Author Archives: Mitch Berg

The Irreducible Logic Of An Illogical Choice

Posted on by
37

I’ve said it before, I’ll no doubt say it again; I don’t like Donald Trump. I discovered my dislike of him in 1986. I kept it going, cordially, even through the 2000s, when many of today’s “resistance” (gag koff choke) were making him reality TV’s most popular personality.

And I like a lot of Trump supporters even less. Not present company of course.

I voted for Scott Walker in 2016 – and still think he was the best person for the job by a Wisconsin mile. I didn’t think Trump had a chance – of staying in the race after caucuses, then of getting anywhere near the nomination, and finally of getting elected. I literally went into shock, on the air, when it became clear he was going to win three years ago.

I figured, best case, we’d get a couple good SCOTUS justices. Two down, maybe another to go, here. If nothing else, I consider him a success for that alone. There’s been more; obliterating ISIS (although this Kurd thing could screw that all up), focusing the nation on illegal immigration, rolling back some of the damage Obama did on foreign policy…

…but of course, he’s spending like a Democrat (and the Democrats, who control the House, which controls appropriations, *could* do something about it, but they won’t, so shush, Dems). Which is going to be a huge problem…someday

Thing is? Given any of the alternatives to Trump? I couldn’t in conscience vote for any of them.

*Every last one* of them at the top of the ticket (except Tulsi Gabbard, and I have as much chance of getting the Democrat nomination as she does) is promising to do to the Bill of Rights what Donald Trump bragged about doing to fictional women; grab it and molest it. A vote for *any* Democrat is a vote for a gutting the First, Second, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments, for abolishing the Electoral College (making the entire country serfs, paying obeisance to New York and California), for imposing “our best interests” on us exactly the way it’s done in Baltimore, Newark, Chicago, Detroit, or all of California. From sea to crumbling ,dysfunctional, crime-ridden sea. But hey, abortion will be legal until the sixth trimester…

Sorry, Libertarian friends – if you normally vote GOP, a third-party vote is a vote for the Dems. More’s the pity. See you down-ticket, maybe. And all you “withhold my consent” folks? All due respect, but that’s just too precious for me.

So – will I vote Trump? We’ll see.

Will I vote for *any* Democrat who’s actually going to get on a ticket outside of a red Congressional district? I couldn’t do that in any form of conscience that could be reached at the speed of light in my lifetime. I prefer Trump. God help me.

Attention, Mayor Orwell

Posted on by
3

To: Jacob Frey, Mayor, Minneapolis
From: Mitch Berg, cantankerous peasant
Re: “Love”

Mayor McDreamy,

You said “love trumps hate.”

Was this the “love” you were talking about?

Do you even regard this as a problem? Or are you and your staff high-fiving each other over this kind of thing today?

Serious question.

That is all.

Nosotros Todos Somos Venezueleaños!

Posted on by
Reply

SCENE: Mitch BERG is walking through the Roseville Best Buy, looking for a USB-C to HDMI cable, when, engrossed in thought, he fails to notice Avery LIBRELLE walking up behind him.

LIBRELLE: Merg!

BERG: Er, hi, Avery. Just kinda busy…nñ

LIBRELLE: Voters need to stop voting against their best interests, and vote Progressive!

BERG: Because “progressivism”…

LIBRELLE: Why are you making scare quotes?

BERG: …is everyone’s best interests?

LIBRELLE: Of course!

BERG: So the places where “progressives have control are the places where all our “best interests” are being seen to?

LIBRELLE: Yes! Yes! Yes! We may be making progress here!

BERG: So places like Detroit, Cleveland, Newark, Camden, Baltimore, Chicago, Saint Louis, North Minneapolis, Oakland and New Orleans represent our “best interests”? Or California, the entire state, which is looking more and more like Venezuela?

LIBRELLE: Um…

BERG: Yes?

LIBRELLE: You see, the problem with “best interests” is that they’ve never been tried in their truest form.

BERG: Huh. Where have I heard that before?

LIBRELLE: You haven’t.

BERG: Of course not.

(And SCENE)

Surprising Nobody. Not Even The “Reverend” Nord Bence”.

Posted on by
1

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Analyst reviews new FBI crime stats.  Surprise,  it’s not the black rifles.
Joe doakes

It’s no surprise to anyone that’s ever paid attention.

Of course, you don’t have to talk with a crowd of those who are the few remaining “swing voters” on this subject for long without seeing how very uninformed – misinformed – they are.

