Speaking for myself, I’m not going to participate in the left’s jabbering about “the Alt-Right” – which is to this cycle what “Vast Rightwing Conspiracy” was to 1996, and “War on Women” was to 2012; a mass smear attempting to tie the entire American “right” to the most noxious people who can possibly be linked to it.

In this case, some “Klan” leaders who nobody has heard of (there are bowling leagues with more members and political clout than the KKK has these days) who were thrust into instant, utterly temporary, undeserved prominence by dint of “endorsing” or “heiling” Trump.

However, Trump has refudiated his ‘supporters’ on the “alt-right”.

Suppose that’ll get any headlines?

Democrat operatives, November 7, 2016:  “Our electoral system is rock solid, there is no election fraud, the results we get are impeccable, and failing to accept its results is paranoia and maybe treason.

Democrat operatives, November 26, 2016:  “We can not accept the results of the election in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, because our election system is rife with fraud and easily hacked by…Russians”.

Make no mistake, this isn’t about trying to get Hillary into the White House; it’s about trying to delay three large states’ electoral vote totals long enough to throw the election to the Congress, thereby giving Democrats leverage to try to illegitimize President-Elect Trump, give the demented Democrat chanting classes a bloody shirt to wave at the ignorant for the next 4-8 years, and set up a narrative in which Hillary – among the wealthiest, most powerful people in the world – is a victim.

One campaign-season cliche we can retire:  “money buys elections”.

Trump won is election very much on the cheap:

Of course, the battlefield was already littered with candidates from both parties that outspent their opponents, only to lose. Meg Whitman, John Corzine, Linda McMahon and a host of other famous and unfamous names outspent their opponents on the way to defeat in previous years. But Trump may put all of those elections to shame when it comes to disparity of resources.

Consider that Hillary Clinton’s campaign outspent Trump by more than two-to-one. Pro-Clinton ads outnumbered pro-Trump ads by three-to-one. Independent groups (the “super PACs”) supporting Clinton outspent independent groups supporting Trump by three-to-one. The average contribution to Trump was smaller than the average contribution to Clinton. And on and on it goes.

Which, in a reasonable world, would put a hard kibosh on the idea of campaign finance “Reform”:

We’re told by campaign finance “reformers” that we must restrict spending in politics so that “people” can have their voices heard. But voters in 2016 ultimately chose the candidate without even a “real” super PAC to speak of.

This tells us two things: First, that money is simply the facilitator by which candidates speak to voters, but that voters will make up their own minds. Second, it shows us that money simply can’t make up for a message that people aren’t interested in. After his defeat, the man in charge of Jeb Bush’s $100 million super PAC remarked of the voters: “They just weren’t buying what we were selling.”

Let’s hope the same goes for tired tropes on money in politics.

Look for the Democrats to push a bill establishing minimum spending.

Near as I can figure, it’s:

Step 1:  Run around waving signs, chanting chants, burning things and looting things and attacking people and vandalizing dissenters’ property (actually property dissenters rent…):

Anti-Trumpkins vandalized the GOP headquarters…
…no. They vandalized the building where the GOP rents space for its headquarters.
The property owners will now have to remove the vandalism or get a ticket from the city.
Not the GOP. The property’s owners.

…and block highways.

Step 2:  Trump resigns.

Dear protesters:  please keep it up.  The GOP will gain seats in the mid-terms.

Get out and vote today.

Assuming it matters.  George Soros has been spending big bucks to control the system.  And he’s just getting started:

The documents reveal that the Soros campaign fueled litigation attacking election integrity measures, such as citizenship verification and voter ID. It funded long-term efforts to fundamentally transform election administration — including the creation of databases that were marketed to state governments for use in voter verification. It propped up left-leaning media to attack reports of voter fraud, and conducted racially and ideologically targeted voter registration drives.

The racially targeted voter registration drives were executed at the same time Soros dollars were funding other public relations efforts to polarize racial minority groups by scaring them about the loss of voting rights and the dangers of police officers.

The Soros documents reveal hundreds of millions of dollars being poured into the effort to transform the legal and media environment touching on elections. One document notes that poverty-alleviation programs are being de-emphasized for this new effort. It states: “George Soros has authorized U.S. Programs to propose a budget of $320 million over two years, with the understanding that the annual budget for U.S. Programs will be $150 million beginning in 2013.”

To have a functional democracy, it’s important for people to trust their fellow citizens’ motives.

I don’t know that there’s any way to trust the motives of people who are floating on a raft of Sorosbucks.

Reason #1:  She lied about her business background.   Her ads make her sound like some kind of entrepreneur.  In fact, she’s a “Human Resources” executive.  Now, God love all you HR people in the audience, but Human Resources is the exact opposite of entrepreneurship.  Fully-implemented HR processes are a leash around business’ neck, ready for government to yank.  And while I’m sure none of you HR people in my audience are like this, far too many are utterly worthless.

