How bizarre (UPDATE: Sen. Mitchell releases statement)

Some rather disturbing allegations in the arrest of a Minnesota legislator. 

Sen. Nicole Mitchell, a Democratic-Farmer-Labor lawmaker, was arrested early Monday morning after police found her inside the home, according to charging documents filed Tuesday in Becker County District Court.

Charges say the senator told arresting officers her father had recently died and her stepmother had stopped communicating with family members, and that she wanted her late father’s ashes, and belongings including pictures, a flannel shirt, and other items of sentimental value.

Public records and an obituary posted by a Detroit Lakes funeral home show that Mitchell’s father, who died last month, and stepmother lived on the same block of the same road in Detroit Lakes as where the senator was arrested.

When first hearing of the details of this burglary, it sounded disturbingly similar to someone who was having a mental health episode. Please understand I don't say that to be flip. It's just that too many high profile individuals have had their inner demons play out in the public and it hasn't ended particularly well. 

However, the list of charges indicate that this incident was very much premeditated. 

At around 4:45 a.m. Monday, Detroit Lakes police responded to a 911 call from a woman reporting a burglary of her home in the 700 block of Granger Road in Detroit Lakes. When officers arrived, they searched the house and found a person inside.

Officers then arrested Mitchell, 49, who while being detained told the stepmother “something to the effect of” she was “just trying to get a couple of my dad’s things because you wouldn’t talk to me anymore.”

The senator was dressed in all-black clothing and was wearing a black hat. Officers also discovered a flashlight in a sock covering which court documents said appeared to be a modification to reduce the amount of light that it would emit.

Mitchell told police she had made the roughly 200-mile drive from Woodbury to Detroit Lakes starting at around 1 a.m. early Sunday morning, court documents said. She admitted to entering her stepmother’s home through a basement window where she had left a backpack containing her drivers’ license, two laptop computers and a cell phone.

Given Sen. Mitchell's position, there are obvious political ramifications to this. 

 

DFLers have 34 seats in the Senate, compared with the 33 held by Republicans. If Mitchell can’t return to the Capitol, Democrats may have trouble passing partisan legislation between now and the end of session later next month.

Considering the untold damage the Dem trifecta caused with their "buffet of lunacy" last year as well as additional draconian proposals being floated this session, it would be a dereliction of duty if the Senate Republicans even entertain working with DFLers on anything as long as Ms. Mitchell remains absent. It is literally the only leverage they have in the remaining few weeks of the legislative session. I say they use it. 

UPDATE: Via her Facebook page, Sen. Mitchell releases a statement which seems to contradict what she told police. 

Rob Doar put together an informative Tweet thread which summarized Mitchell's statements to police upon her arrest. 

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Joe Biden's Charlottesville(s)

About three months before he was elected President (and on the third anniversary of the Charlotteville, VA white supremacist rally), Joe Biden conveyed the following: 

Three years ago today, the world watched in horror as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and far-right extremists with torches in hand descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, spewing the same anti-Semitic bile that was heard in Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s. It was a moment of testing for our country, and a wake-up call to the fact that hate never dies — it only hides. And when our leaders give it oxygen, it can come roaring back to life.

What happened next is seared in all our memories — a violent clash between the white nationalists and those who came together to stand against hate. Tragically, a brave young woman lost her life.

And then our president claimed that there were “very fine people on both sides.” Donald Trump had the audacity to assign moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those who stood against it.

I knew then that we were in a battle for the soul of this nation. And I knew then that I could not stand by and let Donald Trump destroy the core values of this nation. Now, three years later, we can see even more clearly that everything that has made America, America, is at stake.

Despite our imperfections as a nation, the American people have never given up or walked away from the founding ideals of our nation: that everyone is entitled to be treated equally and with dignity and respect. That is who we are. And together, we are far more powerful than the hatred we saw on that dark day three years ago, and in so many acts of hatred and violence since.

Perhaps the person who occupies the Oval Office today needs to read this statement in the light of there having been daily Charlottesville-like events over the past half year. 

As despicable as the 2017 Charlottesville white supremacist rally was, peoples' ability to perform normal everyday tasks (i.e. student and faculty at Columbia University attending class) were not in danger. 