A Thousand Times “Yep”

Posted on by
3

While driving about yesterday during the mid-day, I caught a piece on MPR – basically a recycled “Documentary” podcast on “Education” looking at the tension between free speech and “inclusion” at the U of M, viewed in the context of a squabble over a panel on the Washington Avenue bridge in 2016, where Campus Republicans wrote “build the wall”, spawning the usual suspects’ usual performances about the need to make free speech not nearly so free.

I sat, mostly dumbfounded, as a series of academics, consultants and activists responded to the notion of the importance (to say nothing of sanctity ,and vitality to a democracy) of free speech with an ever-increasing series of “Yabbuts”.

There were too many chilling moments to pick just one pullquote; I’d read or listen to the whole thing, if you’re in the mood to feel immense forboding.

But this part here caught my attention; I’ve added some emphasis:

Over the course of [Rebecca Ropers, a vice provost for faculty and academic affairs at the University of Minnesota]’s career, she has witnessed an increasing ability for people that are marginalized on campus to articulate what is going on in their lives, but she doesn’t see administrators and other students showing a commensurate ability to hear and acknowledge those experiences. She said that the university now knows more about managing diversity and free speech, but school officials don’t always implement what they know.
“If administrators and faculty could have students’ backs and continue to articulate the importance of free speech, while also saying, ‘Yeah, and I really find that reprehensible,” I think maybe that’s a good strategy for academic leaders to take at this point,” Ropers said.

“Acknowledgment”. It’s the “bring me a rock” of modern sociology; the “acknowledgment” sought is never, ever the kind offered; there’s always a bigger, better, different form that’s really demanded, although it’s up to the acknowledgor to figure that out.

If the modern academy – at least, outside most engineering and hard science departments – expends energy in anything other than endless self-flagellation over the current view of identity politics, what is it?

Although I’ll clarify – it’s not so much self-flagellation; call it flagellation of some “other” on the part of the upper-middle-class academics and activists doing the flagellation, who are never called upon for any meaningful sacrifices as a result.

Don’t Mind Me

Posted on by
16

I’m just waiting and watching to see if Minneapolis lives down to everyone’s expectations.

The Trump campaign, of course, would benefit greatly from lots of goons desporting in the streets and trying to crack heads.

On the other hand, Mayor McDreamy would love to paint Trump supporters’ self-defense as “white supremacist violence” and create a city department (run by a retired city councilperson or state legislator and staff of dedicated DFL functionaries who need salaries) to “study” the issue.

Maybe the weather will curb some of the Red Flags‘ enthusiasm.

More Good News For Saint Paul’s Poor!

Posted on by
3

Fred Melo in the PiPress:

So – a fake “faith” non-profit is actively campaigning for a policy that’s made poverty even more miserable and costly in Saint Paul?

You mean, exactly as they’ve campaigned for policies that increase crime, destroy entry-level jobs, and turn the city into a warehouse for the poor?

Whyl, it’s almost as though ISAIAH is a fraud or something…

Siriusly Hateful

Posted on by
1

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I have a subscription to Sirius XM radio in my car, but I’m going to cancel it. This morning, I heard a song that triggered me so bad, I can’t even.
I was listening to the 70 station and some guy came on making fun of homosexuals, using stereotype words like Sugar Plum Fairy and encouraging me to take a Walk on the Wild Side. And then he started using racial epithets, claiming the colored girls go doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo, doo-doo, doo, doo-doo, doo-doo….
Sure, I could have changed the station, but why should I have to? Why are they allowed to put hate speech on the radio? The radio I’m paying for! That’s it, I’m done, I’m canceling my subscription and starting a Twitter boycott. 
Joe Doakes

Lou Reed, being a New York “artist”, was given a pass on all that.

Potemkin Mall

Posted on by
22

A longtime friend of the blog emails:

CM Warsame [of Minneapolis] is trying to push through an African mall on a city owned parking lot. Neighbors and businesses in the area don’t want it.
But, there is a quote from a hopeful woman- “Marian Hersi, a longtime Cedar-Riverside resident, said the idea of a new mall in her neighborhood is reviving her dream of becoming a business owner. Hersi, who grew up selling bread and tomatoes on the streets of Somalia, has been working as a janitor for Macy’s in Edina for the last 17 years. But once the mall opens, she said she wants to own a convenience store.”
I don’t want to rain on anyone’s dreams, especially someone who left horrible conditions to come to our great USA with ideas of living free and making a decent living. But, I have to here.
1- CM Warsame’s African Market isn’t about helping anyone achieve their dreams. It is politically motivated to make it difficult to drive to the community, gut out the community that is there and eventually build unaffordable housing.

