If the swing shift guy working the tower of Big Ben married Marie Kondo he would not have his clock cleaned to the extent that the Democrats are getting theirs cleaned today.
— Dennis Miller (@DennisDMZ) March 24, 2019
UPDATE: Not sure how this piece originally ran in its unedited version. But there you have it.
The Democrats will be holding their convention next year in Milwaukee.
Kevin Williamson thinks that’s pretty appropriate, all in all.
In response to a particularly stupid column by Paul Krugman a few years back, our friend Iowahawk shared an interesting discovery: Schools in progressive Wisconsin on average outperform the schools in low-spending, Republican Texas — but the schools in Texas outperform the schools in Wisconsin when it comes to outcomes for white students, black students, and Latino students, each of which group produced higher test scores in Texas than in Wisconsin. Wisconsin came out ahead not because it does a better job with any particular group of students but because it is overwhelmingly white. In other states black and Hispanic students trail their white peers, too, but seldom as much as they do in Wisconsin’s graduation rates.
The Democrats own Milwaukee, which hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1908. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez et al. will be cheered to know that Milwaukee has had three times as many socialist mayors as Republicans since the beginning of the 20th century.
I’m exceptionally confident we’ll find Minnesota compares identically.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Sarah A. Hoyt is a writer. I enjoy her column, this line in particular:
“Yes, again, is it malice or stupidity? Perhaps we should formulate an axiom that sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.”
It’s not only a clever riff on Arthur C. Clarke, it also explains so much about Democrats today. It’s too hard to tell if they’re stupid or evil and doesn’t matter anyway. Both evil AND stupidity must be resisted.
The one tends to hold the door for the other.
American public media reports – or, in a sense, “Reports” – on the ironic rising cost of water in several Great Lakes-area cities and, naturally, its disproportionate effect on the poor.
The cities – they focus most especially on Cleveland, Detroit, Duluth, Buffalo and Chicago – have water rates that are rising extremely fast, as the ageing infrastructure starts to give out.
What it doesn’t mention?
Every one of the cities has been run by Democrats, according to Democrat priorities, as long as anyone can remember.
The thing about “progressivism” is that while it flaps its jaws about “helping” the vulnerable, it inevitably ends up harming them.
Give them a $15 minimum wage and mandatory sick time? Get them laid off!
Attack landlords for the “quality” of housing they provide? Make housing unaffordable!
Kamala Harris, in her celebrated (by the media) record as a prosecutor, did more than her fair share of being unfair.
. Her crusade against the scourge of parents whose kids skip school, for example:
The good news is that post-CNN town hall, although much of the media lauded Harris and posted adoring articles about her acumen and likability, several took it upon themselves to resurface videos of Harris’s recent support for cracking down on truancy violations.
In 2010, for example, video shows Harris saying, “I believe a child going without an education is tantamount to a crime. So I decided I was gonna start prosecuting parents for truancy.”
“Well, this was a little controversial in San Francisco,” Harris noted, with a folksy giggle.
Another video showed Harris bragging about her power: “As a prosecutor in law enforcement, I have huge stick. The school district as a carrot. Let’s work together in tandem…to get those kids in school.”
Have I ever mentioned how much I love prosecutors who are drunk with their own power?
Her policies involved $2,000 fines, and even jail time, for parents whose kids missed “too much” school.
Which, people who actually pay attention to this issue will tell you, is a stupid, stupid plan, unless your goal is to paint yourself as “tough”:
…the people hurt by this carceral approach are the very people who are most likely to be financially crippled by a few fines. We’re not talking about wealthy people here, and generally speaking, criminal justice reform advocates fear using punitive means to “help” poor people because it can be so easy for them to get trapped in a cycle of unpaid fines that leads to jail time, which leads to time forcibly taken off of work, which leads to even less money and even less ability to pay outstanding debts.
None of this, you can imagine, helps children get a more stable home life with more attention from parents.
With junior high and high school kids, truancy often isn’t something parents can control (while still holding down jobs, anyway).
With younger kids? If they’re missing school regularly, it’s usually not a matter of “truancy”; it’s problems at home, more often than not problems stemming from one personal or social pathology or another.
In what other area of society do we try to address this sort of thing with fines and jail time?
Kamala Harris is a public cancer.
Alternate title: “Ryan Winkler tries to make the trains run on time”.
The DFL majority in the House has moved all the House’s committees under the Ways and Means committee – meaning that Ways and Means chair Lyndon Carlson can can move bills around, and forward to votes, without a whole lot of scrutiny:
According to the DFLers who now make up the majority in the House, the newish method of managing the flow of budget-related bills is more efficient: a way for legislation to spend less time on the House floor and more time in committees, where the heavy lifting of legislating is really done.
