…I’m reminded that Donald Trump’s greatest political asset…
…is his opposition.
(With friends like the beltway GOP, who needs Democrats for enemies?)
Every Day…
10
Author Archives: Mitch Berg
Questions Unasked (Due To Self-Preservation)
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Our new Division Director is a Black woman whose first act was to order an all-day, all-staff training on racism. The class starts with slavery, proceeds through Jim Crow, and ends with White Privilege.
I tried to weasel out of going to the class on the grounds that I’m too busy providing service to our actual customers to spent a day sitting in a conference room listening to the same spiel I’ve heard for the last decade, but no luck. I would have loved to ask a few questions. I didn’t, of course, because asking questions is asking for trouble; but if I could have done so safely, I’d have asked:
Americans historically were gung-ho on efficiency and innovation. Going all the way to Africa to capture and ship human cargo only to toss half of them overboard (thereby altering the migration habits of sharks) seems like a lot of work and wasteful besides. Why did Americans invent slavery?
If American’s didn’t invent slavery, who did? How long was it around before we adopted the practice? When was the last slave in the world freed?
If slavery was part of the universal human condition since time immemorial until we stopped it a century ago, and if slavery only occurs today in places where America has not exercised its power to stamp it out, then why are we spending all day talking about it?
Formal slavery ended in America 150 years ago. Jim Crow – when and where it existed – ended 50 years ago. Minnesota never had either one. Why are we, as Minnesotans, spending all day talking about it?
White Privilege occurs because of White families working and sacrificing so their children would live in a better society. Granted, the children didn’t do anything to deserve that society – they didn’t build that – but why is it wrong for parents to work and sacrifice for their children? What values should we – as employees of the local government – be encouraging local families to adopt instead?
If only I didn’t need my job . . . .
Joe Doakes
What’s the word for the thing that comes after education has turned into indoctrination, and then into browbeating, and then…
What’s that word?
Things I Never Thought I’d See
A worthwhile speech at an MTV Awards show:
David French noticed it:
Look, I know Pratt’s speech wasn’t exactly the message a Baptist preacher would share, but it’s an antidote against a lie. He’s speaking to a generation of young people who know that something is very deeply wrong. It’s a generation wracked by depression and anxiety in spite — or perhaps because — of the fact that they’ve been told time and again how perfect they are….
We conservatives spend a lot of time sharing outrageous celebrity clips. We grit our teeth through awards shows. And we properly lament messages that have distorted our culture. But every now and then, there’s a ray of light, and it can come from unlikely sources, including from the lead singer of the fictional band “Mouse Rat.” Last night, Pratt used his platform to share some important truths. Yes, it’s a small drop of reality in an ocean of cultural lies, but we can still hope those truths find purchase. Or, to put our plea in the words of our Savior: He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
So go forth and don’t be a turd.
Durantied
Dennis Prager is fond of describing cases of especial daftness by saying “It takes an elite education to be this stupid”.
I couldn’t help but think of that in reading about this “Human Rights Law” professor
Daniel Kovalik, who teaches international human rights law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, argues in a recent op-ed for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that U.S. media coverage of Venezuela “ignores the fact” that the U.S. is the “greatest impediment to democracy” in Venezuela and “throughout Latin America.”
Kovalik asserts that the “true patriots” of Venezuela “resent” the “devastating economic sanctions” imposed by the U.S., claiming that a vote for current socialist President Nicolás Maduro “was a vote against U.S. meddling” in the country’s affairs.
“Venezuela’s electoral system…is an inspiring process that guarantees one person, one vote, and includes multiple auditing procedures to ensure a free and fair election,” Kovalik claims.
Liberalism: Credulity wrapped in illogic dunked in outrage disguised as virtue .
The Tyranny Of Small Evils
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
In the late 1700’s, people protested to win their independence. In the 1850’s, people protested to free the slaves. In the 1920’s, people protested to get votes for women. In the 1960’s, people protested to get civil rights for Blacks. In the 1970’s, people protested the Vietnam War. The people who protested in those Great Causes got to brag to future generations about how they changed the world. But notice how the causes got smaller, less significant, as we ran out of great evils to protest. How does this generation validate itself? What’s left to change? Global warming? Transgender bathrooms? Hate Trump? Russian influence on social media? Trivia.