“The only way to save the neighborhood is to destroy it”

2- Ms Hersi would be better off starting with a business with low overheard and working her way up if she wants her own business. There are many organizations that help people learn about small businesses. None of them are politicians.

True.

And none of them will be allowed anywhere near the “mall”, because…

3- The American dream allows janitors to move up and start businesses if one chooses, by working hard, making sacrifices, and taking risks. I have my doubts, though, that this African Market and the people involved have any intention of allowing someone like Ms Hersi a spot. 

Minneapolis is a little like Chicago in the sense that this sort of project will be filtered through some assortment of “community organizers” or another. These are people who’ve built their careers running long grifts at the expense of…

…well, everyone who’s not in the political class.

Ms. Hersi, if you get into that mall as anything but a janitor, it’ll be as temporary window-dressing.

What Do You Want, A Cookie?

Posted on by
18

The media is gushing – not inappropriately – over Ellen DeGeneres’ defense of her friendship with Dubya.

To which I, and the vast majority of middle America who actually have to live in this world, respond “this is real life for most of us, the ones who don’t live in progressive cocoons.

Of course, Urban Progressive Privilege is all about living in a cocoon:

Urban Progressive Privilege means feeling entitled to feel upset that cognitive dissonance exists, and feeling you’ve got the right to make someone pay for it.

We Never Learn

Posted on by
37

I’ve been a Trump skeptic since Day 1. I’m about 60-40 positive on his administration so far…

..but this move is really, really awful:

Kurdish-led forces have until now been a key US ally in Syria, where they helped defeat the Islamic State group, but Turkey regards them as terrorists.
The main Kurdish-led group called the surprise US move a “stab in the back”.
But President Donald Trump defended the withdrawal, saying it was time “to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars”.

I’m all for bringing the troops home.

But this is Obama-level shortsightedness.

The next time some embattled ethnic group is deciding whether to side with us in some vital area, or whether they might be better served casting their lot with Iran, China or Russia, this sort of betrayal is going to cross peoples’ minds.

The 12th Commandment

Posted on by
13

It’s an oldie but a goodie. And as we head toward another election sure to be driven by Big Left’s narratives and Trump’s responses to them, this bit here is worth committing to memory:

Courtesy Instapundit

Journalism is always about “asking the questions that matter” – where “matter” in this case means “furthers the narrative”.

Never Bring A Knife To…A Showing

Posted on by
8

Creep pulls a knife and a bottle of bear spray on a real estate agent at an open house.

Agent was in – but the victim was out:

The incident took place in Commerce City, Colorado, on August 4. According to a report by 9 News, the man – later identified by authorities as 43-year-old Ernest Robert Chrisman – arrived at the open house at about 11:30 am.
“He asked the right questions,” said Hetzler. “We talked about loans, what he had to qualify for.”
After picking up a brochure, Chrisman asked to see the upstairs. Once he and Hetzler reached the master bedroom, Hetzler said Chrisman took out a knife and a piece of rope that had bear spray dangling from it.
“He said, ‘This is a knife, this is bear spray.’ After he said, ‘This is bear spray,’ he asked me to take off my ring and get into the closet,” said Hetzler.
At this point, Hetzler began to fear for her life.
Hetzler has a concealed carry permit and had her gun with her at the open house. She drew her firearm, preparing to defend herself.
Chrisman responded to her actions by soaking her with bear spray.
“I couldn’t see,” said Hetzler. “My skin was burning, my eyes were on fire, I couldn’t see, so I fired.”
She fired in his direction. Chrisman quickly fled from the home.

Shooting blind is not ideal – but all’s well that ends with a likely rapist and possible murderer in jail.

Know How You Can Tell The Economy Is Doing Well Under A Republican President?

Posted on by
13

The media are devoting lavish coverage to homelessness, that’s why.

And, somehow, less to this sort of thing.

Look – not only is a recession going to happen one of these days, a recession [1] is a necessary part of the business cycle. But the contortions Big Left and Big Media [2] are going through to downplay the currently good economic news are downright unseemly.

[1] In a normal, healthy economy with sound fundamentals, of course. Which we have. Of course, that’s true only if the recession kills of bad ideas and unsound enterprises, and frees up labor and capital for good ideas and sound investments – which the Fed hasn’t really allowed a recession to do since 1993.