But for House Republicans — both the 55-member Republican Caucus and the four-member “New Republican” caucus — those same rules constitute an anti-transparency move that puts democracy at risk. The newbie GOP even borrowed the motto of the Washington Post — “Democracy Dies in Darkness” — when discussing the rules, and one person testifying against them even drew a comparison to the casus belli of the Revolutionary War.
So is the move anti-democratic or a way of making things more efficient? Both? And does anyone outside the halls of the state Capitol much care?
Given that we now have situations with pages of bills moving through “divisions” – not even “committees”, anymore – with a single terse memo of commentary, I’d say “anti-democratic”.
Indeed, given that Ryan Winkler is behind it, I’d say “prima facie anti-democratic“.
Ilhan Omar – perhaps the most powerful person in Minnesota today in terms of foreign policy – twote:
A US backed coup in Venezuela is not a solution to the dire issues they face. Trump’s efforts to install a far right opposition will only incite violence and further destabilize the region. We must support Mexico, Uruguay & the Vatican’s efforts to facilitate a peaceful dialogue.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 25, 2019
She was basically parroting the Maduro regime line – that the Trump administration was imposing a “far right” government on the “democratically elected” government of Venezuela.
A congressman who isn’t actually an active disgrace to his state, Carlos Curbelo, responded:
.@jguaido is actually from a center left party. He supports human rights & the fair treatment of all people. He was also legitimately & democratically elected. You’d think a progressive would be a little more supportive. But no, the sick obsession w @realDonaldTrump is blinding https://t.co/Eh96qanAE4
— Carlos Curbelo (@carloslcurbelo) January 25, 2019
In her own way, Omar may be a dumber, more toxic sign of the times than Tide Pod Evita.
I’m not the only one that figures that Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is setting back feminism half a decade or more:
In mere minutes, Ocasio-Cortez managed to affirm nearly every negative stereotype about the female sex, from the trope that we’re no good at math to the notion that you shouldn’t trust us with a credit card. If all you saw was her example, you’d think we’re all just emotional dreamers who need to be reined in by reality
Ocasio-Cortez is not the feminist hero most media coverage has made her out to be. If anything, her time in the spotlight has set women in politics back.
Not just women. I have a hunch after a few years of her (and Reps. Omar and Tlaib), millennials outside the safest of coastal loonie bins are going to have a harder sell to get into office as well.
…is that you can be a corrosive, giggly bigot, and nobody will ever, ever call you on it.
I add the emphasis:
MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle implied without evidence Tuesday that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) has something to hide and the president is blackmailing him over it.
Graham has become one of the President Donald Trump’s staunchest allies in the Senate, although he has criticized him for some key decisions, such as the military pullout from Syria. Ruhle seemed to imply there’s more to their relationship than politics, however, during a discussion about Graham with former Rep. David Jolly and professor Eddie Glaude.
“Before Don got elected, Lindsey Graham called Donald Trump a racist, xenophobic bigot. Those are Lindsey Graham’s words,” Jolly said. “I doubt Lindsey Graham could tell you Donald Trump has had a change of heart in the last 24 months, I bet the change of heart has been with Lindsey Graham, not the president.”
“Or it could be that Donald Trump or somebody knows something pretty extreme about Lindsey Graham,” Ruhle replied. “We’re gonna have to leave it there.”
The smirk Ruhle produced when she spoke suggests she was referring to rumors about Graham’s sexuality, which some Democrats have been trumpeting anew recently. Jon Cooper, chairman of the Democratic Coalition super PAC, explicitly accused Graham on Saturday of letting himself be blackmailed for “some pretty serious kink.”
Did I say “Nice thing?”
I meant “horrible, Orwellian, evil” thing.
The short answer: whille the GOP on the national level capitulates on spending and allow all sorts of government scope creep the chips are down, the Democrats take the gas pedal of power and jam it to the firewall:
Democrats are increasingly lining up to support a “Green New Deal,” which, while vague on details, could end up being the largest expansion of government in decades.
As it stands, the “Green New Deal” is more aspirational than actual policy. Indeed, it takes its name from the New Deal of the 1930s, and its main backer, incoming Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, compared it to the Great Society of the 1960s.
More than 40 Democratic lawmakers support the “Green New Deal” as part of a broad plan to fight global warming and bring about what they see as “economic, social and racial justice.” A poll found most Americans supported the deal, but knew little about it.
