December 1-6, 2020
Dec 01 04:24 Ilhan Omar hates Minneapolis police Dec 01 08:13 Joe Biden, AFT, NEA vs. the students Dec 02 03:54 Donald Trump's coat tails, Part II Dec 03 21:09 Minneapolis can't afford Vikings Stadium payments Dec 04 06:58 Tim Walz, Minnesota's DFL job-killing governor Dec 05 11:18 The Democrats' America last attitude exposed by Nancy Pelosi Dec 06 03:22 Tim Walz's policies killing Minnesotans Dec 06 08:42 Why crime is rising in Minneapolis
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Ilhan Omar hates Minneapolis police
Apparently, Ilhan Omar still hates Minneapolis police . While violent crime spikes in Minneapolis, Omar defends the idiots on the Minneapolis City Council who want to strip $7,900,000 from the police budget and transfer that money "to fund 24/7 mental health response, violence prevention and civilian oversight."
Rep. Omar "gave a shout out to city council members Lisa Bender, Phillipe Cunningham, and Steve Fletcher, who authored the policy. According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the proposal would transfer about 5% of the police budget to a mental health crisis team and violence prevention, among other things." To his credit, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey stood up to the activist wing of the DFL, saying "this notion that in order to have a more comprehensive public safety strategy you have to do away with one critical element, which is police, is wrong."
"This is literally a life and death matter right now and we need to get it right," he said. In June, the City Council cut the police budget by about $14 million.
Bender has announced that she won't run for re-election. Cunningham and Fletcher are probably safe except for a challenge from the even nutter wing of the DFL, which is definitely possible considering the fact that the even nutter wing of the DFL defeated far-left Sen. Jeffrey Hayden this summer.
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The notion that the number of calls will go down after cutting police patrols is foolish. Here's why:
According to police data, more than 500 people have been shot in Minneapolis this year, twice as many as 2019, while murders are up more than 50%. So far this year, there have been nearly 5,000 violent crimes, the most in the past five years, the records show.
Ilhan Omar hates the people of Minneapolis. If she cared about them, she'd propose beefing up the MPD budget. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened. It isn't likely to happen, either.
Posted Tuesday, December 1, 2020 4:24 AM
Comment 1 by eric z at 02-Dec-20 12:17 PM
When lines are drawn to redistrict Minnesota, I might be put into the Ellison - Omar district instead of the Bachmann - Hockey Guy district. It would be a nice change.
Sorry, about the ambiguity. There are now two hockey guy districts. I mean MN6 and not MN8.
Will Minnesota lose a district, is there anybody reading LFR with info, or must we await final census data?
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 03-Dec-20 04:18 AM
It looks like we might keep our 8 districts.
Joe Biden, AFT, NEA vs. the students
It's pretty apparent that Joe Biden is owned by The Swamp. Nowhere is that more evident than with the education of the nation's students. In July, Biden told the NEA "You don't just have a partner in the White House. You'll have an NEA member in the White House." Biden's wife Jill is a teacher and a member of the NEA.
The AFT, the NEA, the Bidens and Democrats apparently have picked out their target. Unfortunately, that target is the nation's students. Debra Saunders recently wrote "As the coronavirus spread fear among the country's elected class, the NEA and American Federation of Teachers latched onto mass school closures. Even now that research shows public schools have not turned into superspreaders, as feared, the education establishment is in little hurry to end distance learning even though it especially hurts poor children, immigrant children and those with special needs."
Parents living in the suburbs are feeling the AFT's and NEA's betrayal. They're feeling the Democrats' betrayal, too. Students with learning disabilities are getting hurt, perhaps for life. Apparently, Democrats, Joe Biden, the AFT and the NEA don't care about those students. That educational trifecta from hell hasn't shown an interest in students with learning disabilities. Shame on them for that. Tucker Carlson laid things out beautifully in this segment:
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This is frightening:
Joanne Jacobs, a California education blogger and freelance writer, told me, thought leaders focused on the possibility that one 12-year-old might die if public schools remained open, but not the consequences of 100,000 kids who don't learn to read or learn math and end up dropping out of high school.
