Lets you wondered what Omar Fateh’s actual priorities might be:
Not fixing potholes.
Not making a city in economic freefall into a destination again.
Protecting illegals from the boogeyman.
Minneapolis is in the best of hands.
Priorities
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Category Archives: Minneapolis
Kind Of A Good News/Bad News/Worse News Situation
The good news: Bloody Mary Moriarty is not running for re-election as Henco Attorney.
The bad news? It’s so she can focus on “transforming the office” even further:
“I ran for this office to do the hard work; the work that desperately needed doing and the work the voters chose when I was elected in 2022 by 16 points,”Moriarty said in the release. “We’ve become accustomed to elected officials who don’t deliver results and end up more invested in clinging to power than doing the work of the people. That is not me. As I have weighed whether I wanted to spend the last year and a half of my term focused primarily on campaigning or continuing to transform this office, the choice became clear. I want to focus on running the office, rather than running for office.”
The worse news?
Remember – the Cano Corollary to Berg’s 21st Law is called a “law” for a reason:
In Blue city electoral politics, “blue” never gets “lighter” or less “progressive”. There is only one electoral direction – more “progressive”.
A symptom of this is when one sees people just barely to the left of a city’s Overton Window referring to the progressive politicidans and institutions in power as “Conservatives” or “Republicans”.
When Alondra Cano seems like a sane, rational stateswoman, the Frey Corollary is in effect.
Worst – ergo most likely – scenario: Moriarty spends the rest of her term gutting whatever vestiges of traditional law and order might remain her her office, turns it over to someone who will be subtly running to challenge Omar Fateh, Keith Ellison or Ilhan Omar from the left one day.
Berg’s 21`st Law Is Universal
Omar Fateh won the the DFL – let’s be honest, DSA – endorsement for Mayor of Minneapolis:
Well – probably won:
Anyway, close enough for city work.
Anyway, the whole thing is further proof of Berg’s 21st Law.
And at least he knows what the real problems are:
This fall will become known as the moment when Minneapolis’s decay graduated from organic to institutional.
City Council Reps And County Attorney Of The Flies
This past Tuesday, scads of feds – FBI, DHS, BATFE – raided eight different businesses around the Twin Cities, serving search warrants related to human trafficking.
Seven of the raids went off without a hitch.
But the eighth – at Lake and Bloomington, deep in the heart of white, progressive Minneapolis – was different. The Feds rolled in in MRAPs and full battle rattle.
And, in their own way, so did Minneapolis’s entire progressive power structure; the video is worth a watch:
Watching the woman at around 1:15 is enough to make me realize I sold Michael Savage short: progressivism certainly appears to be a manifestation of some kind of emotional trouble.
Around 3:00 minutes in, you can see the crowd – white, progressive, lots of tattoos and man-buns – starting to push and shove the feds. It’s almost as if someone wants to institgate another riot.
Around 7:00, the crowd starts to dump trash barrels on the street, apparently trying to keep the feds from leaving. Around 9:30, it gets even worse.
The mace comes out around 11:30. as the MRAPs leave the area.
This was in defense of human traffickers.
For all the sturm und drang, it doesn’t appear that anyone involved in attacking the feds or cops got arrested for obstructing justice.
The reactions from DFLers were…predictable.
Putative mayoral front-runner Omar Fateh:
Senator Fateh: under “no” circumstances?
Like , not even with active human trafficking?
Weird.
Councilman Chavez – who is the primary evidence not only of Berg’s 21st Law, but of the “Cano Corollary” to the 21st Law, named after the loony-left councilwoman he replaced because she was too moderate for the local DFL – sounded off. As usual:
Remember – this is against an investigation of human trafficking (not to mention drugs and latin gangs).
The Police Union responded:
It’s not like Jacob Frey – who, let’s not forget, was the “law and order’ alternative to Ray Dehn in 2017 – is going to be much better. Minneapolis cops should have been hauling everyone who pushed the cops downtown. It was pure incitement – and a sign of a department that gets no support from its prosecutor.
Because they don’t:
Minneapolis is at a crossroads: civilization, prosperity and sanity, vs. decay, anarchy and Lord of the Flies.