But the big question is when Americans find out what’s in the “Green New Deal,” will they be willing to pay for it?
After a few months or years of media alarmism and emotional logrolling from an in-the-bag media?
Is that even a serious question?
California Democrats have gone way too far with the taxation and regulation, says Ted Nugent.
Just kidding. It’s…
The leader of the most populous state has kept Democratic lawmakers in check by limiting spending on social programs in favor of saving it to protect against a future economic downtown. He sometimes butted heads with legislative leaders, warning spending too much now could hurt taxpayers or require budget cuts later…
“I’d say we’re in for contentious times and for too many rules, too many constricting mandates and probably too much spending,” Brown told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday.
And it’s not even like Brown – a died-in-the-wool prog – has been especially restrained in his own approach to taxing, regulating and squashing enterprise.
Ken Martin’s “investigation” into the domestic violence allegations against Keith Ellison is almost done.
Is the suspense killing you, too?
To: “Representative” Ilhan Omar
From: Mitch Berg, Deplorable taxpayer
Re: The eternal gift you are
Representative Omar,
You flaunted your Muslim piety at every turn, (while ignoring the parts where Progressivism is in conflict) – And demanded respect for same.
And now, you mock Vice President Pence’s faith.
Pick one.
That is all.
So Minnesota will have a new Speaker of the House – Melissa Hortman, longtime DFL extreme Metrocrat.
How extreme?
What do you suppose her first priority is going to be? Minnesota’s fragile rural economy? Crumbling infrastructure? Our rural-urban educational divide?
The new speaker, Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, said gun-violence prevention is priority No. 1
Minnesota already has among the lowest homicide rates, with or without firearms, of any state – and perhaps the lowest of any state with a major metro area in it.
We must be doing something right, right?
No – they’re answering to the master that put them in office: Bloomberg and the rest of the Democrat plutocrats with deep pockets.
If you’re a Minnesota gun owner or someone who cares about the Second Amendment, it’s that time again:
The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus needs you to get involved. Go sign up. Become a sustaining member. The MNGOC is the group doing all the work for 2nd Amendment rights in Minnesota.
This is one of those “Their Finest Hour” moments. But they don’t happen on their own.
Heard in passing; this morning in an interview on NPR, Democrat congresswoman Debbie Dingell says Democrats can “eat and chew gum at the same time”.
I’m gonna let that sit there for a second.
“Jewish Leaders” in the Twin Cities – who vote overwhelmingly Democrat, and likely played the role they needed to play in getting her elected last week – express dismay that Ilhan “Minnesota Socialist Barbie” Omar lied through her impeccable teeth at them:
U.S. Rep.-elect Ilhan Omar this week reaffirmed her support for a pro-Palestinian movement to pressure Israel, rankling Jewish community leaders who say she contradicted remarks made at an August candidates forum.
Omar’s office told the website MuslimGirl.com on Sunday that she supported the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel but expressed “reservations on the effectiveness of the movement in accomplishing a lasting solution.” The Minnesota Democrat later reiterated her position in a series of text messages exchanged with a reporter for TC Jewfolk that were posted on its local news site.
Jewish community leaders previously expressed optimism after Omar criticized the BDS movement during an Aug. 6 Democratic candidates forum at Beth El Synagogue in St. Louis Park — about a week before Omar defeated four other candidates in the party’s primary. Omar said she supported a two-state solution in the Israel-Palestine conflict and that the BDS movement wasn’t helpful in trying to achieve that goal. Pressed by moderator Mary Lahammer to specify “exactly where you stand on that,” Omar replied that the BDS movement was “counteractive” because it stopped both sides from coming together for “a conversation about how that’s going to be possible.”
Why, it’s almost as if she knew she’d never be held accountable for any lies she tells to get elected.
How might this have manifested itself elsewhere in her life?
Hmmm.
If only we had an institution – perhaps one with printing presses, and transmitters – staffed by people who considered “telling the truth about politicians to people” to be a monastic calling, or something like that?
You mean to say that Alexandria Occasional-Cortex…er, Ocasio Cortez, was making a cheap “Affordable Housing” sympathy ploy with her “I can’t afford an apartment in DC” schtick last week?
Well, shut my mouth.
Barack Obama was on the campaign trail in the weeks leading up to mid-terms…
…and it’d seem he had the same results at mid-terms that he did as president:
TREND:
Over the past 5 days, President Obama flew into the states of Georgia, Florida & Indiana to personally campaign for big-name Democrat candidates in those states.