[2] Pardon, as always, the redundancy.

Behavior Modification

Posted on by
9

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Under Marxist-Leninist Theory, the end result is a perfect state in which everyone is equal, everyone shares, from each according to their abilities, to each according to their need. But we realize that people don’t act like that now, so to achieve that state, there must be a transition period during which people will be socialized to the new norms. It’s like when you take puppies to dog training class to socialize them to behave correctly around other dogs.
During the socializing phase, someone must determine the proper behaviors that will be acceptable and rules to enforce those behaviors. I’m perfectly willing to live in that society. I will set the behaviors, I will set the rules, you will all follow them and obey me. It’ll work perfectly.
What do you mean “no”? What, you want to be in charge? You expect me to surrender my liberty, my property, my money, daughters, guns? No, I don’t think so. I’m no more willing to be your slave than you are willing to be mine.
We both can’t be in charge. In fact all 300 million of us can’t all be in charge. So that’s not going to work. What’s the alternative?
The alternative is nobody in charge. Everybody does their own thing, not interfering with the neighbor, leaving each other alone. The most minimal government, laying the lightest hand, which is the system the founding fathers invented. And to ensure government doesn’t get out of control, we limit its power by a written agreement, the Constitution
That’s the system Democrats want to toss out today. They want to abolish the Constitution so they can be in charge and socialize everyone to behave their way, follow their rules. If we don’t voluntarily agree, they intend to accomplish it by force.
This isn’t going to end well.
Joe Doakes

So many of Big Left’s chanting points and buzzphrases – “voting for your best interests”, “moving things forward” – are niced-up ways of saying “shut up and let us run things.

Ripped From The Headlines – In A World Where Media Isn’t A Democrat PR Firm…

Posted on by
2

“Gun Crime” in major cities is hijacking headlines from coast to coast.

Surely, one might think, crime – fueled by ugly black rifles – is soaring.

One would be wrong:

FBI crime stats show the “estimated rate of violent crime was 368.9 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants.” That is a 3.9 percent reduction in the rate when compared with 2017 stats, but the real lesson emerges when we look long term.
For example, Bearing Arms reports that the 2018 rate of violent crime was barely above the 1971 rate of 396 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants.
Ironically, one of the greatest differences between 1971 and 2018 is that there are exponentially more privately-owned firearms now than there were when the 1970s began. Rather than leading to more violent crime, as the left would suggest, the existence of millions of millions more privately-owned guns correlated with a lower rate of violent crime.

OK – but what about Minnesota?

Yep. Down. In a state with nearly 300,000 people with permits to carry – more per capita than Texas – violent crime, homicide, even property crime are down even more sharply:

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety Bureau of Criminal Apprehension on Monday, July 8, released its Uniform Crime Report for 2018…Incidents of violent crime were down 6.7% in 2018 as compared to the year prior, with murder, aggravated assaults and robberies down from 2017 levels, the report showed. And rape and involuntary sex trafficking reports increased in 2018.
Property crime offenses also decreased in 2018, with burglary, larceny and arson offenses shrinking compared to rates in 2017. Motor vehicle theft, by contrast, increased for the third year in a row…

But…but…guns!.

104 Minnesotans murdered last year, 59 were killed with a handgun. 

Which is, if I recall correctly, a lower per capita rate than 2016. I’ll look it up. I’m also going to guess nearly none of those were people with no criminal records, with carry permits.

Placed Into Evidence

Posted on by
36

The President is coming to Minneapolis soon.

Mayor Frey has essentially said “Punch a Nazi – and everyone coming to see Trump is a Nazi.”

Just putting this out there for when “Anti”-Fa and the rest of Mayor Frey’s goon squad screw up in front of the most concentrated collections of video cameras, personal injury and civil rights lawyers in history look things over the morning after.

Note to plaintiffs attorneys: Feel free to use the above as evidence, if you need. My pleasure.

“I’m From The Government, And I’m Here To Hinder The Wrong People”

Posted on by
11

A longtime friend of the blog emails:

Yes, thank you, CM Mitra Jalai Nelson. The city has not yet done enough to my neighborhood to prevent growth and development here.

We need to continue to run out those evil box stores and gas stations through minimum wage increases, zoning, and destroying streets to reduce people coming here to spend money. Then, we need to turn our back on the crime increases to ensure that people who possibly would invest here decide against it. Any other thoughts as to what the city could do to continue to prevent growth and development opportunities, er I mean gentrification, in our poorest neighborhoods?

