So, Governor and Veep Candidate Walz supports censorship of “misinformation” (which is defined by his sycophants in the media) and “hate speech”, which is defined by…him.

I’m gonna guess this gets called “hateful misinformation”.

One heartbeat away from the presidency, if America doesn’t wise up this fall.

Rochester DFLer Kim Hicks reports her home has been vandalized:

Representatives for Hicks confirmed with FOX 9 that on Aug. 3, political signs in her yard, plus the siding on her home and a shed on her property were all vandalized by the masked intruders.

“My family was a victim of racist vandalism at our home this weekend. It has been a difficult two days, but then our community showed up,” Rep. Hicks said as part of a statement. “My family felt so much love and support from our friends, neighbors, and even strangers who came to lend a hand.”

If true, then lets hope the masked (?) men are caught and prosecuted.

Now, just so we remember – Berg’s 20th Law reads:

All incidents of “hate speech” not captured on video (involving being delivered by someone proven not to be a ringer) shall be assumed to be hoaxes until proven otherwise.

 There’ve been so many blown-up hoaxes in Minnesota – especially, curiously, southern Minnesota – in recent years that you’d think even DFLers would realize it’s a bad idea. 

You’d also think they’d have known that breaking and entering and confessing to the crime on camera, or stalking your political opponents while having been convicted of attacking someone with a machete, or driving drunk with piles of edibles with loose ammunition for your service revolver strewn about your vehicle were all bad ideas, too.

Again – here’s hoping the vandals are caught.  The victim is a DFLer, so it could actually happen. 

Barack Oba…er, Kamala Harris has picked Governor Klink to complete her ticket. The precedent was clear to anyone paying attention – Walz was governor because he’d made his deal with the devil.  

Part of the deal appeared to be “making Flanagan appear to be a co-governor”; her name appeared below Walz’s on most campaign literature – but was longer, and usually colored such that her name “popped” harder than Walz’s. 

You can hear the Twin Cities media going Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee all the way to Chicago. Those of us who live here and pay attention – a painfully small Venn diagram, as the 2022 election showed us – know that, as Scott Johnson says,  Walz “casts the pale shadow of a man incapable of embarrassment and presents as an example of life imitating art, in this case the advertising art that created Joe Isuzu:

For those of you in my audience who aren’t from MInnesota, let’s go through a little of Tim Walz’s political record.

Congress:  Walz spent six terms as a US House rep from the 1st District – the largely rural southern tier of counties, at the time.  He ran to the commonsensical center to defeat the very moderate Gil Gutknecht; like Colllin Peterson, Byron Dorgan, Kent Conrad and Earl Pomeroy, he made moderate noises for his rural base.  He was a-rated by the NRA. 

And when Governor Dayton ran up to his term (and, likely, health) limit in 2018, Walz took that record – sans his NRA rating, which he dumped like it was a “3” when a “5” was batting her eyes at him:

Emerging As A Puppet: Tossing aside the NRA endorsement wasn’t enough to impress the DFL’s newly surgent “Progressive” wing, which pushed the overtly extreme Erin Murphy, backed with the equally gleeful extremist Erin Maye Quade at a convention where even Keith Ellison was too moderate (they endorsed fire-breathing socialist Matt Pelikan over the, I say again, too moderate Keith Ellison.

Not even picking Peggy Flanagan – literally the most extreme leftist in the Minnesota House at that time – was enough to slow the prog wave, although it was a start:

Of course, DFL chair Ken Martin knew the electorate wasn’t quite as demented as the DFL activist base – outside the metro, anyway – and put his foot down, He pulled his backroom deals, put the DFL’s money behind Walz/Flanagan, and dragged them over the line for a win in the 2018 DFL primary.

The precedent was clear to anyone paying attention – Walz was governor because he’d made his deal with the devil.  

Part of the deal appeared to be “making Flanagan appear to be a co-governor”; her name appeared below Walz’s on most campaign literature – but was longer, and usually colored such that her name “popped” harder than Walz’s. 

