Goon attacks church, killing two…

…before being brought down by armed parishioners:

“It appears that a gunman shot two church members at back of auditorium with a footlong weapon, then a member shot the gunman with a pistol,” [Editor Bobby Ross of Christian Chronicle] wrote. “This is just based on me watching the video again. Screaming afterward in the church. So tragic. Two quick shots at back, then another shot. Then at least three members (I believe) with pistols [walking] toward where the gunman appeared to fall.”
CBS News Dallas reported that a witness confirmed to them that another church member shot the suspect.

Video of the episode:

The recognition of the good civilians with guns runs to the highest level of Texas government:

In the meantime, Jews in New York State react to yet another antisemitic attack – in some cases, utterly sensibly:

At the risk of sounding mawkish?  I’m proud to be an American when I see this.  

In a related matter, some prominent American Jews have some ideas on accessories in a time of rising antisemitic violence. 

A friend of the blog emails:

Obama talks about undeveloped countries and opportunities for women in those countries. 
“It turns out that one of the best indicators of whether a country is developed or not is how does it educate its girls and how does it treat its women,” Obama said. “And typically, those countries that do a bad job on that are backwards and behind economically.”
Here, I agree. There are Middle Eastern countries that invoke religious laws to justify barring women from educational opportunities, employment, and just being out in public.

Amazing as this might seem to some millennials, there are places much, much worse than the United States.

But, MPR tweeted this article, leading with the following quote-
“There would be less war, kids would be better taken care of and there would be a general improvement in living standards and outcomes,” Obama said.
Why do we need to constantly perpetuate this sexist myth that all women are anti-war, that all women agree on what is the ‘right’ way to provide child care? As a woman, I am deeply offended by this myth.
I am offended for many reasons. Supporters of Obama love this type of quote. It makes them feel are warm and fuzzy for being “woke” and feminist. Then, they turn around and bash Betsy Devos for being pro Charter schools. Oh, women don’t know what is best for their children in that case? 

“Progressivism” is all about supporting the right women/gays/minorities. As Berg’s Eighth Law of Diversity notes, “American progressivism’s reaction to one of “their”constituents – women, gays or people of color – running for office or otherwise identifying as a conservative is indistinguishable from sociopathic disorder.” There’s only one lane allowed for women, gays and minorities – otherwise, they’re apostates, and treated as such.

They are the type of people who bashed Margaret Thatcher for her economic policies in Britain. Did Thatcher improve living standards in Britain? Of course. But, your answer to that probably depends on your political beliefs, and not based on the fact that she was a woman. I am not sure Obama supporters come to the same conclusion as me.
By the way, Hillary Clinton likely would have had us in a war by now. Oh, and Thatcher was not an anti-war woman, either. Does that make Trump “the woman” candidate since he hasn’t started a war? 

By the way – while I am the Twin Cities’ best feminist, I am unabashedly male, so I’m probably not the one to ask – but I can’t be the only one who cringes, visibly, at some of modern culture’s more visible pandering to women, can I? My peeve lately is people using the term “HERStory”, with helpful idiot caps, when a history article refers to women? More seriously, I can’t be the one that notices that modern “feminism’s” big push seems to be a return to victorian social conventions (but not, repeat not, mores) as re women?

I do not care if your political beliefs are different from mine. I am happy to debate policy differences. But I am sick of people in the 21st Century making blanket statements that all women believe this or all blacks vote for that. We have examples of competent and experienced women and people of color on all sides of the issues. We also have many examples of people- men, women, any race- who have not been competent. Even if you disagree politically, you can give credit to someone who is competent. 
Yes, as Americans who believe in freedoms for all people, we abhor the way some countries disregard women and children. But, if you conflate that with we need women in charge to make us all better, then you are being just as oppressive. You are not allowing women the same opportunities to have independent beliefs as you have allowed for yourself as a man.