 

Reporter: "Do you condemn the anti-Semitic protests on college campuses?"

Biden: “I condemn the antisemitic protests. That’s why I have set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians."

Reporter: "Should the… pic.twitter.com/bW5j9Nde0v

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) April 22, 2024

Kinda of the same vibe as "fine people on both sides," no? 

Conservative commentator Erick Erickson throws down a challenge to Biden. 

You know as well as I that Biden absolutely will not do this simply because it would cost him a key swing state like Michigan where the heavily Muslim city of Dearborn is threatening to sit it out this November. 

As Seth Mandel at Commentary points out, the white supremacists and the Jew-hating progs are basically two sides of the same coin. 

“Jews will not replace us” was the favored chant in Charlottesville. At the progressive campus rallies and beyond, “From the river to the sea, Palestine is Arab” has made quite the comeback. In the past, the second half of that line was often “Palestine will be free,” a slightly more politically savvy version of the slogan that calls for the murder and enslavement of all Jews in the land of Israel. “Palestine is Arab” is even more openly violent than “Jews will not replace us,” a white nationalist chant that seeks to hide its bloodlust behind anti-immigration euphemisms. (It does not hide it well; a man radicalized by these theories massacred Jews at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.)

“From the river to the sea, Palestine is Arab” establishes as its baseline a Nazi-like racial hierarchy. What that means is that regardless of political or governmental structures and constitutions, that racial hierarchy is baked into society: Jews would be treated this way even if they no longer had a state, just as they were treated this way in the 20th century before Israeli sovereignty was established. Put simply, ethnic cleansing of the Jews would be the goal in a one-state solution as well.

Because this racial hierarchy is fundamental to its proponents’ worldview, opposition to coexistence with Jews is global. The skinheads in Charlottesville weren’t deterred from their version of this ideology just because they live outside of Germany. Similarly, those who chant “Palestine is Arab” subscribe to this racial hierarchy wherever they are. That this chant was delivered outside the White House, for example, is not a protest of Israeli policy but rather a challenge to the foundational ideas and values of the United States.

Although the expression of this worldview isn’t limited to college campuses, those campuses are the main reason we are now witnessing three Charlottesvilles a day. After all, it means students are paying attention in class.

Yup. These profs are literally telling us who they are at this point (WARNING: an f-bomb or two): 

 

🚨 HAPPENING NOW: Teacher’s Rant Promotes Anarchy.

⚠️ “Don’t work, don’t go to class, don’t research. Act out your Marxist and post-colonial ideas!”

📢 This is out of control.

Is there just complete lawlessness at @Columbia?

👉 FOLLOW @ShirionOrg for more exposure of the… pic.twitter.com/QDdhdf96wG

— Shirion Collective (@ShirionOrg) April 22, 2024

I honestly don't know if America can be salvaged at this point. 

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Box Score of the Week

Detroit Tigers at Kansas City Royals - April 13, 1980.

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Royals pitcher Dan Quisenberry entered the game in the 7th inning. Catching for KC was Jamie Quirk. As such, this was the first battery in MLB history with both last names beginning with "Q."

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The NARN Closer's playlist - 4/21/2024

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And Sunday always comes too late......

I'll be back in the Patriot bunker today for my 2-hour radio show The Closer. We'll get started right at 1:00 PM Central Time. 

In the first hour, I'll weigh in on the latest in presidential politics and how both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have drawn the media's ire. I will also talk about National Public Radio disgracing itself. 

At 2:30, longtime friend of the broadcast Andrew Richter will join the broadcast to discuss his new book The Golden Age - A History of Baseball from 1900-1960. 

So please call (651) 289-4488 if you'd like to weigh in on any of the topics we plan on addressing.

 

You can listen live in the Twin Cities at AM 1280 or, if you're near downtown Minneapolis/West Metro area, 107.5 FM on your radio dial. In and out of the Minneapolis-St Paul area you can listen to the program on the Internet by clicking this link, or check us out via iheart radio as well as Amazon Alexa (just say "Alexa, play The Patriot Minneapolis"). If you're unable to tune in live, please check out my podcast page for the latest show post.

And if you're so inclined, follow along on Twitter at #NARNShow or "Like" our Facebook page, where we also conduct a "Live Stream" of the broadcast.