Twin Cities Left: Bring Back The Good Old Days
A group of federal law enforcement agents – FBI, DHS – apparently served a warrant for drug trafficking and money laundering on a restaurant at Lake and Bloomington in South Minneapolis yesterday.
And it’s almost – I say, almost – like Twin Cities Big Left is trying to coax a riot out of the situation:
I mean, a riot over ICE, or whoever, would certainly divert attention away from the collapsing schools, the crime, the downtown that is disintegrating and leaving a gaping maw of taxes that will wind up being made up by an increasingly beleaguered middle class, a dysfunctional city government and a state government run by a bunch wastrels that squandered a $18 Billion surplus, wouldn’t it?
First Day Of Summer!
And it’s time for one of the great new Minneapolis summer traditions (X thread):
One apparently dead, five more shot, and one woman injured in the brawl that inevitably followed at Hennepini County Hospital.
Early reports say it was ELCA vs. Missouri Synod.
Domino
Minneapolis deputy police chief Katie Blackwell’s defamation suit was thrown out, and she’s been ordered to pay back part of Liz Collin’s legal fees:
This may be the biggest backfire I’ve seen in a defamation suit – and the subject is by no means academic to me.
In a move that finally brings truth to the matter, Blackwell also signed a written declaration, stating:
“I, Katie Blackwell, acknowledge, agree, and affirm that everything in the Honorable Edward T. Wahl’s Order Regarding Special Motion for Expedited Relief Under Minn. Stat. § 554.09 and for Fees and Costs Under Minn. Stat. § 554.16 dated April 8, 2025 is accurate, true, and correct.”
So, despite her initial claims, Blackwell has now affirmed that all of Judge Wahl’s findings are “accurate, true, and correct.”
So this brings up all sorts of questions about Blackwell’s testimony in the Chauvin trial – including her assertions that the restraint technique Chauvin used on Floyd, which appeared to have been straight out of the department’s training manual as affirmed by several Minneapolis cops interviewed in Collin’s movie, was no-how, no-way, ever part of the MPD’s training canon.
Read the whole article. And buckle up. This next year or two is going be a doozie in Minnesota courts.
They Were Doing So Well
The Homicide rate in Minneapolis was way below recent trends…
…well, “was” is the operant word, here, isn’t it? Shootings in the past 36 hours killed five, and left five more injured, several critically:
The shootings occurred at the following locations.
- 25th Street and Bloomington Avenue, just before midnight on Tuesday.
- Cedar Avenue and 17th Avenue at 1 p.m.
- 3300 block of Harriet Avenue at 2:25 p.m.
- Girard Avenue North around 3:50 p.m.
- 15th Avenue South and Lake Street around 7:45 p.m.
In the first shooting near 25th Street and Bloomington Avenue, police say two men, two women and a teenage boy were found shot at the scene: Four were inside a vehicle, and another was on the sidewalk.
The 17-year-old boy, a 20-year-old woman and a 27-year-old man were pronounced dead at the scene, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said. The remaining man and woman were taken to Hennepin County Medical Center with life-threatening injuries.
Welcome to Spring in Minneapolis!
In This House Of Cards
Last fall’s election was a rough one for America’s left. Their message was rejected by a majority of Latino men, an increasing share of the black vote, an astonishing percent of GenZ (some reports say that Trump drew a third of the vote at the deep-blue University of Minnesota), and even a near supermajority of Native Americans, to say nothing of the usual suspects, white men (especially blue collar men) and married women.
And the Democrats’ woes haven’t abated with the election – with their popularity hovering somewhere below “Serbian War Criminal” and above “Journalist“.
You might be wondering if the drubbing they took caused the radical wing of Big Left to get a little circumspect? To see if they might want to change their approach, especially to the parts of their late coalition that forsook them last November? To even say “maybe we oughtta dial back the culture war schtick”?
Well, not many of them.
This sign has been popping up in Minneapolis:
For all the “All Are Welcome Here” signs in Minneapolis yards, it’s clear some groups mean “all… except you.” The dark money socialist group “Minneapolis for the Many” finally said the quiet part out loud: “When we say ALL, we don’t really mean ALL.”