Obama’s comment is the rankest form of pandering. And anyone who’s ever worked in the real world knows that women are, pretty much, like other humans. Some are good, many are walking trash. I’ve worked for managers who were good, and many who were worse than worthless, a few are downright evil – and they’re about evenly split by gender.

Why does the worst ex-President since Jimmy Carter think leaders would be any different?

They’re not.

Hey, Mitch – why are Democrats and Big Left pushing to scrap the Electoral College and make the Senate a popularly-elected body?  

Oh, why do you think?

Racist pig and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib blames “white supremacy”…

…for an attack carried out by black “Jews”.

Apparently, a judge following the law as written commits some kind of hate crime. Wisconsin legislature should look into this.
Joe doakes

The left sees “hate crimes” a lot like Michael Scott does:

And as Berg’s

Brazilian “comedy” features a gay Jesus:

The Brazilian comedy group Porta dos Fundos (which literally translates to “back door”) appears to have a real hang-up about our Lord and Christianity in general. Last December the group released The Last Hangover on Netflix, a movie that blends Christ’s Last Supper with his disciples and The Hangover into a night of drunken debauchery where Jesus disappears.
This year, in this new Christmas special, Jesus turns 30 and brings his gay boyfriend home to meet Mary and Joseph.

Pretty daring.

Not as daring as a gay Mohammed would be.

Wonder why nobody’s green-lit that?

Oh, yeah. Christians won’t blow you up.

Not to Hollywood; wanna be really “transgressive”? Portray Christ as the focal point of a western civilization that made your life, and the intellectual (and “intellectual”) freedom to make your lives possible.

You’d never do lunch on Rodeo Drive again, of course, but you’d sure be transgressive!

Democrats contemplate asking the National Guard to seize firearms from citizens.  And the leader of the Guard doesn’t rule it out.  
Leaving aside the irony of Democrats endorsing one form of sanctuary city (illegal immigrants) while threatening to crush another form of sanctuary city (guns), this might make an interesting test case.
Will Virginians who serve in the National Guard take up arms against their friends and neighbors who decline to give up arms?  Will Virginia National Guard members shoot homeowners who object to having their firearms confiscated? 
If the answer is “Hell, yes, the law is the law and we obey orders even if we disagree with them,” then Second Amendment activists must rethink things in a big way.  We’ve been confident the military won’t obey gun grabbers, won’t open fire on civilians, won’t act the part of British Redcoats at Lexington and Concord. 
What if we’re wrong?  Might be a good time to find out, before we pledge our lives, and the lives of our families, to a losing battle.
Joe Doakes

More on the VNG Adjutant General’s comments later today.  

For my part?   I believe most of the military, being overwhelmingly drawn from the same part of society that “gun culture” grows in, will side with The People…

…which is why I think the real attack on our freedom will be a lot more subtle than Governor Blackface McMinstrel’s japery.  

And that’s the danger – too many people will think “attacks on our freedom” will be this sort of comic book foolishness.  

There’s the danger. 

Oh, so NOW they’re starting to talk about it?  I’ve been pointing out this looming problem for years.
Look, people can afford about $1,500 per month for housing.  If interest rates are 7%, then most of the payment goes to interest so principal must be lower – home prices fall. But if home prices fall, Baby Boomer home owners lose equity.   
The Fed has kept interest rates low to preserve the equity in Baby Boomers’ homes; but that also meant low interest rates on savings.  Boomers have money tied up in their houses because there’s nowhere else to invest. 
Most Boomers are sheep, they follow the herd.  When they decide to sell their existing homes and move to retirement homes, the competition for buyers will lead to reduced home prices.  The race to the bottom, coupled with low interest rates on savings, will wipe out the wealth of an entire generation.
Since they have no savings, and no equity, Boomers will be dependent Social Security and Medicare.  But those programs already are incapable of self-support and young people carrying college debt and new homes can’t afford to pay higher taxes.  The entire thing is an actuarial nightmare.  Or more accurately, a house of cards awaiting the slightest puff of breeze to bring it down.
When the US economy collapses in a mountain of unsustainable debt, the world economy goes with it.  
Our military preparedness is low, our economy is suspect, our enemies are gaining strength, our borders are undefended.  It’s beginning to feel as if I’m sitting in Rome in 450 AD.  What lies ahead is a thousand years of darkness.
Luckily, Democrats are focused like a laser on what’s important – making sure Americans cannot defend themselves after the crash. 
Joe Doakes

Best case, that collapse leads to forced privatization of…well, most everything. It’s not implausible.