AFT and the NEA have an advocate in the White House. Unfortunately, those parents who voted for sanity lost their advocate for their children. That's what's called being penny-wise and dollar-stupid.
Whether we're talking about education, the economy or foreign policy, I'll make this prediction. We'll be worse off 4 years from now than we are today. The Bidens' debt to The Swamp will get repaid. The question now is whether parents experience buyers' remorse or if they just give up. Giving up or fighting is their decision. Our decision is whether we'll fight the Democrats' special interests. Personally, I've voted for fighting the Democrats' special interests. I'd love lots of teammates.
Actually, the more I think about it, this isn't about fighting or giving up. It's really about whether we fight now and defeat this trifecta from hell or whether we'll fight them again and again and again on battlefield after battlefield. If this educational trifecta from hell wins the first round, they'll be back for more special treatment soon enough.
Posted Tuesday, December 1, 2020 8:13 AM
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Donald Trump's coat tails, Part II
When I wrote this post , I was ahead of the curve in noticing that President Trump helped lots of Republicans win their elections. Stephen Moore, though, did a better job with this article because he went into detail. In Moore's article, he wrote "So, how deep were the losses for the Democrats? In the U.S. House, Nancy Pelosi thought her troops would gain 10 to 12 seats. Instead, they lost, at last count, nine." That count will likely stretch higher in the coming days.
Moore continued, saying "But the real carnage was in the state houses. Hold on to your hats; here is the latest from our allies at the American Legislative Exchange Council. The GOP gained a total of 192 House and 40 Senate seats . Republicans flipped control of three chambers . " This isn't like 2010, when Republicans demolished Democrats, winning 63 net seats in the House while flipping literally hundreds of Democrat-held seats.
The Democrats' goal was to increase their majorities in state legislative bodies so they could transform the redistricting process. Eric Holder was put in-charge of the project. That failed. Now they'll have to win through the state courts what they couldn't win through the ballot box.
As a result of these big and improbable wins, Republicans now have majority control in both House and Senate chambers in 31 of 50 states. Democrats have control in only 18 states. That's a map of the USA that looks awfully red throughout middle America, with only the rusting Northeast and the West Coast colored blue.
What is truly stunning about this story is that Democrats and liberal/progressive donors (Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg, et al.) poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the states to take over legislatures with unprecedented spending in Florida, Texas and Pennsylvania. The American Legislative Exchange Council president, Lisa Nelson, estimates that Democrats outspent Republicans "at least 3-to-1 in the states." And all they got was a lousy T-shirt.
The thing that Democrats keep missing is the fact that their policies don't appeal to people. Whether it's the regulations, defunding the police or rejoining the Paris Climate Accord, the Democrats' policies put America last.
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Donald Trump's coattails mattered because he drove turnout. Joe Biden got more votes in big cities but that didn't change the redistricting equation. Until Democrats start appealing to blue collar voters, the redistricting equation won't improve for Democrats.
Posted Wednesday, December 2, 2020 3:54 AM
Comment 1 by John Palmer at 02-Dec-20 09:34 AM
Biden's vote in big cities only exceeded Obama's in three big cities (Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee as reported by Mark Levin on Levin TV)
Comment 2 by eric z at 06-Dec-20 02:20 PM
So, putting hindsight aside for a moment, how will Trump coattails play out in Georgia, given that your guys hold both Senate seats, for now?
Minneapolis can't afford Vikings Stadium payments
Minneapolis can't afford to make its US Bank Stadium payment :
A state representative from Minneapolis says his city can't afford to make its $17 million payment for the Vikings stadium so he wants Greater Minnesota to do it. The construction of Minneapolis' $1.1 billion stadium was a hotly contested issue around 2013, when construction began. Opponents of the project said it's not fair for rural Minnesota taxpayers to be saddled with the burden of financing a Minneapolis-based project, and that the price didn't justify the potential benefit anyway. Proponents of the stadium said that the distribution of payments split between the city of Minneapolis, the Vikings organization and the state was fair.