— BECKA THOMPSON (@realBeckaT) March 23, 2025
I don’t have to agree with… pic.twitter.com/SspBpmHPfd
The signs are posted by a group, “Mpls for the Many“, which apparently seeks to move Minneapolis’s city government even further to the left, and appears intended to supplant some of those “In This House” signs standing in the front yards of so many white, middle-class “progressives”.
I put “progressives” in scare quotes because, well, if you read the responses to the tweet above, it just doesn’t seem very “progressive”. It’s got that whole “scarlet letter” vibe about it.
And it’s not a rare thing at all – as David (a Minneapolis inmate) points out, many on the left seem to think the social contract is, er, subject to terms and conditions (nearly a direct quote from many of the responses to the tweet above, in fact).
Tom Knighton (at our sister publication Bearing Arms) points out that the current round of “mostly peaceful” demonstrators are putting the gloves back on – so as not to get gasoline, explosive residue or any stray flames on their hands:
Now, Molotov cocktails are bad, but the nature of them tends to mean that people know good and well that there’s no one around when they use one–or, conversely, that someone is present. Using one is a violent act, but it’s still a thing that gives the user at least some control over who all is going to be hurt by the cocktail when it’s thrown.
After that, all bets are off, which is why we don’t really treat them as a nothingburger.
But bombs are an escalation. These are intended to go off at a later time. It doesn’t say if they were meant for remote detonation or on a timer, but what we know is that these aren’t necessarily controlled and can be much more destructive.
To those who believe in such things as social contracts, it appears that part of our society is conjuring up some escape clauses in the fine print.
The Choice
So, what’s worse?
Empty real estate?
Or vacant lots?
Evan Ramstad – who’s in a hammer-and-tongs battle with Jennifer Brooks for “worst Strib columnist” – says “empty lots”
Now, that could make some sense, if there was some intense craving for downtown real estate – perhaps to build the “housing” that “urbanists” are fantasizing about.
But Minneapolis already has a glut of overpriced “luxury” housing, and rent control (albeit not quite as stupid and myopic as Saint Paul’s version) and unicorn-style zoning are choking out the supply of middle-class construction.
So I’m trying to see how this ends up as anything but a downtown full of lots suitable for graffiti, “encampments” and all the other bits and pieces of. urban blight that the Minneapolis City Council and the Strib columnist bullpen seem to think the city deserves.
The Usual Suspects
After almost five years, the City of Minneapolis “plans” to “do” “something” with the former Speedway in “George Floyd Square”.
I’m adding emphaiss to the quote below for a reason:
The City of Minneapolis has received four applications to redevelop The People’s Way, which was formerly a Speedway gas station at the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue.
The gas station turned into a gathering place in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. For the past four years, the community has used the site for twice-daily meetings, annual events honoring George Floyd, gardening and other activities, according to the city’s Request for Qualifications presentation.
City Councilmember Andrea Jenkins represents the area and she told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS not much is known about what the private groups would do with the property, but said it is a positive step toward progress and growth at George Floyd Square.
I’m gonna guess we know one thing about them: They’re dues-paying members of Minneapolis’s DFL/DSA non-profit/industrial complex.
And if you look at Rise & Remember, Minnesota Agape Movement, P3 Foundation and Urban League Twin Cities, you’ll realize not only that nobody ever went broke betting against the City of Minnepolis transferring money to its political class, but that whatever “happens” at George Floyd Square is going to be both exquisitely expensive and a magnet for blight.
Rise and Remember – run, among other people, by George Floyd’s aunt.
Minnesota Agape Movement – headquartered in George Floyd Square. Their “team” page is blank.
P3 Foundation – if I’ve got the right one, they appear to be national nonprofit that is into all sorts of things.
The Urban League needs no introduction.
Anyway – it’s going to wind up being a “community space” that turns into a graffity-coated monument to blight. But the non-profits will get their payoff. So tomayto/tomahto, I guess.
Short On The Delivery
How it started: Mayor Frey bleating “Minneapolis is back, baybee!”