But given the sheep-like nature and entitlement of the “elites” of the Millennial generation, I’m not too bullish on best-case solutions.

More on that, probably, later this week or next.

What a horribly un-woke childhood I had.  I remember the old version.
Of course, the new version works for the LGBT+ crowd nowadays.
And here’s the family court version.
Of course, you must listen all the way to the end to get the humor.  I suspect college professors in Wymins Studies never got beyond the first sentence before thinking “Brilliant!  Let’s Do It!”
Joe Doakes

Remember – Berg’s 21st Law is called a “law” for a reason.

Why are progressives so anti-gun?

Perhaps because, subconsciously, they know Berg’s Seventh Law is for real.

Gun-controller shoots her kids, self:

Ashley Auzenne, 39, fatally shot Parrish, 11, Eleanor, 9, and Lincoln, 7 — and then herself — in their Deer Park home, local police said in a statement. Authorities found their bodies when they got a request for a welfare check and responded to the New Orleans Street home around 8:45 a.m. Tuesday.

Police also found a gun inside the home.

The Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the deaths a murder-suicide on Thursday, with Ashley Auzenne as the suspect, authorities said….Last November, Auzenne framed her Facebook profile picture with an “#End Gun Violence” banner.

And the reason? She got her way in her divorce – custody, apparently – but didn’t get everything she wanted:

She was concerned she’d not be able to move with the kids to her hometown, and would need to find a job and pay him rent if she stayed in their current home, he said.

And as we’ve noticed in the past, Auzenne was not the first prog to lose it and start killing helpless people with one of those guns they claimed to abjure (for everyone else)

Beneath all too many anti-gunners is a narcissist with a violence problem.

Disney also slammed baby boomers’ attitudes toward millennials, who are less financially stable than previous generations and are dealing with the ever-growing threat of climate change.
“And the more often you object to Millenials’ understandable resentment toward a generation that has selfishly poisoned their water, blown past every climate warning so they could drive their stupid hummers, and looked away or worse for sexual, racial and economic injustice, the more you prove their point that you just don’t understand anything of value to them,” she wrote. “Look, these kids are facing down a rising tide (literally) of changes that threatens everything you and I taught them to hold dear.”
“How about you guys sit the f— down and let the kids drive,” she added.
She concluded: “Get over the idea that all things pass, you are old and you need to let history do what history does: move on.”

“Nice try, Ms Disney, but I honestly don’t think millennials are more virtuous than the Boomer generation before them who thought we were all going to die. In fact, these millenials are still driving, still moving to the suburbs to raise kids, still choosing a lifestyle they can’t afford- all while telling someone else that they can’t. Why, it’s as if the two generations are the same. No wonder they are fighting. The more helpful approach might be to actually understand we can’t move on from history, we can just hope not to repeat the worst parts of the world’s history- something both liberal boomers and millennials seem hell-bent on doing.”

I’m spooling up for a stemwinder on the whole idea of turning generations into identity groups.

The FBI is politicized.

The Federal law enforcement system is largely an extortion racket.

The IRS is weaponized against conservative groups.

Academia from Kindergarten through Post-Doctoral levels is an indoctrination scam.

The media – on whom we once counted to keep government accountable – is a PR firm for one political party.

Sometimes it seems like our self-appointed idiot “elites” have this thing sewn up.