Unremarkable:  During those years, Walz’s most extreme urges were stymied by the GOP’s slim, often one-vote, majority in the Minnesota Senate.  Not that he didn’t try – but the worst instincts of his “progressive” regime got tempered by Paul Gazelka’s canny politicking – one might call it “rear guard action”, either in the military sense, or (to some) the “covering one’s ass” sense.  Take your pick. 

The Deluge:  And then came Covid.

Walz declared emergency power on Saint Patrick’s Day, 2020.   In an infamous press conference, he said Minnesota would have a bare minimum of 20,000 dead by July, if everything went perfectly – with 70,000 much more likely.  He seized emergency power, and shut down schools, churches, most businesses…

…but not big box stores, liquor stores, or “The World’s Largest Candy Store”, in Jordan, run by a major campaign contributor.   He declared broad swathes of Minnesota’s labor force “non-essential”.  He instituted a “snitch line”, which countless “Karens” used to report their neighbors for offenses against the Covid regime. 

He also repeated Andrew Cuomo’s catastrophic errors in handling long-term care of the elder;ly; the carnage in Minnesota’s nursing homes was epic, and inexcusable. 

But the death toll lagged his predictions – by about an order of magnitude.  And for a brief, weird moment, the media did the unthinkable – they asked questions . 

Including at a presser on May 11 – where a reporter asked if the Department of Health department would release the code for the model that had made the initial, alarming preductions .

And Walz’s spokesperson replied “No – because people might use it to get different results than we did”. 

Which, for those of us who passed ninth-grade science class, is the opposite of science. 

He held emergency power for seventeen months, for an emergency that in effect ended in the summer of 2020.

The Floyd Riots:  Walz’s performance during the George Floyd riots was perhaps more controversial – mostly notably when Mayor Frey of Minneapolis asked where the National Guard was, after 2-3 days of rioting, and the Governor, essentially, asked why the Mayor hadn’t put a cover sheet on his TPS report. 

Some in emergency management said he followed the plan (although the response was botched at many levels). 

Speaking as someone who lives in a neighborhood hit hard by the riots, I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now.   The Guard appeared in token numbers on the Friday after the riots came to Saint Paul – four days into the violence – and didn’t appear in numbers sufficient to tip the balance until Saturday. 

The Governor may have done his job – maybe.  But he did it to the absolute bureaucratic minimum standard.  The only two leaders in the whole affair were Chief Axtell, and then-president Trump, whose threat to send the 82nd Airborne may or may not have spurred actual action, but certainly seemed to, whether coincidentally or not.

The Flood:  And then came the 2022 elections.   

The DFL did what it does best – scare suburban women into thinking abortion (protected in the MN Constitution for years, now) was in imminent danger.   They rode that to seizing the “Trifecta” – control of both chambers of the Legislature. 

It was a close fight – Keith Ellison and Julie Blaha nearly lost.   1,000 votes would have swung the Senate to the GOP; about 4,000 more, the House.  Scott Jensen was a weak GOP candidate at the head of a decreasingly potent state GOP – but Walz only won by 8 percent. 

But the DFL governed like they’d had a California-style mandate.

And the results have been wretched.  I’ll just brain-dump them here:

• He and the DFL squandered a $19 billion surplus.  The “surplus” was structurally down to $2B as of the last forecast, but it’s going to be a deficit – right after the election.  The money went to buying votes (“Feeding kids!”) and frau/ /
• The Metro DFL is a fraud machine, funneling hundreds of millions of dollars through the HHS and Education Departments.  Faced with the news, Walz said “it’s not my job, man”.  
• Much of the surplus also went to “fully funding education”.  But school districts are still complaining about money, teachers are striking all over the place, and reading and math scores are still falling.  Graduation rates improved, briefly – when they state removed most standards. 
• While Minnesota’s population is said to be holding steady, it’s mostly because of immigration.  Minnesotans in their productive years, or with fungible capital, are leaving and taking their businesses and their money.
• College students and young people are leaving Minnesota.  That the reverse of the trend that obtained for decades before, when generations of young people – myself included – saw Minnesota as a destination. 
• While he prattles about “One Minnesota”, he has “sorted” Minnesotans pretty relentlessly. 
• He made MN a sanctuary State
• He pushed drivers licenses for illegals
• He drove making Minnesota a “trans refuge” – signing a law that mandated disregarding of child support decrees for children brought to the state by noncustodial parents to seek chemical and surgical neutering (alone among all causes).
• Crime in the metro is about double what it was ten years ago – and while it’s down a skosh from 2021, it’s waaaay ahead of pre-pandemic levels.

When they think they’re among friends, the left proudly recognizes Walz as one of their own. 

The Rule Of The Brittle:  Walz succeeded Mark Dayton – who was a fairly opaque governor, largely because his health was so atrocious his rarely went to the office (unreported by the state’s compliant media)

Walz is healthier – but far more opaque.  Other than the stage-managed pressers during Covid, his only real communication is via his very active Twitter feed, which provides a constant deluge of photos of him cavorting about the state, usually in his “regular Joe” costume of a seed cap and overstretched T-shirt.   State Fair time is usually high season – as he and his entourage waddle about the fair, sucking down corn dogs as the cameras roll. 

Which is probably a good thing – because he doesn’t handle questioning well.   And he appears to know it – the only debate in the 2022 cycle was on a feeble TV station in Rochester.  And Scott Jensen got under his skin – which isn’t hard to do.   He has a long record of losing his cool when people actually question him. 

So his handlers allow none of that. 

Speaking of questions:

Why Walz?   I think most national GOP strategists thought Josh Shapiro would be the prime choice.   Pennsylvania may be the swingiest of the swing states; some day it’s the hinge pin of this election. 

While Minnesota is a 50-50 state (four DFL and four GOP reps in Congress), the DFL turnout machine dominates state races against a MN GOP that makes the Vikings look like overachievers. 

if the state is in play then things are very bad for the Democrat indeed.  This doesn’t seem to track the situation. 

I’ll entertain thoughts in the comments. 

As part of the DFL’s “Most Secure Election System In The World (TM), the Minneapolis DFL held an early voting event over the weekend.

At the Midtown Global Market.

In the food court:

You should read the entire Twitter thread.  

And maybe it’s time to start picketing Steve Simon’s office…

Two observations.

First:  Is this:

…the cringiest photo you’ve seen since that collection of seventies family photos you got tricked into looking at?

Second:  She’s got no intention of leaving office, does she?

She’s got a plea deal in the work with some sympathetic prosecutor, she’ll plead down to “disorderly conduct” – really, no worse than Matt Wolgamott/Brion Curran/Dave Hutchinson/Julie Blaha driving drunk!  Maybe even less! – and ride the issue out, and stay in office, until she gets a sinecure at some state agency – like, the state sentencing board, just to add hilarious insult to injury. 

Any bets against?

How it went, 16 days ago:

How it’s going:

So it seems there was a brief moment when DFLers thought actions had consequences. 

Oh, so brief.

Someone wanna explain how this isn’t a call to more violence?

To:  America
From:  Mitch Berg, Obstreporous Peasant and American
Re:  Tim “Governor Klink” Walz

America,

Some of you – OK, most of you – may be getting your first introduction to Governor Tim Walz, as the noise machine frantically tries to position him as a viable VP candidate. 

“Small town regular Joe” is one of the costumes he puts on, complete with an ancient International Scout and an NRA cap…

…well, no.  He ditched the NRA cap when he had to power-suckup to the “progressive”/Democrat Socialists of America (DSA) wing of the party to beat back Erin Murphy and Erin Maye Quade in the primary in 2018.  He still puts on the costume on occasion – the DFL sends a social media intern with him for pictures at the lake, or driving the Scout, or having Peggy Flanagan feed him a corn dog. 