Ultimately, U.S. Bank Stadium was built and opened in 2016. Prior to construction, Minneapolis had to cover just 13% of the stadium's cost, pitching in $150 million over an extended period of time.
Minneapolis is one of the most mismanaged cities in the Midwest. The City Council tried dismantling the city's police department without a plan for replacing the MPD. During the George Floyd riots, Gov. Walz and Mayor Frey let rioters trash the city and destroy the city. Back then, the Third Precinct Police Station was " just brick and mortar ." Now Minneapolis can't pay its obligations. Nobody is surprised.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey also said he'd be open to state support. Noor and his allies believe that it's fair to force Greater Minnesota taxpayers to pick up the tab for Minneapolis' portion of the stadium bill because the stadium technically belongs to all Minnesotans, according to the Star Tribune. However, many disagree on this point.
'The stadium clearly doesn't belong to all Minnesotans. It doesn't even belong to Minneapolis residents. It's not like anyone can just pop over there and poke around,' remarked Isaac Orr, a policy fellow at the Center of the American Experiment.
Minneapolis wants rural Minnesota to pay for the riot damage, too. Minneapolis gets the most money in LGA payments, too. Despite those things, property taxes still keep rising while the Minneapolis City Council tries dismantling the Minneapolis Police Department, aka MPD, while car-jackings are up 537% for some inexplicable reason.
Originally posted Thursday, December 3, 2020, revised 04-Dec 4:40 AM
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Tim Walz, Minnesota's DFL job-killing governor
Is Gov. Tim Walz needlessly killing another industry ? The answer is yes, according to House GOP Leader Kurt Daudt. Daudt "criticized Gov. Tim Walz for 'causing harm to industries without data to back it up' during a Tuesday press conference."
Daudt continued, saying "The folks involved with the movie theaters are telling us that there hasn't been a single documented case of COVID transmission in a movie theater in Minnesota or in the entire country, yet Gov. Walz has closed movie theaters in the state of Minnesota." How many lives does Gov. Walz have to flatten before Minnesotan punish him for his incompetence? This isn't about 'following the science'. It's about doing what Tim Walz thinks is right:
In fact, as of Nov. 23, not a single case of COVID-19 had been traced back to movie theaters globally, according to the Los Angeles Times . Nonetheless, Walz's Nov. 19 executive order explicitly calls for the closure of 'theaters' and 'cinemas.'
One movie theater in Hopkins, Minnesota, closed its doors permanently shortly after Walz announced his new restrictions.
Gov. Walz has the worst history of killing jobs in recent Minnesota history. The DFL will argue that it's because of COVID-19, which is partly true but misleading. It's misleading because the DFL showed little mercy when President Trump was fighting through the COVID-19 pandemic. The DFL insisted that President Trump was an evil monster from hell who shouldn't be re-elected. Now that it's the DFL governor, though, the DFL hasn't passed the shoe-on-the-other-foot test. The DFL is asking for mercy now that their guy is dealing with the pandemic. Kurt Daudt wasn't interested in Gov. Walz's faux science:
"A movie theater is a place where you sit quietly in one seat, you don't move, you don't exercise, you don't breathe heavily. You can wear a mask, you can sit with your loved ones from your own household and they can structure that so you sit 20 feet apart from other people," said Daudt, who called on Walz to open up fitness centers as well.
"We think that health clubs are an essential thing that help Minnesotans stay safe and we want to make sure people have the opportunity to get into a health club and exercise," he continued.
As of Nov. 24, just .003% of all COVID-19 cases in Minnesota had been traced back to a gym or health club.