Oh, make sure that it’s impossible to drive in or out, or park when you get here! And make sure transit is malevolent, expensive and keeps the peasants in their place!

Any more?

Listening to the celebration over the demise of the Midway Walmart, combined with the awkward lack of comment or facile rationaliation, about the 330 jobs, mostly for lower-income, often immigrant, workers, kinda told you everything you need to know about Ms. Jalali Nelson and the rest of the City Council.

Living The Lie

Posted on by
5

Simple messages printed on white paper start appearing in Massachusetts.

Moral quandary ensues (don’t watch the video if the moral myopia of your fellow citizen is already depressing you):

“Tolerance” for all aspects of (non-white male) cultures slams headlong into feminism.

And people have no idea what to do with that dissonance.

Alaa Al-Ameri:

Western society has managed to convince itself (at least in public) that any statement criticising any aspect of Islam is, by definition, bigotry. As a result, Western societies have effectively decided to enforce Islamic restrictions on blasphemy, and called it ‘tolerance’.
The strain of conforming to this lie is evident in the fumbling attempts by the interviewees to explain their objections. Do they believe that Islam is right about women? If so, why the objection? Do they believe that Islam is wrong about women? If so, in what sense is the statement an attack on Islam or Muslims? Do they believe that the author of the poster is saying that ‘Islam is right about women’, but doing so ironically? In which case, the objection can only be that the author is guilty of a thoughtcrime by stating that ‘two and two make five’ with insufficient sincerity. Or do they worry that they are guilty of thoughtcrime for noticing the irony?

Of course, it’s all fun until an entire free society is destroyed:

Such abdication grinds down the ideologically obedient citizen, because it reduces life to a purely material existence, in which moral integrity and human dignity must be sacrificed in order to keep the state off one’s back and oneself in a job. This is a fate which Havel suggested might one day befall the West if it were ever to succumb to the ‘profane trivialisation of humanity’ required to live within a lie rather than challenge it. With police now calling on citizens to ‘check their thinking’, and people regularly losing jobs over social-media posts, who can say that we have not reached it?

Of course, Al-Ameri – a UK-based writer – is writing about the UK.

For now.

Largely.

How Do You Build A Violent Underground Dissent Movement?

Posted on by
3

I don’t know, but the Brits are tinkering away like a bunch of mad scientists trying new approaches.

The latest? Creating a new tier of “hate groups” whose views are un-woke but whose methods are, frustratingly, not violent enough to run afoul of existing terror and hate-group laws:

Available by Home Office fiat, such designations would be based on the fairly vague claim that a group might ‘demonise specific groups on the basis of their race, religious [faith], gender, nationality or sexuality’, or be guilty of ‘disproportionately blaming specific groups (based on religion, race, gender or nationality) for broader societal issues’. Or they might be regarded as ‘aligning with extremist ideologies, though not inciting violence’.
What would be the impact on a group that was designated as hateful? The report is short on detail, but it speaks in terms of such groups ‘not [being] allowed to use media outlets or speak at universities’, and not being allowed to ‘engage, work with or for public institutions’. They would be ‘suspended from the electoral roll’. (This is an odd phrase showing, perhaps, evidence of over-hasty writing. Presumably, it means the groups would be deregistered as political parties.) The designated groups would also be banned from holding any public marches at all.

One would like to think the consequences are unintended – but we all know better, don’t we?

Think about what kind of activity might fall under the ban. What about a Christian evangelical group known for its strong views on transgenderism? Could it be driven from public life until it mended its ways? On the other side, what of pro-choice activists who regularly call out what they see as the medieval bigotry of the Catholic Church on reproductive matters, or a group of gay-rights supporters who attack the Koran for its uncompromising view on homosexuality? Might they be found guilty of disproportionately blaming a religious group for societal ills and find themselves banned?

I don’t know about you, but I think the exceptions will be painfully obvious and utterly unwritten.

Sort of like the Minnesota election law that governed what people could and could not wear in polling stations, which which pro-2nd Amendment, tax reform or pro-life-wear was considered “political”, but anti-gun, pro-big-state or pro-infanticide paraphernalia was not.

I think Big Minnesota Bureaucracy is more than ready. And, likely, is looking at the British “advances” in thoughtcrime and licking its proverbial chops.