How it’s going: Ameriprise Tower in Minneapolis sells for pennies on the dollar:
That tower used to generate $2.5M a year in property taxes.
I don’t think the city’s spending has dropped 97%. That burden is all going to residential property owners.
Who Didn’t Get The Memo
Minneapolis boosters have been chanting, non-stop, that “crime is down in MInneapolis”.
Seems everyone got the memo but the criminals:
And it wasn’t just homicides – a quick look at the Minneapolis crime dashboard (before they rolled the data over for the new year) showed:
- 3 more non-justified homicides (Minneapolis’ dashboard lumps justified police and civilian shootings together, and there was one more justifiable homicide last year than in 2023).
- Robberies up 10% in past year.
- Vandalism up 14% in year, 31% in three years.
- Assault has been steadily rising over past three years.
And the categories that *are* dropping are doing it very slowly.
Berg’s 20th Law: Smollett Vibes
Seems like barely two weeks ago that a couple of “transgender women” claimed they’d been attacked at a rail station in downtown Minneapolis (aka “MAGA Country”) as a bunch of people cheered.
I pointed out at the time the story seemed…implausible? A heavily-surveiled place in a leftist city – is this ringing any bells?
CrimeWatch is among the groups that are proving Elon Musk right in declaring the MSM dead. And as usual, they’ve got the actual story; the video. It’s a short thread:
The bigger the hype of the reveal, the bigger the flop it turns out to be. Never fails.
Downtown Minneapolis Is (Checks Notes) MAGA Country
Two “transgender women” were assaulted in downtown Minneapolis.
No, really. At 5th and Hennepin.
No, they weren’t (apparently) going out looking for Subway. But the story is…
..well, I’ll let the Cheerleaders on Four pick up the story:
The incident happened Nov. 10 at Hennepin Avenue and Fifth Street in downtown Minneapolis. It’s where community members gathered for a rally Sunday afternoon, one week since the attack.
Amber Muhm, a community leader with Trans Movement for Liberation, said the two trans women were attacked by a group of men at the light rail station after one of the men used transphobic slurs.
“No one came to help them. In fact, they said people were cheering the attackers on while they were getting beaten,” Muhm said.
She said the attack left one of them with a broken nose. Minneapolis police confirmed they are investigating the incident, but as of Sunday night, no one has been arrested.
So – 5th and Hennepin, you say?
One of the busiest rail stops in the city?
With a crowd of cheering onlookers – presumably on the surveillance cameras that are all over the place down there?
Not saying Berg’s 20th Law is the governing statute here, but…
Not On My Bingo Card
Gotta confess, I didn’t see this coming:
But knowing some of the people involved, and even some recent history, perhaps I should have expected at least some Somali to take umbrage at the sense of entitlement the DFL feels re their votes.
Of course, I’d have to wonder if this endorsement happened after the vast majority of the local Somali population voted early.
Still – if the 5th CD and Minneapolis GOPs can keep this dynamic going – and I have confidence that they can – this could make the municipal elections next year a lot more interesting.
WUPH
JD Vance’s visit to the Third Precinct brought out, if not the worst of the plagues facing today’s Minnesota, at least the most comical: the WUPH.
The White Urban Progressive Homer. Generally a 20-30-something male, employed in the non-profit, public or academic sector, part of the laptop class, single, socially mobile, mostly self-focused.
And they seem to obsess relentlessly about the zipcode they live in – or at least parts of it:
Because to a WUPH, “business” means “something they pay money to that supports their lifestyle”: restaurants, bars, coffee shops, bookstores…
…which are, let’s be honest, things I also love about living in the city.
But being a WUPH isn’t so much about the zip code you live in as it is about the zip codes you don’t live in:
Because behind every “All Are Welcome Here” sign is a person who really doesn’t like people who aren’t like them:
I mean, I get it – Minneapolis is a beautiful place…
…and has cool stuff to do if you have money and don’t mind (or mock any observation of) some of the risks of modern Minneapolis. I mean, I fell in love with the place once upon a time, enough to uproot my whole life and move there.
You know how they say the worst, most arrogant condescending New Yorkers are the ones that were born in Albany?