Anyway – if the news blitz is your first introduct5ion to Governor Klink, let’s go through some pros and cons of him and his administration.

Cons of Tim Walz

• Led the plundering of an $18B surplus, leaving the state with what will likely be at least a $2B deficit later this year.  Minimum.
• Turned a deaf ear to the most epic wave of corruption in Minnesota history, as DFL stakeholders from the DSA non-profit/industrial complex pillaged a bare minimum of a half billion dollars worth of funds “intended” to “feed hungry children” during the pandemic…
• …after having been equally incurious about at least $250M being piillaged by some of these same stakeholders from Health and Human Services budgets. 
• Like many governors, he assumed emergency powers in March 2020, when nobody knew muich about the pandemic.  He announced that, according to the model he’d gotten from the Minnesota Department of Health, Minnesota faced upward of 70,000 deaths in the next four months – perhaps 20,000 as a best case scenario if the state shut down completely and submitted to draconian control of society.   By May, it was clear that the model was wrong – at which time the administration declared the model double-dog top secret, because in the words of an MDH staffer at one of his press conferences, “people might reach different conclusions”.  Y’know – try to reproduce results.  Like actual scientists, as opposed to propagandists, do. 
• He created castes of “essential workers” – which included grocery store workers (but only at “big box” stores), liquor stores, “the World’s Largest Candy Store” (run by a campaign contributor, as luck would have it),
• In particular, he instituted rules in nursing homes that created absolute carnage among seniors.  Minnesota had among the worst death rates in the nation among people in long term care – up there with New York City.  For this alone, I’ve got beef with the little fella – this happened right as my stepfather died and I needed to move my mom to Minnesota.  There was a six month delay – which caused plenty of other problems. 
• Notwithstanding that the “emergency” was effectively over in three months – six if you want to be cautious to the point of paranoia – he held onto “emergency powers” for well over a year and a half. 
• After the death of George Floyd, he publicly sided with Floyd, long before any facts were known about the incident.  Which contributed to the 2020 Riots. 
• During those 2020 riots, he followed his bureaucratically-defined role to an anal-retentive “T” – even publicly chiding Mayor Frey for not submitting a cover sheet on his TPS form when requesting the National Guard.  But he ceded the “bully pulpit” to the rioters and their symps in state government .  And to his daughter, who served as a source of intel for the rioters regarding police and Guard movements. 
• He also coddled lawlessness within government; when “protesters” tore down a statue of Christopher Columbus on the State Capitol Mall as his Capitol police looked on, he giggled until his belly jiggled like a bowl of jello. 
• He has actively contributed to the tribalizing of Minnesota politics. 
• On his watch, crime in Minnesota in general is up by at least 50% since he assumed office.
• On the other hand, capital is leaving the state.  Movers and shakers, entrepreneurs (other than coffee shops, which along with small political consultancies are the only for-profit businesses DFLers even pretend to understand), retirees – they’re leaving the state and taking their money with them.  Minnesota’s net wealth is down by billions. 
• Young people are also leaving Minnesota, reversing decades of Minnesota as a destination for young people just getting started on careers and life.  I was one of them, once.  If I were me, today, and not seeking a career in government or the non-profit/industrial complex, I wouldn’t do it again. 

Pros of Tim Walz

He spends a lot of money at the State Fair.

That pretty much it.

Joe Doakes, once from Como Park, emails:

We all know that Minnesota is run by the DFL; has been, for years.  Legislative session just ended.  What critical problems did the DFL solve?

Drug dealer licensing.  Put zoning above environment.   Raise rates for Uber/Lyft rides.  Increase penalties for gun crimes which DFL county attorneys will decline to prosecute.  State takeover of rural ambulance service but only 10% of the funding funding to run it.  Ticket prices (House File 1989, apparently a reference to Taylor Swift, which shows you the level of silliness).  Deadbeats over doctors.  ATV trails. Raise the price of broadband.  