We need a Cause.
Joe Doakes
“Hate Trump” seems to be serving for the moment.
Down The Memory Hole
There was another mass shooting the other day
One dead, 21 wounded – pretty ghastly, and could have probably been much worse.
But there are no marches; Alyssa Milano is nowhere to be found; David “Boss” Hogg is silent about it. No celeb has soiled themselves with outrage. Even Minnesota’s gun control groups, always hovering like ghouls looking for any hint of gunny ugliness, have kept mum.
This was gang warfare. And it’s probably the most common form of gun violence seen in major cities on a yearly basis. But nobody is talking about it the way they will if a deranged white guy with a rifle commits the far more rare mass shooting of that type. There’s a gun violence problem here that could be addressed, making a serious difference. But places like Baltimore, Maryland and Chicago, Illinois still have municipal leaders who can’t bring themselves to pass harsher laws to put away first-time offenders who commit gun crimes. They prefer to focus on justice reform, emptying the prisons more quickly and blaming the police.
One dead, 22 injured. But that’s not even a drop in the bucket compared to the death tolls in Baltimore and Chicago just this year alone. Background checks aren’t going to solve this. Enforcing the laws we already have on the books and getting illegal firearms out of the hands of criminals will.
But nobody seems to want to talk about that.
The victims don’t look like the children of NPR executives.
The community (Trenton, New Jersey – where strict gun laws ensure this sort of thing can’t happen, donchaknow) doesn’t look like Crocus Hill or Kenwood.
The violence isn’t telegenic enough to really manipulate people all that well.
And so I’m gonna guess most of you haven’t heard of the shooting. I’d only caught a snippet somewhere – and it wasn’t on NPR.
The Messenger Is The Medium
Bruce Willis’s remake of Death Wish got panned. Flamed. Excoriated. Racism, sexism, gun-ism, failure to recycle, the works.
Now comes Peppermint, starring Jennifer Garner.
And what’s the theme, you ask?
“What do I want? I want justice,” Garner warns in the trailer’s opening seconds. From there, we see her spending quality time with her family before tragedy strikes. She retreats for a while, licking her wounds and turning herself into a living weapon.
Why? To take out the trash.
And the media the skinned Willis alive? Silent.
This is nothing new, of course; about ten years ago, Hollywood released a couple of movies where sympathetic characters went on vigilante sprees, where “sympathetic” meant suitably left of center; most noxious was Jodie Foster as an NPR host who went all Charles Bronson on her husband’s killer.
The lesson?
The only thing consistent about out culture’s misbegotten “elites” is ther hypocrisy.
More, Faster!
The Southern Poverty Law Center loses a $3 million defamation suit:
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, has apologized for including the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism group, and its founder, Maajid Nawaz, in its Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists. “Mr. Nawaz and Quilliam have made valuable and important contributions to public discourse, including by promoting pluralism and condemning both anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamist extremism,” the SPLC wrote in a statement. The SPLC will also pay a $3.375 million settlement to Quilliam that will be used to fight “anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamist extremism,” according to a Quilliam press release.
But…what made the SPLC refer to them as a “hate group?”
“We were able to fight back against the Regressive Left and show them that moderate Muslims will not be silenced,” Nawaz said in the release.
Aaaah. It all makes sense now.
You Got Problems. Joe Doakes Has Answers.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Chicago PD needs to get guns off the streets of those neighborhoods. You know what would get guns off the streets? Stop-and-frisk. Don’t even bother to arrest the people in possession – that raises all the Fourth Amendment defenses and exacerbates racial disparity in convictions – just take the guns from people who shouldn’t be carrying them, and auction the guns to lawful buyers to fund midnight basketball programs. Who could possibly object to that?
Joe Doakes
No rational person.
But then, I’m tacitly repeating myself, here.
The Wrong Lesson?