Here's how they did:
Joe Donnelly: Lost
Andrew Gillum: Lost
Bill Nelson: Lost
Stacey Abrams: Lost— Benny (@bennyjohnson) November 7, 2018
Now – if only we can get the Dems to endorse Elizabeth Warren, and get Obama to stump for her…
Syndicated talk show host Michael Savage once had a huge hit with the book “Liberalism Is A Mental Illness”.
The implication was inflammatory – as Savage fully intended, being Michael Savage.
But science shows he was incorrect; new evidence shows it may be more a matter of brain damage:
A joint team of American and British scientists have discovered that powerful magnetic pulses to the brain can temporarily change people’s feelings on a variety of subjects…researchers have now found that by targeting the part of the brain that deals with threats, they can temporarily change people’s beliefs and views…
Amongst those who received the strong magnetic dose, 32.8 per cent fewer had decreased beliefs in God, angels and heaven compared to the control group who received no dose.
And 25.8 per cent more of those who had received TMS [Transcranial magnetic stimulation – magnetism applied to parts of the brain] had a more positive response to the immigrant who had written a negative letter about their country.
What this nation needs is commonsense magnetism control.
Remember this when Democrats coo condescendingly about how all they want is “common sense reforms”:
Not saying I believe this is the Democrat mainstream, per se.
Just that the notion that the end justifies the means is underneath every single “progressive” policy, from the income tax to the Gulag.
Via Gary Gross at LFR – two unions have broken from the DFL borg and endorsed Jason Lewis:
The carpenters’ union and International Union of Operating Engineers Local 49, both of whichendorsed Hillary Clinton, will support the first-term congressman in the midterm elections in his rematch against former health care executive Angie Craig. Labor leaders praised Lewis’s record in Congress, highlighting his support for domestic energy development as well as his willingness to buck his political party. Lewis has supported Davis-Bacon, which favors union wage levels in federal projects despite the push in the conservative movement to abolish wage mandates.
“In Jason’s time in Congress he has cast repeated votes in support of Davis-Bacon prevailing wage and has led on the issue of changing school curriculum to encourage more people to look at careers in the construction industry,” carpenters’ spokesman Adam Duininck said in a release.
Both unions also praised Lewis for focusing on local issues and maintaining a relationship with labor leaders. Local 49 business manager Jason George said that Lewis and the union were not in lockstep on every political issue, but the congressman had supported the issues that help support the building trades and traditional blue-collar workers.
There has been a slow, fitful trickle of private-sector unions coming over to the GOP – accelerated by the Trump Effect, it needs to be said.
And it only makes sense; the public sector unions that control the Democrat party have interests that are largely inimical to those of private-sector labor – indeed, the public ones, left with their own way, will eventually strangle the private ones.
Here’s hoping that the private unions still pack enough clout in places like Newport and Sourth Saint Paul, where Angie Craig will likely run strongest, to make a difference.
The welfare state – in the US, the state that was put in place by Lyndon B Johnson’s “Great Society” – isn’t so much about “solving poverty” as it is about “making poverty a permanently sustainable state that can be exploited for political gain”.
We can argue the specifics, and maybe even the conclusion.
But let’s say that was not the case; if the Democrats weren’t trying to build a permanent underclass beholden to them with the welfare state, how would you better design such a thing as one would with the Great Society?
Because that’s how it worked. Poverty in the US was in free fall until the nation “declared war” on it.:
An Elizabeth “Fauxcahontas” Warren bio for, apparently, kids:
The lesson? That any girl born into immense wealth, prestige and class privilege can still find a way to grow up to be an identity pimp.
Over the past two years, there’s been an epidemic of violence perpetrated by people on the left against Republicans, conservatives, Trump supporters, and anyone else the left considers untermensch.
Some liberals, to be fair, decry the violence – but not only do you have many high-profile liberals calling for it, and calling for more, but many more quibble that it actually happens, or that it’s really as bad as the victims say it is.
But now we come to hear that both prog plutocrat financier George Soros, Barack Obama and the Clintons have received some form of explosive device or another.
Right before the election.
Simply amazing, isn’t it?
If someone on the right is behind this, then they need to be arrested and prosecuted until their ears bleed.
But it does seem waaaaaaaaaaaaay too convenient, doesn’t it?
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
I now know as much as I need to know, to cast an informed vote in the governor’s race.
Joe doakes
The missive relates to this mailer:
Leaving aside the Orwellian use of “Health” to refer to dismembering fetuses, I just want to smack Democrats for making up “rights” as they go.
There is no “right” to health. There is a responsibility to take care of yourself.
No more!