I also heard from Ramsey County management.  They got $1 million for Union Depot; more money to subsidize homelessness, justice-impacted residents re-entering the community; digital literacy resources; an anaerobic digester to convert organic food waste into renewable natural gas; support services for youth suspected of juvenile offenses or delinquent acts; and packaging waste (reuse, recycling and composting).

But nothing for problems like this one, which is arguably one of the most important jobs we collectively hire government to do, since we can’t do it alone.

Nobody can say they haven’t made their priorities clear…

To: Hypothetical Attorney General (Federal or State)
From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant
Re: Opportunity

Mr./Ms. Hypothetical Future Attorney General,

Looking at this:

…and this:

I’ve got to ask – what’s it going to take to get the MNDFL into a RICO investigation?

If they’re not racketeering, I’m not sure who is.

That is all.

Governor Klink, Melissa Hortman and the Urban DFL clacque squandered a $19 billion surplus paying off the DFL’s special interests, and all we got was a broken dam.

Unexpectedly? No. Not a bit. The century-old Rapidan Dam on the Blue Earth River – a tributary to the Minnesota, and eventually the Mississippi – has been a problem for a long time.

And everyone who gave a, er, damn knew it:

In 2021, a study was conducted that identified two feasible solutions for the dam’s state of disrepair: repair or remove the dam. Both options have significant costs, and each has its opportunities, trade-offs, and timeframes. The purpose of the Future of Rapidan Dam project is to identify the community’s needs and concerns and use their input on the options to help the County make the best decision for all impacted by the Dam’s future.

You can’t buy any urban non-profit allegiances with a dam. You sure can’t carry a dam in a suitcase to Kenya.

It’s bad.

If there’s a better way of depicting the results of the DFL’s priorities, I’m open to suggestions.

Check out Bill Glahn’s reporting on Feeding Our Future.

Today’s music list:

The Strib’s editorial cartoonist accidentally took a chunk out of DFL policy.

And that could not be tolerated:

That’s right – Grove apologizes to the DFL for his paper telling the truth.

Heads will no doubt roll.

Block a freeway? Burn down a neighborhood? Jack a car, rob a store, shoot up on a train, b**w a john on a bus, attack someone on a train platform?

Mary Moriarty’s got your back.

Exercise your first amendent right to demonstrate for Mary Moriarty’s enemies, whoever they are, wherever you are?

You’re a threat to democracy:

Mary Moriarty is the real authoritarian – or “fascist”, as the kids are calling ’em these days.

UPDATE: Here’s Londregan’s attorney, Chris Madel’s response.

And let me tell you…

…it may be the best press conference I’ve seen since Norman Schwartzkopf’s wartime pressers. More drop-mic moments than a “Freddie Mercury” night at a karaoke bar.

Wish we could get this guy to run for Senator or Governor, if he’s GOP.

It has become an iron clad fact that the only actual “reporting” going on in Twin Cities media is from the “alternative” media.

And while I riff on the “MN Reformer” – which is paid for by leftists with deep pockets – I’ll include them as well.

“Bags of Cash” allegedly offered to “Feeding Our Future” juror:

But…why?

Scott Johnson at Powerline is in the courtroom:

According to [leader prosecutor Joe] Thompson, the juror called 911 and the Spring Lake Park Police have taken custody of the cash — [update: the amount is $120,000]. It will be retrieved by the FBI.

Much more to come.

You get no prize for having figured out how this was going to develop.

Ken Martin demands the resignation of accused ninja burglar, constitutional law genius and state Senator Nicole Mitchell…:

…after she served her purpose in hanging onto the “trifecta” and helping jam down the DFL’s demented spending and social engineering spree.

Why yes, I’ll be bringing this up again between now and November.