Reason #2:  She’s a lying pig, and voting for her would validate all that is slimy and stupid about American politics.  A vote against Craig – no matter who the opponent – is a vote against the basest, most rotten aspects of politics today.

Reason #3:  Her opponent is the father of modern Minnesota conservatism.  Jason Lewis has a 30 year record of putting his principles out there; walking back from ’em would be very, very hard – and, I suspect, anathema to him.  Add to that the fact – which I’ve already mentioned, but bears repeating as often as possible between now and election day – that Angie Craig is a lying pig who represents everything that is vile and pustulent about American politics today – and the choice is clear.

UPDATE:  Did I mention Angie Craig is a lying pig?

Know how I knew there was a Democrat plan to use physical violence on pro-Trump and pro-GOP rallies?

Because the media has been spending so much time talking about the “threat” of GOP violence against Democrats.

When I heard NPR last week solemnly intoning about the “threat” of “people in open-carry states standing around polling stations with guns”, doing whatever it is they were supposed to be doing, it was obvious to me; attention needed to be turned away from “progressive” thugs.

When you hear these things, always, always remember Berg’s Seventh Law:

When a Liberal issues a group defamation or assault on conservatives’ ethics, character, humanity or respect for liberty or the truth, they are at best projecting, and at worst drawing attention away from their own misdeeds.

Because it truly does explain everything:

Democratic Party operative Robert Creamer used terror to wage war on honesty. Until forced to resign his post as a “consultant” with a Democratic Party-aligned organization named Americans United for Change, Creamer ran what amounts to a domestic U.S. political terror and propaganda operation dedicated to undermining the 2016 U.S. presidential election—“rigging the election,” to use the current term.

Yes, Creamer’s operation uses terror—and three investigative videos recently released by Project Veritas contain information supporting my assessment.

(“Rigging The Election,” Part One, Part Two and Part Three, released October 24).

Creamer resigned as an official consultant because Part One and Part Two exposed him. His operation, however, remains active and continues to do damage. The election rigging scheme he commanded relies on street thuggery. That means physical fear—terror—is a core component of Americans United for Change’s crooked enterprise. Street thuggery is very low-level terrorism, but it is a type of terrorism nonetheless and it is wrong to call it otherwise.

The thing about terrorists is that their goal is to destroy moderation; to make the center untenable; you’re either with them 100%, or against them 100%.  That’s intentional; the chaos in between creates opportunity for those willing to exploit it.

Which the GOP – still focusing on all of that “Constitution” and “economy” and “Democracy” stuff – never really is, for better or worse.

Seen at Saint Catherine’s:

They can’t get 20 volunteers out for a typical event, and most of them are 60 plus Highland Parkers with ELCA hair and terminal crabbiness.

But they’re marinading in all the Bloomberg money.

Please, canvassers.  Stop by my house.  I beg of you.

There’s a “League of Women Voters” event in Bloomington tomorrow:  “Guns, the Issues”.

It’s going to be a panel discussion featuring, on the pro-criminal side, the Reverend Nancy Nord Bence of Protect Criminals Minnesota and Maplewood Police chief (and DFL mouthpiece) Paul Schnell, versus Bryan Strawser and Sarah Cade of the Minnesota Gun Owners Political Action Committee.

How to get there?
Schneider Theater at Bloomington Civic Plaza,
1800 West Old Shakopee Road
Bloomington, MN 55431

Tickets are free, but they’re asking you to register here.  And all questions are being solicited in advance1, so get ’em in there.

I’ll see you all there tomorrow evening.  Hope you can show up; the pro-criminal side doesn’t have much game, but they don’t have much to do, so they tend to show up at these events.

There’s a meme going about – a corruption of “Godwin’s Law”, I think – that says “the first person to refer to Hitler loses”.   We’ve been through Godwin’s Law and its various permutations in the past.

But it did bring something to mind.

When I get into rhubarbs with liberals, it’s pretty much an even bet they’ll cite “data” and “sources” from ThinkProgress, a blog project of the Center for American “Progress”.

When this happens, I know (from history, no less) that the argument is over – because “Think” “Progress” is in its entirety baked wind.

Whenever stories about law-abiding citizens carrying firearms within the bounds of their state laws comes up, you can count on some leftist bobblehead, clearly unfamiliar with the feeling of testosterone in “his” veins, vowing to take any gun “he” sees away from the rightful owner and bring down the wrath of almighty Goddess upon the citizen.

Y’know – the stuff the left accuses carry permittees of wanting to do, but that never happens.

Lamentably, it happened in Kansas this week – and it was no laughing matter.  A “man” noticed another Kansan carrying his firearm.  It just gets worse from there:

Police said Smith was allegedly upset about another man carrying a concealed weapon. He took the gun away from the man, pointed it at him and another man, and shot the victim in the leg, according to the allegations.