Until then.....

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The memo has gone out

With the Democratic National Convention slated to begin four months from now, there's gathering steam that delegates will look to pull a "bait and switch" by swapping out President Joe Biden as their POTUS candidate. 

Yes, panic is definitely setting in since Donald Trump, despite all his legal woes and his being....well....Donald Trump, has been leading or within the margin of error in all of the key swing states. As such, the left's most reliable surrogates - the media - appear to be on board with Biden's ouster. 

CNN is out here like the final scene of Matt Damon in The Departed. pic.twitter.com/3DAIT9IEai

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) April 18, 2024

Yes, the White House fact checkers who went all Claude Rains as of January 20, 2021 are suddenly awakened from their slumber. 

Check out this headline from Daniel Dale's CNN piece on Friday. 

 Fact check: Biden makes false and misleading claims during Pennsylvania campaign swing.

The fact is Biden has been a serial fabulist at least since his first run for President back in the 1980s. However, the media was essentially willing to turn a blind a eye four years ago because Trump's ouster was of paramount importance. But now that Trump is once again a threat given Biden's dismal job approval numbers, the perpetual tall tales from the White House's walking cadaver are suddenly problematic. 

Good thing for Dems that the media has long stopped caring that they're coming off as whorish. 

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National Propaganda Radio

When longtime National Public Radio employee Uri Berliner came out with a piece detailing its insufferable left wing bias, the essay was more a confirmation than a revelation. But it was a noteworthy post nonetheless given it was penned by someone on the inside who admittedly "fit the NPR mode." 

While I've always believed it's possible for employees of a news organization to simultaneously have deeply held beliefs and report with impartiality on events which may undermine said beliefs, the election of Donald J. Trump as President shattered that ability in many. Berliner cited the Trump years as the point of no return for NPR. 

As in many newsrooms, his election in 2016 was greeted at NPR with a mixture of disbelief, anger, and despair. (Just to note, I eagerly voted against Trump twice but felt we were obliged to cover him fairly.) But what began as tough, straightforward coverage of a belligerent, truth-impaired president veered toward efforts to damage or topple Trump’s presidency.

Persistent rumors that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia over the election became the catnip that drove reporting. At NPR, we hitched our wagon to Trump’s most visible antagonist, Representative Adam Schiff.

Schiff, who was the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, became NPR’s guiding hand, its ever-present muse. By my count, NPR hosts interviewed Schiff 25 times about Trump and Russia. During many of those conversations, Schiff alluded to purported evidence of collusion. The Schiff talking points became the drumbeat of NPR news reports.

But when the Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion, NPR’s coverage was notably sparse. Russiagate quietly faded from our programming.

Shortly after his piece was published, Berliner was suspended by NPR. I'm going to guess the excerpt where he suggested his org had an obligation to cover Trump fairly is what likely caused execs to react in a way which bore resemblance to the Linda Blair character's head-spinning projectile vomiting in the film The Exorcist. 

In the days following Berliner's suspension, he was maligned by management and employees to the point where he realized there was no coming back. As such, he tendered his resignation on Wednesday. 

My resignation letter to NPR CEO @krmaher pic.twitter.com/0hafVbcZAK

— Uri Berliner (@uberliner) April 17, 2024

In the event you're curious about the worldview of NPR CEO Katherine Maher, here are a couple of her greatest hits. 

EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher says the "the number one challenge" in her fight against disinformation is "the First Amendment in the United States," which makes it "a little bit tricky" to censor "bad information" and "the influence peddlers" who spread it.

NPR's censor-in-chief. pic.twitter.com/0vY6hIpbmO

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 17, 2024

 

NPR’s far-left CEO Katherine Maher: "Our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that’s getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done." pic.twitter.com/yuFCKBjzjT

— Ben Kew (@ben_kew) April 17, 2024

I'm really having a tough time imagining a sane world where the top exec of a major news organization (one which is funded by the American taxpayers to boot) insinuates that truth and the First Amendment are barriers to their agenda. 

As Jim Geraghty of National Review points out, NPR will likely ride out the storm and then just go about business as usual. 