During the 2022 campaign and the 2023 legislative session, in the immediate wake of burning through a $19B surplus, that the DFL claimed that the spending binge would “Reduce Poverty by 30%”.

The sessions ended a year ago yesterday.

So how’s that going?

Well, apparently we won’t know for another couple of years. The MN Department of Health’s poverty numbers end in 2022 – when they were rising.

According to some sources generally aligned with the left, poverty was steady to up; to others, it was rising…

…as of the end of 2022.

But since the spending orgy?

No idea.

All I know is, the DFL has been incredibly quiet about the subject for this past year.

There appears to be an 18-24 month lag getting poverty numbers to the public.

Huh.

So they spent $19B, and raised the budget 40%, to “eradicate” something…

…that they couldn’t test until well after this fall’s election?

Weird.

To: DFL Parents
From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous Peasant
Re: Your Kids

DFL comms guy Ryan Faircloth [1] had himself a chuckle in the lobby of the GOP convention last Friday:

The sign, naturally, is a just a tad tongue-in-cheek.

But the MNDFL – the party of “comedians” who aren’t funny and people with no sense of humor, to sa nothing of the party of Judd Hoff and Nicole Mitchell – forgot about Judd Hoff, Nicole Mitchell and “Anti”-Fa long enough to post this:

Now, let’s focus on the sign.

DFLer parents: how about teaching your kids that hitting people with skateboards and shooting golf balls and frozen water bottles from slingshots isn’t actually political speech?

That is all.

[1] CORRECTION: Ryan Faircloth appears to be a reporter for the Strib, not a DFL comms guy.

We regret the error.

Among Big Left’s great crimes against history is the complete devaluation they have achieved against the term “Fascist”. To much of the parts of society that routinely use the word, it now means “anyone not on board with today’s left’s narrative”.

No, really:

And Big Left knows what it’s doing, since the other options have also been hijacked. Call someone a Nazi, and you’re overwrought. Call someone a Communist, and people start jabbering about the Red Scare.

“Authoritarian” works, but it doesn’t have quite the same emotional impact – and Big Left has been diluting that one by associating it with Trump – a demonstrably less authoritarian president than Obama or The Potato.

So given the options, what does one call a political figure or party that:

• Their ends justify their means – including the use of government force to secure compliance
• Tries to co-opt the institutions of society to further their political ends, starting with government and schools and ending with the family itself?
• Aggressively “sorts” society into “good guys” and, especially, “others” to use as scapegoats and deflections from one’s own actions – up to and including creating an official version of “reality” that may or may not have much in common with the real thing.

Let’s take a thoroughly educational look at a politician who seems to check off all the boxes for…well, the “A” word. And maybe some definitions of the “F” word.

The Real Authority

Maye Quade is a fully-fledged creation of leftist institutions – and pays obeisance to them:

But she certainly has no love lost for society’s actual institutions.

Like parenthood.

She wants to nullify parents trying to teach their children morality and ethics, so her side doesn’t have to work quite so hard to uproot them. j

This is, of course, on top of her very casual relationship with telling the truth if it’s not in her political interest.

Might Makes Right

Maye Quade may not actually have the executive power to sicc government and its monopoly in the use of force on her political (and finanncial?) enemies.

But she sure thinks about it:

“I would love to eminent domain all 98 of these crisis pregnancy centers and turn them into affordable housing for people who do have children,” said Sen. Maye Quade. “I would love to turn them into food banks and diaper banks and formula banks. Like, these are things that actually support people having children when they decide they would like to have children, and everything that crisis pregnancy centers are doing is not that. None of it is that.”

Aggressively Sorting

Maye Quade has a staffer who’s got a bit of a “virulent anti-Semite” vibe.

This is, of course, shocking in that the aide is more antisemitic than Maye Quade’s own equivocating weasel-word-larded antisemitism:

Your tax dollars are paying for this.