So why did Trump win the ’16 election?
Was it the Democrat party’s rocket-ride to the extreme left?
The “Elite” condescension toward the great American geographic, political and economic middle?
Donald Trump’s facility at seeing the above and appealing to people to whom it mattered?
Or was it simple crass vulgarity?
Wisconsin Democrats are picking “D”:
Democrats are convinced that Wisconsin is primed for a Trump-backlash-inspired “blue wave” come November, and potential Walker challengers have joined the race in droves. With so many bodies in the race, a fringe candidate could conceivably win the primary with 15 to 20 percent of the vote and move on to face the vulnerable Republican incumbent in November. And just as Candidate Trump used vulgarity, insults, and half-cooked media stunts to differentiate himself from his primary opponents two years ago, so, too, are Walker’s Democratic challengers in 2018.
And they are quite the cast of himbos:
Mike McCabe, a former “good government” activist who suggested he would rent the governor’s mansion out to travelers on Airbnb, began his campaign by promising to end Walker’s “golden-shower economics.” Businessman Andy Gronik, who received a settlement of more than $6 million in a lawsuit he filed claiming a house he had purchased had given him an inflammatory-bowel disorder, told a debate crowd that he couldn’t wait to “hit” Walker. And on the same rainy day Mahlon Mitchell dropped his scatological stylings on the transportation group, state school superintendent Tony Evers joined a group in Madison protesting cuts to the state’s university system and told the group Walker’s cuts were “bullsh**.”
And just watch – if they win, “being crude, crass and impolitic” will suddenly become a virtue among Dems.
If there is a favorite in the Democratic field, it is Evers, a buttoned-up 65-year-old former teacher who has won three statewide elections as school superintendent. Nearly a decade ago, Evers beat cancer after having his esophagus and part of his stomach removed; today, he can’t eat a full meal and has to sleep at a 45 degree angle. However, even though the avuncular Evers has appeared on three statewide ballots, he is still relatively unknown in areas outside heavily liberal Madison. One recent poll had Evers leading the primary field with a flaccid 20 percent, which may explain his sudden foray into campaigning’s dark arts. In one January interview, he referred to Walker as an “idiot,” and he recently told the state Democratic convention that he was “goddamn sick and tired” of Walker’s policies.
And just when you thought nothing could be…loonier than this past DFL convention..
Toxic Social “Justice”
Fathers Day greetings from the world’s social justice pimps:
I have seen at least three businesses lately that have signs or t-shirts in the window that boldly state: “The Future is Female,” probably placed there by someone (male or female) who thinks they are a good and altruistic person who doesn’t hate. But they are wrong. Advertising, whether it be in the Washington Post or a storefront window, that men are to be hated or excluded from the future of America is hate in its rawest form, plain and simple.
I have but five words for these social justice warriors who think that they are just speaking truth to power: “Hate Has No Home Here.” It never will; as long as you hate men and innocent boys in this country, you are the problem, not the solution. And the rest of us will treat you as such.
Y’know how you can tell those sort of contempt is catching on? The market is reacting to it. For thirty years, now, advertising for products and services largely bought by women have increasingly portrayed men as incompetent, bumbling overgrown children (inevitably and inexplicably married to gorgeous, accomplished women). The market caters to things it sees people actually believing.
“But men do it too!”
Nah. Look at ads for products catering to men – women may be portrayed as objects of juvenile desire, but the contempt just isn’t there.
The ads – like the signs – are the symptom. The illness is “Feminism” as a politicla and social identity.
A Good Customer With A Gun
An armed citizen, whom police are calling a “Good Samaritan”, ended a shooting spree at a Walmart in Washington state.
If only we cared about our school children as much as we do about our Walmart customers.
As A Few Hundred Hipsters Rejoice Ironicallly
Oh, whoops. Didn’t see you there. I was just dozing at the big news.
Is There A Legal Attack Fund?
As opposed to a legal defense fund, I mean?
Because I’d love to donate.