"I think we should find ways to open these businesses safely. That's the key," said Daudt, who claimed that the governor has "really missed an opportunity to work with the Legislature and to include us in the process."
Gov. Walz insists that he's following the science when he's making these decisions. It doesn't sound like he followed the science with this decision. Based on this House GOP leadership availability, I'm betting that Republicans are going on offense this session:
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Posted Friday, December 4, 2020 6:58 AM
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The Democrats' America last attitude exposed by Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi just admitted that she doesn't care about the American people. CNN's Manu Raju asked Pelosi if it was a mistake to not accept a smaller COVID relief package months ago.
Pointing her finger, Pelosi replied "I'm going to tell you something. Don't characterize what we did before as a mistake, as a preface to your question, if you want an answer. That was not a mistake. It was a decision , and it has taken us to a place where we can do the right thing without other, shall we say, considerations in the legislation that we don't want."
In other words, she intentionally didn't negotiate a COVID relief bill in good faith in order to defeat President Trump. Pelosi needs to be called out for being the snake she is. She's as nasty as Harry Reid was. She doesn't care that thousands of businesses went under. Pelosi and the Democrats don't care that people lost their life savings. Pelosi and the Democrats don't care because they defeated the best president of my lifetime.
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Pelosi's Democrats don't care about what's best for the USA. If they did, Democrats would've passed each COVID relief bill faster. In Pelosi's Democrats' minds, the people whose life savings were lost is simply collateral damage. It's a statistic to be read, not a tragedy to be mourned.
Nancy Pelosi doesn't care because she's utterly cold-hearted. She can just go home to her $24,000 freezer filled with $14-a- pint chocolate ice cream. She can open a beauty salon to get her hair done, then close it down when she's done using it. When it's over and she's been exposed, she insists that she's the one that's owed an apology.
Remember these things in 2022. The people who said that they were moderates voted for impeachment without a bit of eyewitness testimony. In 2018, many of them swore that they wouldn't vote for Pelosi as Speaker. This week, they all voted to make her Speaker again.
During this crisis, Democrats put America last. They shut down small businesses and churches. They told the peasants not to travel. The mayor of Austin, TX, even videotaped the stay-at-home message from his timeshare in Cabo. There's tons of proof like that showing how Democrats want you put down while they travel in private jets. Throw these America haters out the next time they're up for re-election.
Posted Saturday, December 5, 2020 11:18 AM
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Tim Walz's policies killing Minnesotans
Apparently, Tim Walz's policies are killing Minnesotans . This information is (just coincidentally) coming to light after the election. According to the Minnesota Department of Health, aka MDH, "Previously unseen costs of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns are coming to light. Drug overdose deaths increased 31% during the first half of 2020 compared to the first half of 2019, according to new data released by the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH)."
DFL legislators voted each month in special session to keep Gov. Tim Walz's Peacetime Emergency Powers intact. Had this drug overdose death information been reported by Tim Walz's MDH, public pressure would've built to fix this crisis.
MDH Commissioner Jan Malcolm tried papering over the problem, saying "Deaths due to overdoses are preventable even amid all the troubles we've had this year. We need to work together to find ways to better support those suffering from substance use disorders, but it is important to know that there are resources available and those resources can still be accessed safely even with COVID-19 restrictions in place."
What's required most of all is stop the DFL's lockdowns. They don't work. They fix one problem while creating other problems. This graphic says it all:
Tim Walz and the DFL need to be fired. The DFL's COVID-19 solutions have failed. The information that MDH has put out has been misleading at best. The DFL has kept Gov. Walz's Peacetime Emergency Powers intact, thereby ensuring that he'd have more opportunities to exercise unilateral decision-making. That's how we got into this position.