It should go without saying Senator Maye Quade, like all leftists, is more aggressively yet casually racist about “othering” apostates – in this case, Senator Tim Scott, a Republican and African-American:

…which is a perfect invocation of Berg’s 11th Law.

And, like every good gaslighting abusive partner, it’s all really your fault:

Hard to miss the fact that the “consequences” in her “culture” are entirely one-sided. But that’s the nature of the abusive gaslighter. But then, I did mention creating an alternate, “official” reality, didn’t I?

No, really – an actual alternate reality…

…deviance from which is considered heresy.

I mean, a Republican with a similiar record of shilling for naked authority, advocating the co-option of instutions and relentlessly cutting out “others” to use as enemies would be called an “authoritarian” at the very least.

And yet it’s Senator Maye Quade that walks the walk

The good news: Minnesota’s new paid family leave law will cost 25% more than originally budgeted:

Minnesota’s new paid family and medical leave program will launch in 2026 with a 25% higher payroll tax than originally anticipated when the bill was passed last session, an assistant commissioner with the Department of Employment and Economic Development told lawmakers on Monday. 

Because DEED has been given legislative authority to raise the tax, the agency can do so without requiring a new law. 

“Wait, Mitch – I thought you said that was the good news?”

I did.

The bad news? The program doesn’t start until 2026. Like the Southwest LIght Rail and every other DFL spending boondoggle, this program is going to get more expensive before anyone ends up using it.

At the beginning of this session, I’d have figured the DFL trifecta would get some portion of their gun grab agenda jammed down. Maybe not outright bans on semi-automatic firearms, or repeal of pre-emption – but most of the smart money said “safe storage” and “lost and stolen reporting” was going to get jammed down no matter what.

And yet here we are with a week to go, and there’s only one bill still on the table – the stupid binary trigger ban:

And this next week could be – and needs to be – a red zone stand for the ages:

Your phone calls matter. Grant Hauschild – DFL Senator from Tom Bakk’s old district – bailed on the “safe storage” bill, negating Nicole “The Ninja” Mitchell’s vote. It was a close call.

By the way – note that it’s the Gun Owners Caucus doing the work. Not “Minnesota Gun Rights”. If you’re not a member, you need to be. Get on it

Get on your phone. Kill the bills.

Trump is going to speak at the Lincoln/Reagan dinner – one of the MNGOP’s big annual fundraisers.

The DFL thinks they’re onto something.

It’s so cute that the DFL thinks that most Trump voters don’t know this – I know many who stopped holding their noses and switched to full-face respirators to vote for him.

But we – especially if “we” are working class Minnesotans whose paychecks are 20% smaller than they were five years ago, and whose food budgets have gone up by half – might be willing to give it another shot at this rate.

Why do Democrats have such problems with cognitive dissonance?

Today’s DFL:

1. They nominate a convicted stalker to run against his alleged (by his own video) victim.
2. They trot Nichole Mitchell’s animated political corpse into the Senate chamber to vote for their idiotic “safe storage”, which will get tossed in court, and which will literally create a presumption of guilt against a homeowner whose firearms are stolen via any means.
3. And then, when Rep Franson brings up an emendment to exempt current victims of active stalkers, tell the little ladies they shouldn’t worry their pretty little heads and leave the guns to the menfolk.

What? You thought I was kidding?

This would be called “mansplaining” anywhere else.

Which brings us to the female face of misogyny, Jamie Becker-Finn:

They are treating their moment in absolute power as a way to say “nya nya” to people they hate. No more.

…that Ilhan Omar is a truly reprehensible person:

But hey, if you live in CD5 [1], feel free to vote for her, whether you are pro-corruption, graft and antisemitism, or against it.

[1] Or are buried within the borders of CD5

Just a quick point before we get started.

The “I’m just asking questions’ school of opinion journalism – whether Rachel Maddow or Tucker Carlson or anyone in between – is a particularly toxic practice. “Asking questions” that aren’t intended to elicit the truth is pointless at best; doing it as a substitute for seeking the truth or, worse, to deny or obfuscate it, is much worse.

