Shot in the Dark

Category: Favorites – Politics

  • Declaring The Causes That Impel Us, 2025 Edition

    The below is an update of a piece I first wrote almost five years ago. It was at that moment about the time when people – smart people, anyway – were starting to realize that Covid wasn’t the new Bubonic Plague, that the sky was not falling, and that whatever “model” Governor Klink was reading…

  • Declaring The Causes That Impel Us, 2024 Edition

    The below is an update of a piece I first wrote almost four years ago. It was at that moment about the time when people – smart people, anyway – were starting to realize that Covid wasn’t the new Bubonic Plague, that the sky was not falling, and that whatever “model” Governor Klink was reading…

  • Tiers Of Tyranny

    Earlier this week, the Facebook page of the Scott County GOP compared Governor Walz and the DFL’s legislative majority to to Hitler and Stalin. Silly Republicans. Only Democrats get to make specious, scabrous, historically-void comparisons to dictators. Now, as someone who studies history – especially the history of tyranny – very seriously, I’d like to…

  • Critical Marksmanship Theory

    SCENE: The year is 2028. Mitch BERG has just been sworn in as governor of Minnesota, via a series of happenstances too bizarre to go into. He is speaking to a press conference. BERG: As the first phase of my plan, as promised, I’m directing the state Department of Education to begin mandatory instruction in…

  • Expertise

    SCENE: Mitch BERG is having a glass of wine at the bar in Whole Foods in Saint Paujl, after a day of vigorous shopping. Lost in the reverie, he doesn’t notice Avery LIBRELLE has walked in. LIBRELLE: Merg! BERG: Oh, shhhhhuuuure enough, it’s Avery. Long time no see. What’s u.. LIBRELLE: Marsha Blackburn asked Ketanji…

  • The First Of Many Wavings Of The Bloody Shirt

    I don’t disagree with any of the particulars of the National Review’s editorial about January 6: There is no defense for what the mob did that day. None. The people have a right to form loud, angry crowds to petition and protest their government. They need not do so in ways that are pleasant or…

  • I Think I Figured It Out

    An allegory in three acts: Act 1 SCENE: An elementary school classroom.BULLY is sitting at the desk next to KID. A half dozen pencils lie strewn about the floor around KID’s desk. BULLY: Throws a pencil at KID. KID looks annoyed, but shakes it off. BULLY: (Sotto Voce) Hey, kid! (KID looks over as BULLY…

  • Breaking News: Retreat

    According to a very reliable source, a Minneapolis police officer reports that all Minneapolis police have been moved out of the Third Precinct to the Fourth, and told to “sit tight, do nothing”. And the police are – according to my source’s source – “pissed”.

  • Declaring The Causes That Impel Us

    We’re into month two of the “State of Emergency” in Minnesota. Let’s stipulate in advance – government does have emergency powers, and should have them, at least as a broad concept. One of government’s few genuinely legitimate roles is to exert its power to react to things that are beyond the power of the individual,…

  • Unpacking The Invisible NPR Tote Bag

    “White Privilege” has been all over the news this last couple of years.  It’s been there because the Big Left has ordained that it should be.  My theory;  in a nation full of “privilege” – class, racial, academic, social and, let’s be honest, the privilege of being born here rather than Russia or Nigeria or…

  • Open Letter To Those Who Just Don’t Get It Yet

    To:  Some Of You Trump Opponents Out There From:  Mitch Berg, Ornery Peasant Re:  Terminology Dear Hollywood and New York Showbiz and Media “Elites” As we come up on inauguration day, some of you are still sore about Donald Trump.  I get it.  I mean, I didn’t vote for him, either. You’d like to pretend…

  • NPR’s “On The Media”: Fake Analysis Of “Fake News”

    There are a few things in the American media for which I have more contempt than the WNYC  program “On The Media”. I’ve written about it in the past – it’s an NPR show, hosted by Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone, that seems to be based around the premise the journalist is a noble order of high…

  • The Slogan-Based Life

    SCENE:  Mitch BERG is at a hardware store, shopping for a chainsaw sharpener, when around the corner steps Bud GUNKEL, chairman of the CD2 chapter of “Former Republicans for Ron Paul”.   GUNKEL:  Hey, Merg.  The only way to fix the system is… BERG:  …yeah, I heard it.  To “withhold your consent from it“.  …