Posted Sunday, December 6, 2020 3:22 AM
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Why crime is rising in Minneapolis
The idiots in charge of the city of Minneapolis and Hennepin County apparently want to incentivize crime in their jurisdictions. That's apparent because "Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced that bail amounts will no longer be required for those charged with 19 different felony-level crimes after Jan. 1. Some of the crimes covered under the bail change include auto theft, identity theft and thefts valued under $35,000." Last week, HotAir's Ed Morrissey wrote this article about carjackings.
In the article, Morrissey wrote "Ho hum, just another couple of months in the reduced-policing utopia known as Minneapolis. With fewer police on the street, that must mean that residents in the city that made 'abolish the police' official policy must be enjoying a more peaceful and free life, right?" Then he cited this Star Tribune article , writing "Well, some are - and the rest are paying for it:"
Over the past two months, Minneapolis police have logged more than 125 carjackings in the city, a troubling surge that authorities had largely linked to small groups of marauding teens. But an increasing number of adults have been arrested in recent weeks for the same crime.
Within a one-hour period Saturday morning, police reported three separate carjackings in southeast Minneapolis, including one where an elderly woman was struck on the head. Such attacks are up 537% this month when compared with last November.
"The numbers are staggering," said police spokesman John Elder. "It defies all civility and any shred of common human decency."
That happened before getting rid of bail. Is Hennepin County trying to eliminate carjackings or increase carjackings? This isn't just happening in poor neighborhoods:
The violence is beginning to meander to more wealthy neighborhoods, as the violent criminals have had time and resources to organize and look for more lucrative targets.
This video is frightening:
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The implications from this interview are frightening. It's apparent that this isn't the work of punks who don't fear the police. It's the work of gangs working a system.
In Minneapolis, police funding has been cut. The Council wants to cut it more. That means few carjackers will get caught. Now, the ones who get caught will be released virtually immediately.
Posted Sunday, December 6, 2020 8:42 AM
Comment 1 by eric z at 06-Dec-20 02:11 PM
Crime is rising because of theTrump economy. People out of work in record numbers since the 30's. Hunger. Homelessness. Sure the stock market is doing okay for the rich. But they are the white collar criminals who never go to jail, when they do crime. How many did Holder jail? Right. None. Barr? None. Sessions? None. Big dollar donors do not go to jail. But don't steal a loaf of bread because of hunger. Somebody'll write a book about it.
Comment 2 by John Palmer at 07-Dec-20 08:51 PM
The last time I looked the lockdown in MN is the Governors doing and his actions have prompted many businesses to close and trigger layoffs. However, hunger and homelessness by themselves will not result in rising crime.
If the rewards for criminal activity are greater than the costs more criminal acts will occur. Reduce the chance of catching criminals results in increased crime. Swift sure apprehension followed by successful prosecution and sentencing results in less crime. People will respond to an increase in crime by avoiding areas where crime rates are high and will escalate their knowledge of self defense. If pepper spray or mace are not sufficient they will arm themselves with more lethal weapons and they will learn to use these weapons.
Law enforcement knows how to prevent crime they simply need adequate resources to conduct proven crime prevention activities.
Comment 3 by eric z at 08-Dec-20 09:49 AM
John Palmer's suggestion [detterence argument] would well apply to the SEC and Justice Department, where such balancing of act/consequences happens among rational actors - Wall Streeter types do such balancing. Kids with guns? Perhaps. Deterrence arguments fit white collar crime more than juveniles.
Comment 4 by Chad Q at 08-Dec-20 05:41 PM
So I guess Eric's logic is poor are poor so they people commit crimes. Old Joe says they're just as smart as white kids so they got that going for them at least.
Crime is running rampant in DFL controlled cities like MPLS because the criminals know there's little to no repercussions for committing the crimes and now Hennepin County has created an even faster revolving door with the 19 no bail crimes.
FYI, the stock market is doing great for anyone with a 401k and last I checked, those weren't exclusively rich people.
Comment 5 by Chad Q at 08-Dec-20 05:44 PM
It should have read, logic is poor people are poor so they commit crimes. Fingers not typing as fast as thoughts came.
