that tweet about coaxing young people to move to Minnesota – something they’re not doing – written by someone who’s never been a young person thinking about moving to another state?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

“
“

To: Rep. Nathan Coulter (DFL 51B)
From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous peasant and human ATM
Re: Congrats

Rep. Coulter

I was a little amazed to see that you are in fact a state representative.

Because the optics of a tweet like this are a little…

…well, bad:

Rep. Coulter: speaking as a middle-class empty nester who is getting not a f***ing penny from this so-called refund (let’s call it what it is – targeted vote buying), the idea that tax money is being “Refunded” to the needy – like, say, a State Representative from the mean streets of Eagan – maybe you might wanna stop your eyes spinning long enough to remember where the money came from.

You’re welcome, (REDACTED).

That is all,.

This is todays DFL.

May 2023: Leave the possibility of throwing grandma out on the street very pointedly open.

August, 2023: Pat selves vigorously on the back for not doing it.

… how iconic brands in Minneapolis never find buyers? They always go from humming along to closing up shop for good?

Psycho Suzies tiki lounge may have been one of the most distinctive bars/restaurants in the city, that, for its many faults, as always been pretty creative on the food front.

It’s been a while since I’ve been there – although one of my most treasured memories is cleaning Bridget Cronin‘s vomit off my shoes during one of her birthday parties there. But every time I was ever there, it was packed, especially on gorgeous summer nights, where you could sit and look across the Mississippi River at the sparkling of gunfire from North Minneapolis.

You think it would be a hot property, including its branding, for someone.

But nooooo…

Psycho Suzie’s Motor Lounge announced it will permanently close on Aug. 19.

“For the past two decades we’ve welcomed you through our tiki laden jungle to enjoy tropical drinks, pizza pies, waterfront seating, and the company of new and old friends… but all good things must come to an end and this Psycho Suzi is ready to hang it up and put on her retirement hat,” said owner Leslie Bock, in a Facebook post.

So what Minneapolis social tradition will be next? City government has drawn a line in the Sand around the first Avenue, clearly – that place is escaped the apathy of the market. Thanks to city intervention a number of times.

The Dakota? God forbid.

As cannabis becomes legal in Minnesota today ,it’s become fairly clear that the DFL didn’t read the bill they’d copied and pasted from some advocate’s model legislation file.

Cities around the state are frantically passing legislation to treat public consumption the same as cigarettes, vaping and alcohol – things the state didn’t bother to do.

And they’ve thoughtfully left the door wide open for the black marketeers:

But even though growing, possessing and using weed will be legal for people 21 and older on Aug. 1, you still won’t be able to buy marijuana from a licensed dealer in most of the state. It will likely be more than a year before dispensaries begin opening. Democrats say they framed their bill that way so regulators would have enough time to develop rules for recreational marijuana sales.

Critics say allowing possession of so much marijuana without also allowing its sale will be a boon for unlawful and unregulated black market sellers.

Not to mention the tax rate – which, at 10%, is roughly 100% higher than the black market tax rate of absolutely nil.

So – we’ll have all the black-market crime, plus a disproportionally baked population.

It’s the DFL’s dream.

It’s this blog’s considered position that DFL politicians can say pretty much anything they want; they know that the typical DFL voter, while invincibly smug about their education, is incredibly badly informed and, being a trained regurgitator of dogma, has no capacity for critical thought. They also know that the Twin Cities’ subservient news media – being mostly from that same population – won’t do anything to fix that.

Which is why Melvin Carter can write bilge like this:

Now, you know gun store owners aren’t clairvoyant. And I know it.

And so does Melvin Carter.

He knows that a “straw buyer” is someone who:

1. Uses his or her clean criminal record – with no indication they might be a probem, and
2. Knowingly sells or gives guns to criminals.

And Mayor Carter also knows that neither the Hennepin nor Ramsey County attorneys, going back decades, is especially enthusiastic about going after straw buyers. Nobody ever got elected Senator by putting a gang-banger’s girlfriend in jail.

But they typical DFL voter? Someone who learned their law enforcement from a video game or an episode of “Criminal Minds?” They likely do think there’s some way for a gun store worker to tell if the person showing their ID is one of the 99.999% of gun buyers who are legit, or that other one who’ll sell a gun to a ne’er do well who goes on to shoot up a bar in Saint Paul.