Uncharted Mental Territory
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
People who don’t understand Trump, don’t understand what he’s doing with Korea. There’s no written agreement. There’s no procedure for verification. We gave away too much and received too little. It’s a disaster!
Calm down. Trump is a real estate developer. This is standard operating procedure. Say anything, promise anything, to get the customer committed to the deal. After that, we hammer out the details. The final agreement may look nothing at all like the initial offer, but it’ll fly because we’re all committed to the deal.
Same technique as selling a used car. Go ahead, sit in it. Drive it around the block. Look at the great tread left on the tires. Feel the cushy seats. You look good in that car. You want it, don’t you? Why not, you deserve it. And the payments, so affordable. Can we do this? Sure, we can.
Trump took the first step at getting North and South committed to a deal, some deal, any deal, something to break the stalemate, something to take to their own people and claim as a victory. Hey Kim, maybe you’d like to own a hotel on the beach? Put your name up in lights? Sure, we can do that, as part of the deal. Ever eaten at McDonalds? Come on, every major city has a McDonalds. We’ve got to get your city into World Class, we’ve got to get you a McDonalds. Can we do this? Sure we can. All part of the deal . . . .
Give the man time to do his thing.
Joe Doakes
The left calls Trump “not presidential”. And they’re not wrong.
But the big problem seems to be that he’s “not like a politician”.
Which can be both a feature and a bug, of course.
To You It Might Sound Strange, But I Wish It Would NARN
Join me from 1-3PM today on the NARN!
Today on the show:
- SchadenfreuDFL.
- Lt. Col Tony Shaffer on the realities of the North Korean summit.
- Prof. Richard Sander author of Moving Toward Integration
- Bill Doherty of “Better Angels”, on trying to bridge this nation’s social and ideological gap.
Don’t forget – King Banaian is on from 9-11AM on AM1440, and Brad Carlson is on “The Closer” edition of the NARN Sundays from 2-3PM.
So tune in the Northern Alliance! You have so many options:
- AM1280 in the Metro
- FM107.5 in the West Metro
- Streaming at AM1280’s Website
- Streaming on IHeartRadio
- On Twitter (the Volume 2 show will use hashtag #narnshow)
- Via my UStream video and chat channel.
- Good ol’ telephone – 651-289-4488
- Podcasts are now available; for my show and for Brad’s
- And make sure you fan us on our new Facebook page!
Join us!
I Heard It On The NARN
The link to the book Moving Toward Integration by our guest Prof. Richard Sander (along with Yana Kucheva and Jonathan Zasloff).
And here’s the website for “Better Angels”, if you’d like to learn more, or even participate.
Square Pegs
I’ve been pondering how to address this for a while – what it’s liek to be an actual conservative in the Trump era.
John Hawkins takes a run at it with the five werdest things about being a conservative Trump non-fan.
Here’s one that some of my liberal friends have a hard time wrapping their brains around:
I can understand Democrats writing off a conservative like me because even if Alex Jones is duking it out with Todd Akin one day, I still won’t vote for whoever the latest socialist is that they run. That being said, there are roughly 8 million Americans who voted for Obama AND Trump and the general attitude Democrats have toward them seems to be, “Rot in Hell with your orange god.” No political party can appeal to everyone, but it’s so strange to see a political party that treats millions of voters they are going to want support from in the next election like pariahs simply because they voted for the other side. This would be like an NBA team saying, “If you didn’t show up to support us at yesterday’s game, then we better never see you again! Oh, and if we catch you wearing our merch, we will MURDER YOU.”
It’s part and parcel of the Democrats becoming an extremist cult.
Yes, In Your Back Yard
A friend of the blog writes:
Saw this on Twitter. Tweeted from someone living in San Francisco. But, retweeted by someone living in St Paul.
Funny thing- I think both cities have most of those things.
I doubt either the original poster or the retweeter choose to live near those places. Just like public transit, this list seems like a Yes in somebody else’s backyard.
That’s the thing about creeping socialilsm; it’s always inflicted on someone else.
Maybe It’s “Common Core” Biology
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Two boys won the Connecticut state track meet. The Girls track meet. It’s “controversial.” It shouldn’t be.