And I don’t think they know what a bad thing that’s going to be for them:

So what are we to do? When faith is gone, both of the spiritual and the political variety, what remains? People seek peace and prosperity, and will happily live with an untold number of illusions so long as they have those two things. Perhaps we’ve been doing that for a while. But what happens when those are gone? History shows us that when the ruling class and elites refuse to do what they should and instead do what they can, creating a government rigged in their favor, destroying the rule of law, and papering over corruption and injustice, the peasants pick up pitchforks and torches and they come for those who have behaved so abominably. Perhaps our elites should read more of that history.

I’m not sure the “elites” are quite that clueless; it is why they’re trying to grab the guns.   And, eventually, the pitchforks.  

The notion of biological men “idenitfiying as women” (and vice versa) is old news.

Male athletes “identifying as women” and clobbering the people who are, in the various sports/events, the weaker/slower/less agile sex is becoming both a little commonplace and a cultural punchline.

So what’s going to bring some sense to this “social debate”?

When guys “identifying as women” – maybe as “women of color” – start going for minority-reserved government contracts, that’s when. 

Math is racist. Achievement is supremacy.

Winston.

Seattle Public Schools adopt program that turns math into yet another grievance studies program:

In October, Seattle public schools unveiled a “framework” to inject “math ethnic studies” into all K-12 math classes, teaching “how math has been and continues to be used to oppress and marginalize people and communities of color.”
Students will be asked to “identify the inherent inequities of the standardized testing system used to oppress and marginalize people and communities of color” and “explain how math dictates economic oppression.”
“Why/how does data-driven processes prevent liberation?” it asks. “How important is it to be Right? What is Right? Says Who?”

It almost reads like the Babylon Bee – which is something I realize I’m saying a lot about the modern American left:

The curriculum was pushed by the school district’s ethnic studies program manager, Tracy Castro-Gill, who on Oct. 19 tweeted a picture with her “Marxist ringleader” and said the “next step is matching “INDOCTRINATED” t-shirts!”
“I am an educator of color in Seattle whose job is anti-racist work within the school district. Seattle is very white — nearly 70%. It’s also one of the most liberal cities in the US, and these liberal, white Seattleites hate being called racist, but the thing is – a lot of them are,” she wrote.
Though she was hired by the superintendent and the school board, Castro-Gill said criticisms of the math proposal from one board member’s Asian wife were racist. She also asked people to “help me push” the board and superintendent to oppose “rewhiting.”

I used to joke that pretty much every “radical atheist” was a Catholic or Evangelical with Daddy issues.

And yet again, the joke is reality:

Castro-Gill wrote on her blog that her mother is white and her father is Hispanic, but that she has a strained relationship.
“I’m fairly radical atheist and consider myself a far left anarchist who fights for racial justice,” she wrote. “My parents are both Trump supporting Republicans.”
She is also at odds with her child’s father after their child declared herself “nonbinary” after reading literature about transgenderism.

Fearless prediction – which I started writing as a joke, but as with all such things, Berg’s 21st Law is in effect here – Ms. Castro-Gill will be hired as a consultant by the Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Edina or Bloomington Public Schools in the near future.

Portland voters impose a 1% “clean energy” tax on large and big-box businesses.

And are then outraged that those businesses pass the costs on to customers.

Emphasis added:

Terry Wiesner stared down at his Safeway grocery store receipt in confusion in mid-September after he noticed being charged an extra 3 cents for buying a package of $2.99 napkins. The 3 cent charge was listed as a tax.
He called over a store attendant while still in the self-checkout line at the Southeast Woodstock Boulevard branch and asked about the charge. The worker pointed to a laminated sign nearby.
Portland instituted a voter-approved clean energy surcharge in January, imposing a 1 percent tax on paper products, wine, beer, household items and other products, the sign said. The surcharge began appearing on Safeway customers’ receipts on Sept. 9 and people should contact the City of Portland if they had any concerns, according to the notice.
“I didn’t remember voting for any kind of tax,” said Wiesner, 74. “I later learned that this was meant to be a tax on businesses, not the people. Frankly, it just made me angry. It wasn’t about the 3 cents, it’s about the spirit of this charge and how it’d been passed off to me.”