And they just don’t care that much anyway.

During the session: the DFL said that their “child tax credit” would reduce child poverty by a Third.

Now that we are waiting for the taxes to kick in:

“Good“ reduce child poverty.

Like Homer Simpson, slowly disappearing into the hedge behind him, the DFL is walking their absurd claim back, confident that nobody in the Twin Cities media will call them on it.

I’m going to check back periodically, just to see how child poverty has, well, “fallen”.

Any bets?

This bit was making the rounds among the DFL repeat-bots yesterday, as evidence that Minnesota just loves them some DFL.

Unmentioned, and unpredicted during the interview: a 14:1 spending advantage, and a subservient media uncritically parroting the DFL’s messaging for it.

This is part of the DFL’s campaign to gaslight people into thinking they’re inevitable.

And – wow. The DFL just tossed their long-time messenger prof Dave Schultz under the light rail train.

There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.

Minnesota DFLers are giving themselves rotor-cuff issues patting themselves on the back…

…over, uh, this:

Minnesota came in one slot of Texas. I’m old enough to remember when Minnesota was overwhelmed with New York City. Plus ca change…

But what is the rationale for this list, from always-Democrat-friendly CNBC?

I’ll add some emphasis:

To determine its rankings, CNBC factored in metrics across 10 categories, listed here in order of their weight: workforce; infrastructure; economy; life, health and inclusion; cost of doing business; technology and innovation; business friendliness; education; access to capital; and cost of living.

So – according to a list that ranks stuff HR cares about well ahead of stuff Accounting cares about, Minnesota beats Texas…

…by one.

Wheeeeeee.

Congrats, DFL.

A friend of the blog emails:

The Delano parade on the 4th is always a big thing. Lots of fire trucks, bands, small town celebration royalty, and usually, lots of politicians.

Now I know this fall is an “off year”, and I awas in a generally red leaning county, but there were no Democrats in the parade. US Rep Emmer, Mn Rep Joe MacDonald, and Mn Sen Bruce Anderson were the only politicians. 

No Amy, no Tina, no Tim, no Keith, no one locally. All of them usually have people in the parade because it’s one of the state’s biggest parades. 

Were they just that tired from spending that much money?

Back about 10 years ago, the management at AM1280 sent Ed Morrissey and I to a lot of county fairs to do live broadcasts. Ramsey, Anoka, Washington, Dakota, maybe some I’ve forgotten.

I also usually work Game Fair as a volunteer for the MN Gun Owners Caucus (join now, if you haven’t!)

And it was always a chuckling point – the DFL presence, if any, would be a wan volunteer in a sad little booth, wilting from the heat and humidity and lack of interest. Even in election years.

You’ll note that each of those areas have gone appreciably more DFL over the years – except for Ramco, which is largely a one-party county.

I think the DFL realized something back in the 2000s: the hoi polloi are meaningless to them.

Their votes come from:

• Groups whose community leaders are paid to be good DFL shills
• Dumb people who are panicked over non-issues (“the GOP War on Women”, “The Governor may ban abortion!”) into voting DFL.

Neither of those constituencies are reached by dodging horse plop on a 92 degree day in Delano.

Minnesota is getting its thoughtcrime registry.

First, some credit where it’s due. I actually found a relatively fair, well-balanced story on the subject.

Of course, I had to go to Grand Forks to do it.

The piece covers the registry’s background – including some of the fairly inspired quesistoning by Republicans Harry Niska and Walter Hudson:

The key moment that caught the most attention? An exchange during a floor debate when Rep. Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, asked House bill sponsor Rep. Samantha Vang, DFL-Brooklyn Center, if publishing an article on the theory that COVID-19 was a bioweapon that had originated in a Chinese laboratory could count as a bias incident under the new legislation.

Vang said it would be possible.

“With the rhetoric we have seen since the pandemic regarding accusing Asians of bringing in the coronavirus, that is bias-motivated,” the first-term representative said. “So that can be considered a bias incident.”

Now, the bad news.

Wags in some conservative circles floated the idea of flooding the agency with reports of progressive hate speech, of the type that run of the mill DFLers are constantly dribbling out.

No such luck. The lsw’s DFL sponsors saw the potential for the registry to be buried in “progressive” hate, and tightened it down. (Emphasis added).