A human being having two X chromosomes is biologically Female, while a human having one each X and Y is biologically Male. This is Sex, it’s science, it’s universally agreed to be true.
Over the last 5,000 years, human civilizations developed acceptable roles for members of the sexes. Women raised children, men hunted and fought. These were Gender Roles. Until very recently, these were universally agreed to be sensible and appropriate.
The biological difference in chromosomes results in physical differences in reproductive organs, musculature, and hormones, Male and Female sexes. Then societal difference results in differences in behavior, Masculine and Feminine. Sex led to Gender but they are not identical and not interchangeable. An individual biologically Female human may reject playing with dolls (training to raise children) preferring to roughhouse with boys (training for war) but being a Tomboy doesn’t change her from being a Girl.
All human attributes are distributed on a bell-shaped curve so yes, some women are stronger than some men; but at the competitive end of the curve, women simply cannot physically compete against men.
And everybody knows it. That’s why there are two leagues, Men’s and Women’s. That’s why Anika Sorenstam competing in the PGA was a publicity stunt. That’s why John McEnroe was entirely correct to say Serena Williams is a great women’s tennis player but wouldn’t stand a chance against the top men’s tennis players. She wouldn’t. You can see the difference for yourself – watch Boy’s state championships in any sport, then watch the Girls’ championships in the same sport. Boy champions are always stronger and faster than Girl champions.
Boys claiming to be pre-operative transgender Girls have been winning athletic contests in the Girls division for the last few years, in Alaska in 2016, in Connecticut last year, and two of them came in first and second in Connecticut this year. They are defended by LGBTQ activists who point out transgender people have hard lives because of societal expectations on dress, behavior and even bathroom use. Maybe so, but that doesn’t address the biological advantage of being born Male but competing against Females. Defending against Biology using the defense of Societal Role is bait-and-switch. People who refuse to acknowledge biology are science deniers.
If biological differences justify having two different leagues, then gender preference is irrelevant and those boys should go back to being losers in the Boys’ State meet. Otherwise, if we let them compete against Girls, then there are no Girls’ sports anymore, there are only Boys’ sports – some won by boys who admit it, and some won by boys who pretend not to be.
Joe Doakes
I look for the quality of WNBA basketball to improve a lot in about a decade…
Anyone Get The License Number On That Truck?
Posting is going to be a little light today.
What is it about Thursdays, lately?
The Plantationmasters
It’s 2018. Anyone can do anything they want…
…with the exception of stepping off the plantation in any way, if you’re black, Latino, gay or female.
Priorities
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Screenshot from this morning.
Tommy Robinson put in deadly peril for protesting Muslim child-rape gangs who sexually abused thousands of real girls; Congress about to ban child sex robots used by perverts who hurt no living person. Protecting evil while punishing fantasy. Insane.
Hard to know who to want to smack, some days.
More, Faster.
False rape accuser headed to prison:
Last year a young woman from Long Island who was attending Sacred Heart University in Connecticut came to the police with a harrowing tale. Nikki Yovino told the authorities that two football players from the school had trapped her in the bathroom at a party they were attending and raped her. Police immediately began investigating the horrible crime and quickly identified the suspects. They claimed that the sex was consensual but the victim was adamant. Or at least she wasadamant until others came forward to testify that the football players were telling the truth.
Eventually, Yovino retracted her story and admitted that she had engaged in sex with the boys at the party willingly. Later she decided to make up the rape story to win the support and affection of a different boy she had wanted to date. Then, in a shocking turn of events which we rarely if ever see in such instances of false accusations, Yovino was charged with a crime over her lies. Now, following a very generous plea deal, she’s heading off to prison. (Legal Insurrection and the College Fix)
Swine like this deserve, and should get, exactly the same sentence as the rapists themselves.
He Knows What Matters
The mayor of London has clearly solved all of their real problems:
If I lived in London, I would start by writing a biography of every woman that was stabbed in the past year, now that London’s violent crime rate has surpassed New York City’s for the first time in history.
Happy to help, Mayor Khan.