To be fair, it’s entirely possible this has been passed off as something that’d “just affect business”; Portland, like Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Duluth and now Rochester, is run by people who’ve never worked outside public employment, non-profits or academia.

Ilhan Omar, credibly charged with marrying her brother to commit immigration fraud, is pretty.  Not a Hollywood knockout, but pretty.  Katie Hill, who just got caught in a three-way sex scandal, is pretty.  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, promoter of the Green New Deal, is pretty.  They’re all young, pretty, first term members of Congress and they’re all having trouble – with family, party, and the media.  I think I see the problem. Congress is unfair to pretty girls.
Everybody knows that pretty girls don’t have to.  They don’t have to . . . anything.  They don’t have to worry about finding a date for the dance, they don’t have to wait in line to get into the nightclub, they don’t have to pay for dinner or drinks.  Pretty girls do whatever they want and everyone lets them get away with it, because they’re pretty.
But suddenly, these pretty girls get to Washington and Congress has weird rules expecting pretty girls to act the same as ugly girls and dweeby boys and OLD people. That’s ridiculous. They’ve never had to play by those rules their entire lives.  Like they’re going to play by them now?  Totally unfair.
Joe Doakes

And with all the people identifying as pretty girls these days, it’s gonna get outta hand.

You thought the DFL was crazy-left?

It is.

But tomorrow’s DFL is demented batspittle-crazy:

A bevy of progressives are challenging longtime Democratic incumbents in the Legislature in next year’s elections, potentially sending more women, millennials and people of color to the State Capitol while shifting the DFL dialogue to the left.
The movement is a muscular show of influence among emerging voter blocs that have already transformed the DFL coalition but now seek the real prize: an election certificate that will earn them a seat at the table and the opportunity to move billions of dollars in state funding.

Farther to the left than Alice “The Phantom” Hausman?

Oh, yes.

Tanner Sunderman, a 25-year-old Roseville resident challenging longtime Rep. Alice Hausman of St. Paul in the first-ring suburbs, said now is the time. “We’re done waiting,” he said.

On election night 2018, watching the disappointing results, I urged conservatives not to go off the ledge; Democrats with power are like crack addicts with a stolen Amex card. They just can’t stop.

…if “educators” – secondary and university-level – in the “humanities” know anything about the history of the “humanities”.

Teachers are worried about teaching the otherwise (ostensibly) brilliant work of artists whose personal lives are, well, problematic, in the #MeToo era:

For Martina Myers, a high school English teacher on the Navajo reservation in Arizona, Sherman Alexie’s novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” seemed too good to be true: funny, well-crafted and focused on Native American youth.
Her students at Piñon High School, many of whom struggled with substance abuse and mental illness, took to it immediately. They wrote poems in response, on native pride, addiction, self-acceptance and suicide attempts.
So when Ms. Myers learned last year of the allegations of sexual harassment against Mr. Alexie, who issued a statement admitting he had “harmed other people,” she felt two waves of betrayal — first for her students and then for herself, a survivor of abuse.
“When the #MeToo movement happened I told my story,” Ms. Myers said. She knew some of her students, too, had experienced sexual assault.

Where do these hamsters come from?

The history of arts and humanities is clogged with deeply dysfunctional people. The drive to be an artist seems, in fact, to be closely linked with personal and emotional instability.

And the “artists” that fit neatly into the bounds of what’s considered socially acceptable today largely aren’t that interesting.

Why, it’s almost as if someone is trying to dumb society down, or something…

I knew actors were an odd bunch, but now the Guthrie Theater is embracing its inner drag queen with a special event.  And on Armistice Day, no doubt to honor all the cross dressers who died in the trenches.  
I don’t think I’ll be going. 
Joe Doakes.

I could not be dragged – as it were – kicking and screaming to the event.