In its final form as a law, language calls for the department to “analyze civil rights trends … including information compiled from community organizations that work directly with historically marginalized communities.”…

In other words, they did for it what they did for “Feeding Our Future” money: made sure only the DFL Non-Profit/Industrial Complex could participate.

But what about safeguards?

Why, after spending a decade and a half obliterating all rational grounds for the “high trust society” that democracy needs to survive, we’re supposed to just trust ’em!

What officials do know right now is community organizations such as Jewish Community Action, the Coalition of Asian American Leaders, and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, will provide reports of bias incidents to the state…Putz said it would have been more of a problem if the human rights department were to take direct reports of discrimination from individuals. With nonprofits and other groups with a track record of documenting discrimination being the source of information, that won’t be a concern, he said.

Nothing says “trustworthy” like a (partial) list of non-profits that are also DFL farm clubs.

Senator Zaynab Mohammed – a “devout Muslim” who voted for chemical neutering and abortion after birth – should put your mind at rest (although hopefully not “at rest” enough to vote DFL) (emphasis added again):

Asked by Forum News Service whether spreading a lab theory on COVID would count as a bias incident, Sen. Mohamed said she trusted the judgment of Human Rights Department officials.

“Could that happen? Sure, maybe,” she said, but added: “They know exactly what they’re doing. They understand the goal of what this legislation is supposed to do.”

That whole idea of breaking CD1, 6, 7 and 8 away into a separate state is sounding better every day.

It’s faint – easy to miss in the din and blare of the DFL celebrating its just-finished legislative orgy, in the bleating of the news media, in the squawking of Governor Klink and honking of Lieutenant Governor Flanagan at a restaurant or parade.

But it’s out there.

Listen, and you can hear it: “The typical “independent” MInnesota voter is no more enamored of abortion on demand throughout and after pregnancy, at taxpayer expense, for all people of all ages who make it to Minnesota, legally or not, than they are of the idea of completely banning abortion”.

Because as the hangover from the DFL’s legislative orgy sets in, the DFL’s elected officials are telling you they know it, although not much more loudly than the whisper, so as not to offend their “progressive” overseers.

Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Sunday she supports allowing limitations on abortion in the third trimester of pregnancy wading into the thorny political debate of abortion procedure time frames.

“I support allowing for limitations in the third trimester that do not interfere with the life or health of the women,” Klobuchar told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union,” while also reaffirming her support for codifying Roe v. Wade.

So while every Democrat will wriggle away from the question “at what point in pregnancy would it have no longer been OK for your mother to abort you” like it’s a live hand grenade, you can see that they’re not aware that some people can and do answer it.

Metro progressive DFLers don’t hear it, of course – or will turn up the volume of their little show:

But Amy knows.

The DFL did so much damage this past session, it’s hard to track all of it.

Rep. Hudson did a pretty good job of cataloging it – and why it matters (expand the tweet to see it all).

I’ll be talking about this extensively on the show this Saturday.

Humans: “My God, this is horrible. Those poor girls…“

DFL/Media (pardon the redundancy): “OK, who leaked the video?“

Well, no – I’m actually not exaggerating (thread):

The problem, Ms. Moriarty, is that nobody trust you or your office. Not even a fair chunk of people who would never consider not voting for the DFL.

We started seeing it alwt week, with EJ Dionne’s puff piece in the NYTimes.

And over the past few days, you’re seeing Public Relations via Goebbels 101 in action: repeat something over and over and over until the gullible and uncritical start accepting it.

It started last week – the DFL’s functionaries and pet media referring to this past session as a “Minnesota Miracle”.

Note the coy presentation below:

“Whatever you want to call it?” The DFL is spending big money and redeeming big political capital to try to push the idea that their legislative orgy was, not a Mafia-like twisting of “moderate” arms after spending $18 for every GOP dollar to win the Senate by 300-odd votes, but a “Miracle” of progressive governance.

So, they “won” the session. They got everything they wanted, and then some. . The GOP wasn’t even a speed bump (somewhat unforgivably, in terms of the bonding bill IMO).

Why would the DFL feel the need to pimp so hard for the public image of their “colossal achievement”?

Oh. That’s why.

Governor Klink is all about the stolid rural individualism:

“It’s a very Midwestern value: mind your own dang business.”

This from the guy who gave us the snitch line.