There’s something a bit refreshing, if depressing, about the way NPR responded to 25-year veteran Uri Berliner’s comprehensive indictment of his employer, published in The Free Press: NPR management denied all of his accusations and suspended him for a week, and then he resigned. “I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by the new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay,” he said.

Chris Rufo has gone through the Twitter feed of NPR CEO Katherine Maher and found her to be a platonic ideal of left-wing, “woke,” progressive orthodoxy, sprinkled with corporate buzzwords.

This time at NPR, there is no rubbing of the chin, furrowed brows, or begrudging concession that the critic has a point, and that they must do better. Nope, NPR’s management thinks they’re doing a terrific job, and they don’t see any reason to change. In their minds, the true villain of this story is Berliner, for criticizing his employer in another publication. (Admittedly, very few employers are big fans of that move.)

I mean, if decrepit nonagenarian hack Dan Rather can have his career rehabbed, NPR surely can find a way to clear this hurdle. You know they'll have plenty of accomplices/allies in the agenda-driven media circuit. 

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Quick Hits: Volume CCCXLV

Erick Erickson, who began his career as an elections lawyer, gives the best explainer of the case Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg is bringing against Donald Trump. 

Trump is, essentially, charged with documentation fraud — claiming payment for a past debt was a legal fee.

However, the statute of limitations is well past the time to charge Trump with that.

So, the New York District Attorney has decided to elevate the issue to a felony and get it within the statute of limitations.

To do this, Alvin Bragg has to accuse Trump of engaging in documentation fraud to hide an underlying crime. The underlying crime is a federal campaign finance violation. That violation is Trump paying off the porn star through his lawyer and failing to disclose it on his campaign finance forms because it was a campaign-related expense.

It was a campaign expense because if Trump had not paid off Stormy Daniels, she could have gone public and cost Trump the election. Yes, the left argues that the man who, on video, said he could grab women by their you-know-what would have been undone by this revelation.

The rule for a campaign expense is this: Would the transaction have still happened even if the candidate were not running for office? Trump’s wife had a prenuptial agreement. Trump would have had to pay her millions for adultery. So, even if Trump were not running for office, it is still very likely he would have had to pay Stormy Daniels.

Therefore, this was not a campaign finance violation. Therefore, there is no underlying felony. Therefore, there is no New York felony. Therefore, the case falls apart.

But, even if it were a campaign finance violation, federal law states that only the federal government can prosecute campaign finance violations. Neither the Federal Elections Commission nor the Department of Justice have chosen to prosecute or charge Trump, so Trump has not been found guilty of a federal campaign finance violation.

To repeat myself: therefore, this was not a campaign finance violation. Therefore, there is no underlying felony. Therefore, there is no New York felony. Therefore, the case falls apart.

You know what entity would be invaluable in bringing to light this kind of banana republic stuff? An impartial media. Instead, today's collection of "journalists" (the vast majority of whom despise Trump) would prefer to indulge in such shenanigans as opposed to shining the light on them and explaining why it flies in the face of a free society. Democracy, darkness, etc. 

- Bad news for basketball hall of famer Charles Barkley: the CNN show he co-hosted with Oprah's buddy Gayle King is being put out to pasture. 

The good news: Chuck's program still outlasted the CNN+ trash that was fellow NBA alum Rex Chapman's show. 

- In their 35 years as an NBA franchise, the Minnesota Timberwolves have won exactly two playoff series - both in 2004 when they made the Western Conference finals. They also set a personal best in regular season victories that 2003-04 campaign with 58.

This season, the Wolves won the second most games in their history with 56. And they're entering this postseason as the #3 seed. They're opening round opponent is the Phoenix Suns, against whom they went 0-3 in the regular season....and none of those three games were particularly competitive. So if the Wolves are going to have another deep playoff run similar to 20 years ago, beating this season's version of their kryptonite will go a long way. 

In fact, I'll make a call right here: if indeed the Wolves get past the Suns in round one, they will be in the NBA Finals. 

Yep, I said it. 

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Box Score of the Week

Pittsburgh Pirates at Cincinnati Reds - September 4, 1927.

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In this particular game, Pirates teammates (and brothers) Lloyd and Paul Waner each homered. They became the first sibling teammates in MLB history to each hit a home run in the same game. 

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