A get a little of that vibe from the WUPH – people who seem to think a place’s natural beauty and social amenities impart worth on people who live there is…
Which, to my New York example, is about as parochial as the Lutheran church gossips in the basements of the churches in Woodbury and Forest lake that I suspect so many WUPHs originally come from in the first place.
Let Them East Avocado Toast
Minneapolis has a crime problem.
Even some Democrat-voting locals appear to be on the ragged brink of figuring it out:
Nothing is being done about it?
Balderdash!
Minneapolis DFL leaders are posting photos of people biking, and sunsets!
Who are you going to believe? Your lying eyes?
When A Plan Comes Together
So, the housing permit numbers for the Twin Cities are in.
And if putting people in houses is your goal, they are…uh, not good:
Saint Paul:
And Minneapolis:
Was it rent control? Bidenomics?
Why choose?
Organic
This story by Fox9 is badly written, and there’s very little about the subject of the tweet.
But to the extent it’s true? It’s exactly as predicted:
When government stops providing the order that justifies all those taxes, so they can raise families, run businesses, earn livings, they will take the task of providing that order into their own hands.
And eventually, especially if the city takes the side of disorder, those people will be rough folks who don’t talk with cops or respect due process.
Nothing Wrong Here
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…
Focus
Apologists for the government of the City of Minneapolis have pivoted to talking about crime dropping, we are told, from the three year average.
There’s a reason for that, naturally:
Here’s the city crime dashboard as of today:
The three year average is indeed high – it includes the tail end of the Walz/Covid crime wave of 2021.
But over the past year, to date?
- Murder is up.
- Robbery is up – sharply.
You’ll note that Minneapolis is now at 32 non-negligent homicides for the year so far. That’s up from 30 homicides in 2016. For the whole year.
It’s a shame the city doesn’t include a ten-year average space. It’d be interesting to see how the DSA/DFL coalition that runs the city would spin that.
Compare And Contrast
Er…shot:
..,and chaser:
I’m sure Minneapolis will have ballot vending machines for at least a while in September and October.
Glitterati Among The Snowdrifts
The Sundance Festival is moving from Utah to…well, somewhere.
And Minneapolis wants in:
In a provided statement, Mayor Jacob Frey says Minneapolis’ cultural scene would be a perfect fit for the festival.
“With our thriving arts and entertainment scene, diverse cultural heritage, and passionate film community, Minneapolis is the ideal backdrop for the Sundance Film Festival,” said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. “There is no city that embraces the arts quite like we do – and Minneapolis already has a long history of supporting independent filmmakers and their art of storytelling. Sundance would be a welcome addition to our theater community, and we’re excited to throw our hat in the ring to host this world-renowned festival.”
Minneapolis’ bid is being backed by CEOs from Target, Best Buy, and U.S. Bancorp along with the McKnight Foundation and Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies.
There was a time this would have been a no-brainer. From the 60s to the 2000s, Minneapolis had one of the most dynamic arts scenes in the country; the biggest regional theatre community between the coasts; art and music communities that punched waay above their weight; others, from dance to literature far out of proportion to the city’s size; even a breakout film scene in the ’90s.
Almost none of that is true anymore. Austin, Salt Lake City, Boulder, Santa Fe, Raleigh/Durham, Boise, Nashville, even Atlanta have become much more dynamic. Most of them are much less expensive (not that that’s necessarily a huge factor for the tony Sundance crowd).
Minneapolis is like the high school football star come back to the 20 year reunion, working a job he hates and paying bills from his divorce from the head cheerleader. His day has passed. He might have another day, someday, but it ain’t today.
I hope the city gets it – but I’d be amazed.
While We’re Spitballing, Here
Minneapolis introduces the Narcan vending machine:
Or, as it will be known by August of 2024, “A looted, empty, vandalized and broken vending machine”.
But it does bring up some other ideas for vending machines in MInneapolis – machines selling:
- Band-aids for mugging victims
- New catalytic converters
- Copper wire
- Rubber shoe covers (so you don’t get vomit, or worse, on your shoes while riding the train)
Keep giving us set-ups, MInneapolis. We’ll give you the punch-lines.