They caught him!

The police caught Vance Boelter. Good. Now we can all forget him forever.

Except for the people whose lives he harmed. Two of them are dead, two were incredibly lucky.

On Sunday evening, US Senator Amy Klobuchar shared a statement from Yvette Hoffman expressing appreciation for the outpouring of public support.

“John is enduring many surgeries right now and is closer every hour to being out of the woods,” Yvette Hoffman said in a text that Klobuchar posted on social media. “He took 9 bullet hits. I took 8 and we are both incredibly lucky to be alive. We are gutted and devastated by the loss of Melissa and Mark.”

Manhunt!

The pursuit of Vance Boelter, the assassin of Melissa Hortman, continues. The rats are scattering.

  • His wife, Jenny Lynn Boelter, was stopped in Onamia, a town well north of Minneapolis. She was not held as a criminal, although she was traveling with passports and weapons.
  • His wife was the president and CEO of Pretorian Guard, the security company Boelter worked at.
  • I have no idea what his personal situation was like, but Boelter lived with two men as roommates, which may mean his wife is off the hook in any conspiracy theory.
  • Before fleeing, Boelter left a message for his roommates.

    David and Ron, I love you guys. I’ve made some choices and you guys don’t know anything about this, but I’m going to be gone for a while. I may be dead shortly. So I just want to let you know that I love you guys both. And wish it hand’s gone this way. I don’t want to say anything more, and implicate you in any way because you guys don’t know anything about this, but I love you guys and I’m sorry for all the trouble this has caused.

    I suspect he’s not going to be caught alive.

  • Some people are claiming that Boelter was a “registered Democrat”. We don’t have party registration in Minnesota!
  • His friends have said he was a strong Trump supporter.

    • Bits of his hit list have been trickling out. He also want to murder ” Governor Tim Walz, US Representative Ilhan Omar, US Senator Tina Smith, and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, among others.” Shut the fuck up all you people claiming he was a liberal Democrat.

  • We have him on video preaching in the Democratic Republic of Congo about the evils of homosexuality.
  • Boelter abandoned a car in Sibley, MN — that’s southwest of Minneapolis.

I don’t normally cheer on the cops, but in this case, I’m saying…go get him, boys.

That message he left his roommates says that he knows he has screwed up (I don’t think he regrets the murders, he regrets being caught), so I don’t think he’s going to surrender peacefully.

Senator Mike Lee of Utah is now claiming that Boelter was a Marxist. Absolutely insane.

We know how to really hurt Donald Trump

Tell him that he had a tiny crowd size at his expensive parade.

For an event that shut down much of central Washington D.C., closed key roads, and reportedly cost up to $45 million, the promise of a display of America’s military might — that just coincidentally happened to fall on Trump’s birthday — didn’t exactly draw out legions of his fans. Instead, the crowd of supporters, servicemembers, curious locals, and military-adjacent spectators who braved the oppressive heat and humidity of a post-thunderstorm D.C. managed to just fill out their allotted side of the street over several blocks in front of the White House, with plenty of room to spare.

In front of the central stage, a crowd befitting a midsize concert gathered in view of Jumbotrons. The lawns surrounding the Washington monument — which have hosted countless inaugurations, protests, concerts, and gatherings — were largely unused overflow space.

When the TV broadcast showed the crowd risers along the parade route, they were sparsely filled. The National Park Service issued permits for 250,000 people for the National Mall festival and the military parade. An aerial parade of historic military aircraft flew above the National Mall, traversing a course from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Memorial that — despite clear anticipation of crowds by event organizers — was more empty field and food truck line than crowd.

Though rock music blared on TV, the parade itself was eerily quiet. One video posted on X shows tanks squeaking past nearly silent crowds, sounding like a grocery cart in need of grease.

In the weeks leading up to his birthday and the parade, Trump told close associates that protesters were going to try to overshadow the military parade, including in media coverage, in D.C. and elsewhere, and that he was determined not to let that happen, a source with knowledge of the matter and another person briefed on it tell Rolling Stone.

I will give him this, that he was right about protesters trying to overshadow his parade.

That was the crowd attending the anti-Trump protest in Idaho.

This was San Diego.

He’s an unpopular president. He’s hated.

A dismal way to start the march

We were just beginning to gather the group for our protest march, when we listened to Governor Walz’s announcement about the murders last night.

Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans said the Hoffmans were shot around 2 a.m.

The second shooting, at the Hortman home, happened around 3:35 a.m., with police at the scene exchanging gunfire with the suspect before the suspect fled the scene.

Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley said officers did their “due diligence” to check on Hortman’s home after learning that a lawmaker had earlier been attacked.

“When they arrived at Melissa’s house, they noticed that there was a police vehicle in the driveway with the emergency lights on and what appeared to be a police officer at the door coming out o the house. When our officers confronted him, the individual immediately fired upon officers, which exchanged gunfire and the suspect retreated back into the home.”

The manhunt for the suspect, who was impersonating a police officer, is ongoing and involved “hundreds and hundreds” of officers. The suspect fled through the back door of the home and he is on foot and at large.

The suspect was driving a vehicle that looked “exactly like a police vehicle” and they were wearing a vest with a Taser and police badge. Inside the suspect’s vehicle was a manifesto that identified “many lawmakers and other officials,” including Hortman and Hoffman.

“No question that if they were in this room you would assume that they were a police officer,” Bruley said, acknowledging that investigators have “people of interest that they are looking for.”

“This is a dark day today for Minnesota and for democracy,” Minnesota Department of Public Safety Superintendent Bob Jacobson said.

The two homes were 8 miles apart. There is no doubt that this was an intentional, targeted, political assassination of Democratic lawmakers. They’ve at least seized the cowardly criminal’s car, so we’ll probably learn his identity soon enough.