We’ll come back to that.

The Premise: I try not to attach too much news significance to “features” columns. It’s entirely possible that columns like this Strib article from MPR alum Laura Yuen has no ulterior motives.

But go ahead and read it, and tell lme – if the piece were part of a DFL attempt to curry sympathy for Mitchell, to soften public attitudes as the DFL heads into an election with their House majority on the line behind a raft of legislation that may or may not have enduring popularity in the third and fourth tier suburbs, how woulld it be any different?

What Nicole Mitchell did is bizarre, tragic and unlawful, if the police narrative of her breaking into her stepmother’s home prevails. The state senator’s apparent failed heist of her father’s ashes and other belongings likely spells the end of her political career.

But the emotions behind it? I understand them.

In case that opening graf left you in doubt about Yuen’s sympathies, she follows with this list of center-left dog-whistles and signaled virtues:

Trauma after losing a loved one can make a person act out of character, if not out of their mind. An Air National Guard officer, former meteorologist, lawyer, single mom and staunch defender of children’s rights, this promising first-term DFL legislator had everything to lose.

The piece goes on to discuss the crazy things that follow from grief and, it needs to be said, family issues. It isn’t not worth a read, as far as that goes.

Stil – while nobody expects features columnists to be clinically detached – “journalistic” – about their subjects, I think it’s significant that Yuen buries the facts that Mitchell changed her story, not just under questioning but on social media, using her very large publid figure megaphone.

And then (emphasis added):

Until this point, Mitchell has always struck me as a superhuman, measured in both achievements and decency. (We both worked at MPR News, and I wrote a column about her and fellow meteorologist Rob Kupec after they were sworn into the Senate.) Mitchell might deserve a second chance in politics, but it would be easier to make that case if she apologized for the actions that led up to her arrest.

Hold onto that word, “Superhuman”.

Anyway – we’ve established grief can do crazy things to the psyche.

The Possible: And it’s not necessarily a features columnist’s job to examine all the other possibilities.

But since Yuen ends with a hypothetical…:

She could start by saying she’s in grief. That she’s embarrassed by what she’s done. That she’s going to step aside while she receives professional help to heal.

And as a culture, we need to allow for people to talk openly about debilitating grief, the kind that makes a hard-working, respected legislator risk it all when she acted on the worst decision of her life.

….so will I.

It’s possible that grief pushed Senator Mitchell past the bounds of normal behavior.

Also entirely possible: Yuen isn’t hte only one to think of Mitchell as “superhuman”.

Does Mitchell believe it herself?

I’m not “Just asking questions”, here.

Mitchell is a lawyer – who publicly contradicted her statements to the police, on Facebook:

Did she do this – violate a tenet of criminal defense that every first-year law student knows – because she was crazy with grief? Or because she figured she was superhuman and could do it?

It’s probably a little trite to say “I’ve suffered plenty of grief in my life, and I never burgled any relatives” – but that’s at least in part true because neither I nor most anyone else figures that’s the right thing to do, and nothing we’re grieving about is worth that kind of trouble.

Did grief make Senator Mitchell irrational? Or is Senator Mitchell’s version of “rational” different than yours, mine or Yuen’s?

I”m going to suggest the data supporting each conclusion are about equal.

Upshot: I’m not saying that Yuen’s piece is a part of the DFL’s PR effort, to try to pitch Mitchell’s alleged behavior as sympathetic as the DFL sneaks her into the Senate to finish jamming down their agenda.

But if it were, would it be any different?

Fearless prediction: Mitchell will appear on Esme Murphy for mimosas, toenail-painting and affirmation.

As predicted, Nicole Mitchell isn’t leaving the Senate until the DFL has squeezed every last possible vote out of her:

So Real Minnesotans should picket the Capitol, and to the extent possible the Senate chambers and hearing rooms, dressedin all black, carrying tupperware and basement storm windows.