  • What A Terrorist Wants

    SCENE:  December 8, 1941, in the well of the House of Representatives – in an alternate universe.    President Barack Delano Obama is addressing a joint emergency session of Congress. OBAMA:  Yesterday, December Seventh, 1941, is a day which will live in infamy. Now, let me be clear:  this attack did not represent the Real Japan.…

  • A Parable

    (SCENE:  A small aircraft is flying over the prairie.  Inside the plane are: Carpal POX:  a golf pro from Wayzata, and Vice Chair for Ideological Purity at the Minnesota 5th CD Libertarian Party Viktor VON-SCHLIEFFENBERG-MOLTKE: a professional fraternity organizer, and Vice Chair for Education at the 5th CD Libertarian Party Stephanie Marie ANNAN: Community Organizer…

  • Tragedy On A Dimmer Switch

    The nation wracks itself in grief – justifably – over the deaths of 20-odd children in Connecticut.  I’d shudder to meet the monsters that don’t recoil in horror and outrage. I’m  struck, though, by the lack of outrage over the carnage in President Obama’s home town, the town run by the machine that put him…

  • Stay Hard, Stay Hungry, Stay Alive If You Can

    I got an email from MPR the other day.  It was actually a combo email from MPR News and “The Current” asking what song we thought best summed up the state of the nation during this election season. I wrote back with my suggestion – a song that has layer upon layer of significance to…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Slouching From Fargo

    How do you measure success in a politician? If you’re a liberal, it’s likely in terms of sheer volume of legislation created and money moved about.  Because to a liberal, government is about creating reams of paper, rules, laws, stuff for government to do. If you’re a conservative, it’s probably more a matter of princple;…

  • Chanting Points Memo: Buying Minnesota With Daddy’s Money

    So far in this campaign, as the DFL hammers its way toward its primary next month, most of the attacks against Tom Emmer have come from a shadowy group, “Alliance for a Better Minnesota”. I’ve busted them repeatedly stretching the truth and/or lying; Channel Five followed suit earlier this week. But who are these people? …

  • Chanting Points Memo: The Alliance For A Deceitful, Sloppy, Not Very Bright Minnesota

    The “Alliance For A Better Minnesota” – an astroturf group sponsored by a consortium of DFL-linked pressure groups – has been behind much of the smear-mongering against Tom Emmer so far this campaign. They’ve occupied themselves with a klutzy false-flag website, a couple of twitter accounts (one of baldfaced propaganda, and one, “StuffEmmerSays”, that tried to…

  • A Day In The Life Of Every Uppity Conservative

    ME:  Hi! REPRESENTATIVE GROUP OF LIBERALS (RGOL):  Conservatism is fundamentally racist! ME: Um – beg your pardon? “RGOL”:  Racism oozes from every pore of conservatism! ME:  OK, that’s what we call “bigotry” where I come from, but what the hell, I love a good ad-hominem argument.  Do tell! “RGOL”:  Nixon’s “southern strategy” brought all the racists…

  • My Tax Day At The Capitol Mall

    So I not only got to attend the Tea Party at the State Capitol yesterday, but it was my immense privilege to be the lead-off speaker; mine was the first in a long stream of excellent speeches, including that of my NARN cohost  Ed Morrissey, whose speech I videotaped and is currently up at Hot Air,…

  • One Day At The Oceanaire

    (SCENE:  At the Oceanaire – a tony seafood restaurant in Downtown Minneapolis.   Representative Paul Thissen, Senator Tom “Baby Got” Bakk and Speaker of the House Margaret Anderson-Kelliher are sitting at a table with five empty chairs.  Anderson-Kelliher, bored, drums her fingers on the table.  Thissen checks his watch, and Bakk rock nervously in their seats. ) (Minneapolis Mayor R.T.…

  • Kill The Death Penalty

    This post is an expansion of a comment in a thread way down below.  Partly because my monkeying with my code this morning put a crimp in my morning blogging schedule.  Partly because the subject deserves it. I oppose the death penalty, not because I break with most conservatives on the issue, but  because I am…

  • Distrust But Verify. Then Distrust Some More.

    The Violence Policy Center has a long record of cooking data to try to build a national case against civilian ownership of firearms. They’ve failed, of course; more Americans own guns today than ever, while the idea of a link between crime and the demonstrably law-abiding armed citizen is almost too specious for modern physics…