The protest march went ahead as planned. About a hundred people, a remarkably large event for our little town, marched peacefully and legally through the town. This isn’t notable except that the goddamned chickenshit state police were using the violence as an excuse to shut down rallies all across the state.

State officials are urging Minnesotans to refrain from attending political rallies Saturday amid the backdrop of shocking political violence in the state.

“Given the targeted shootings of state lawmakers overnight, we are asking the public to not attend today’s planned demonstrations across Minnesota out of an abundance of caution,” the Minnesota State Patrol wrote on X.

Walz echoed the message in his own post, writing:

“Out of an abundance of caution my Department of Public Safety is recommending that people do not attend any political rallies today in Minnesota until the suspect is apprehended.”

No. Ten thousand times no. This is precisely the time when we have to stand up against political violence.

And we did.

Time to protest

I’m getting ready to leave the house and join the No Kings protest here in Morris, Minnesota. I read up on recommendations made for other protests — stuff like leave your phone at home, mask up, what to do if there is tear gas, etc. — but it all seems like overkill here. I’ll be about 5 or 6 blocks away from my home, in a small quiet rural town, and I anticipate a well-behaved calm protest, so I hope you’re not expecting dramatic news when I get back. It’s just going to be a small group of citizens expressing their civic responsibility, unlike the Republicans in government.

I still think it’s important for everyone to stand up in resistance, even in situations lacking in drama.

Unfortunately, then I learn this morning that two Democratic state legislators, John Hoffman and Melissa Hortman, were shot overnight by a man dressed as a law enforcement officer. Their spouses were also shot. The shootings were in two different locations, so it seems to be a targeted terrorism attack, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the goal was to intimidate protesters on this day.

It’s all the more reason to get out there and peacefully protest. Don’t let the thugs win.

Don’t use these posters

Are you ready for the big No Kings protest on Saturday? Are you making signs? I have to tell you that you shouldn’t use these as ideas for posters.

Those are sarcasm. Sarcasm doesn’t work in a protest sign. Short, simple, clear messages are much more effective.

Keep in mind that conservatives do not understand sarcasm or irony or even humor. This, for example, is a real poster put out by the Department of Homeland Security and ICE.

“Foreign invaders”…is that what we’re calling the people who are working so hard in our farm fields right now? Are the children of immigrants also called “foreign invaders”?

You know, that looks nothing like Steven Miller — he can’t grow that kind of hair on his ratty little face.

I guess I’m supposed to be relieved

I got a note from our university advocate at the capitol, announcing the completion of the Minnesota state budget. Is it good news? I don’t know. It’s not great news, that’s for sure.

The higher education bill maintains current funding for the University of Minnesota’s core operations in the next biennium. The capital investment (also called bonding) bill provides $60 million in bonding to repair and renew existing University of Minnesota buildings across the state. The transportation bill provides $8 million from the general fund for safety improvement to Washington Avenue Bridge. These bills have been sent to the governor, who is expected to sign them as part of the special session agreement.

Although the funding for core operations amounts to a 3.5% reduction when adjusted for inflation, we recognize it was a tough budget year at the State Capitol. UMN Advocates minimized cuts and secured a bonding bill despite narrow partisan divides by helping legislators understand the statewide value of the University.

The legislature held the line. The budget was already skin-tight and our bones were showing, so we’re going to have to cinch it up a little tighter, but it could have been so much worse. But have you ever heard of the Minnesota starvation experiment?

During World War Two, conscientious objectors in the US and the UK were asked to volunteer for medical research. In one project in the US, young men were starved for six months to help experts decide how to treat victims of mass starvation in Europe.

Do we need to repeat it? Really?

I curse the day he was born

May he die alone, wallowing in shit and the knowledge that the world despises him.

His “birthday parade” brings dishonor to the nation, and tarnishes the history of the army.

On 14 June, go to your local No Kings demonstration. Raise your fists and tell the world that the tyrant must fall, along with his whole corrupt family and administrators. Don’t let them get back up, either!

I don’t care much for the Bible, but Jeremiah 20 seems appropriated.

Cursed be the day I was born!
May the day my mother bore me not be blessed!
Cursed be the man who brought my father the news,
who made him very glad, saying,
“A child is born to you—a son!”
May that man be like the towns
the Lord overthrew without pity.
May he hear wailing in the morning,
a battle cry at noon.
For he did not kill me in the womb,
with my mother as my grave,
her womb enlarged forever.
Why did I ever come out of the womb
to see trouble and sorrow
and to end my days in shame?

The mystery is how anyone falls for it

This is a spot-on summary of fascism, and jesus christ, but it sounds familiar to this American.

It’s a gross political pathology, always doomed to failure, so how did it take over this country?

It feels like we need a diagnosis of Rapid Onset Fascism here, but I also know it’s been festering for a long time in a dunghill of racism and religious dogma and American exceptionalism and the myth of rugged individualism.

Meanwhile, Christopher Rufo has a plan.

Third, the president should direct federal agencies to create a hard-soft, or visible-invisible, approach to riot control. In public, the National Guard should mobilize with enough manpower to smother the protests and avoid protracted conflict or hand-to-hand combat, which carries with it the highest level of risk. At the same time, as we saw demonstrated in Portland, Oregon, during the George Floyd riots, the agencies should dispatch unmarked vans to follow key agitators and snatch them from the streets while the media are not looking. The most effective riot controlis to take movement leaders off the field, infiltrate their networks, disrupt the flow of funding, and roll them up in federal investigations. Denying the Left trained protest leaders now will create a strong precedent for the rest of the president’s term.

Does anyone have any objections to unmarked vans full of men wearing masks snatching people off the street? Anyone?