Not really sure who this person is…

An abortion is not killing. Do you think a miscarriage should be investigated like a murder? What about a stillborth? Should men pay child support for unborn children? https://t.co/7TGVNY66g2

— Katherine Wertheim (@KathWertheim) October 14, 2019

…but if the Democrat messaging strategy is, as it seems, to be to say pretty much anything without bothering with fact, logic or reason, it seems to be working.

“But real socialism has never been tried!”

Just in time for the holidays, a quick – but not too quick – primer on socialism in three democratic countries where it was tried, failed, and democratically rejected.

For my money, they could have added Sweden and Denmark.

Gloomy, rainy day.  I have things I should do, but don’t want to.  I have things I want to do, but shouldn’t.  So I’m sitting here, on-line, complaining about it. 
OMG I’m becoming a Millennial.
Joe Doakes

The email’s from last week. But the sentiment – and millennial kvetching – is eternal.

Former Crystal Mayor ReNae Bowman took one of the dumbest swipes I’ve ever seen at Andy Richter, founder of “Community Solutions” and one of the driving forces behind Crystal’s libertarian/conservative insurgency – an insurgency that’s undone a lot of ex-mayor Bowman’s toxic legacy.

But never let it be said the woman doesn’t ooze class.

Emphasis on “ooze”:

Bowman’s lunacy, and borderline slander, gets worse – including a swipe at Richter’s wife that’s straight out of some trailer park reality show.

I’m going to presume Bowman is angry with Andy for two reasons: he clobbered her in a city that was supposed to be a DFL sinecure, and Andy helped lead the way doing the most unforgivable sin in the “prog” religion; peeled back “progressive” power.

Richter’s response was as classy as Bowman’s was toxically “progressive”:

The truth is Ms. Bowman you don’t scare me. You’re nothing more than a classless coward. While I go out and work hard with my blog and my podcast and on campaigns, you sit around on social media and spread 24/7 hate. it’s a pathetic existence. If you’d like to be as successful as my group I have a suggestion; why don’t you come up with a positive agenda and persuade people to support it?
I know I’ve helped defeat you and all your friends in Crystal and that has to be eating at you. I can understand that. Losing that much has to drive someone crazy. She probably dreams about defeating our group in just one election. And why not? Dreams are important. I won’t knock them.

And since Bowman still harbors political ambitions, I’m gonna post this for my friends in Crystal:

Having said all this, I will support Ms. Bowman’s right to free speech. If I try and shut her up then I’m no better than she is. Her first amendment rights will be supported by this group even it attacks me and my family. What I will not do, under any circumstances, is stop exposing her vulgar and despicable words. These are her words, published in their entirety. Voters of Crystal will know what she says and who she supports. No amount of attacking me will intimidate me into silence. One thing Bowman won’t do is shut up, so you can rest assure that her conduct will continue to be exposed here.

Your choice is clear – achievement, competence and success, or “Honey Boo Boo Moves To City Hall”.

Steven Miller on Twitter:

Make the next president of the NRA a 15 year old. Then we’ll see how far that “how dare you cyber bully a teenager” holds up with our media betters.

— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) September 24, 2019

Speaking of “cyberbullying”: so when a teenager smiles awkwardly at guy tacitly harassing him at a rally in DC, it’s racism – but when a teenager rants at the UN like a junior Mussolini, before taking a “green” trip to the next stop on her agenda and thence home on $10M sailing yacht? Voice of a generation!

In medieval times, the Almoner was the church officer in charge of distributing money to the deserving poor. The church learned quickly that it couldn’t give money to everyone who held out their hands: there was never enough money to fill all the hands.
And not all hands deserved to be filled. Some were poor through sloth, some through drunkenness, some weren’t poor at all, just looking for a freebie.
The Almoner had to wisely distribute tithes and offerings given to the church to ensure the money went to the poor who deserved the church’s help.
If we replaced the concept of entitlement with the concept of deserving poor, and put the Almanor is in charge of distributing the funding, people would get off welfare, get off charity, get on with their lives, get on the path of work and prosperity and success, setting a role model for their children.
Joe Doakes

At some point, it’ll become inevitable