The victim was taken to a hospital with with injuries that were not life-threatening.

Bond for Smith was set at $10,000.

Smith is an idiot, and the county attorney should be charging the weasel with attempted murder as well as use of a stolen firearm in a crime.

Now – just watch Moms Want Action try to blame the gun for this.

A longtime friend of this blog writes:

I really am not familiar with Mike Rowe, but a quick Google indicates he has a reality TV show on cable. But, I really enjoyed this and thought you might enjoy it as well:

I had seen the article by Rowe already.  And it made a point that, I suspect, only he could make.

Our push to get people to the polls, and elevate voting to the highest of civic virtues, is intensely misguided.

Uninformed? Incurious?  Have a worldview based entirely on chanting points?  Why should you go out of your way to make your fairly facile voice heard, running the most complex organization in humanity, when you really don’t get how it works or why?

Remember when Democrats couldn’t stop talking about the Koch brothers (who aren’t even among the top fifty political donors in the country) and the American Legislative Exchange Committee, a “think tank” utterly similar to an array of such groups on both sides of the aisle?

And you – a smart person – asked “why all the fuss?”

Simple – provided you remember Berg’s Seventh Law.

Because it really does explain everything, every time.

Major papers mimeograph Hillary Clinton press release, call it “reporting“.

Glenn Reynolds refers to today’s media as stenographers for the Democrats.

He’s too charitable.  Stenographers have some professional standards.

Thank goodness the left is all about that.

In perhaps the most bald-faced violation of Berg’s Seventh Law in history, the DFL – which is constantly whinging about phantom claims of “voter suppression” – is actively trying to disenfranchise half of this state’s electorate in the Presidential election.

DFL Chair Ken “Dwight Schrute” Martin is sueing to keep Donald Trump off the Minnesota ballot in November, over an absurd, abstruse technicality in election law:

The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s Thursday lawsuit claims the Minnesota Republican Party failed to nominate its presidential electors, the people who cast the state’s 10 electoral college votes, in accordance with state law. Keith Downey, the chair of the Minnesota Republican Party, said last month that the party called a special meeting to approve alternative electors because it had previously neglected to do so.

One of these people is imitating Mussolini. The other was a character on a hit TV show.

The suit, which was filed directly to the Minnesota Supreme Court, adds a new level of chaos to an already strange election season. It could cause the parties to spend some of the rushed final eight weeks of the election fighting in court, distracting from other campaigning. While the suit is a technical one, if successful, it could affect the entire presidential election.

If the DFL wins – and one would think even Minnesota’s absurdly liberal Supreme Court couldn’t possibly be that obtuse – then long-time friend of this blog Dave Thul had a great idea; every conservative should vote for Jill Stein, and make the Greens a major party in Minnesota, sapping DFL votes for at least the next four years and drawing money from the DFL’s graft pool.

There’s also a part of me that hopes Martin “wins”.  This – the most baldfaced example of corruption masquerading as law I’ve seen in my lifetime – would stand a good chance of opening an epic floodgate of support for Trump, or at least against Hillary’s party.

Fearless Prediction:  If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, Black Lives Matter will disappear faster than you can say “Hands Up Don’t Shoot”.

Reason for my Fearless Prediction:  Given its funders, it’s bald-facedly obvious that Black Lives Matter largely exists to inflame the black vote for an election where the Democrats will be fronted by a geriatric woman, rather than an black man.   While it’s not strictly an arm of the Democrat party, it may as well be.

Evidence:  BLM has come out against charter schools – an institution whose most passionate supporters in the Twin Cities are in fact black families.  So much so that their controversial Saint Paul organizer, Rashad Turner, is resigning from the group:

Rashad Turner, who led Black Lives Matter St Paul for nearly two years, says he is leaving his position after the national Black Lives Matter organization joined forces with the NAACP to call for a moratorium on charter schools….Turner says public schools not only have a bad record of staff assaulting black students [to say nothing of consigning them to an inferior education – Ed.], but offer less options for black families, stating, “I think that this moratorium really takes away the student voice, it takes away the parent voice, because we’re seeing families in increasing numbers want to attend charter schools.”

Mark my words.   Budget cut to zero by January.

Thug: noun. If applied to a political conservative and intensely derogatory term. For example ” the former editor of Breitbart is a thug; his ex-wife said nasty things about him in divorce filings 12 years ago.

If applied to a liberal, it is a term of endearment, with an understated implication that the writer wants to paint of the subjects toenails in some public place.

Like the pages of the Star/Tribune

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Minnesota Continuing Legal Education is presenting a seminar on Gun Law.  Brochure is here:

 $295 is a chunk of dough for a person who doesn’t practice law in this area, and can’t write off the cost as a business expense.

 But the “Can’t Attend” box says the written materials are available for $75 and sometimes the local law library buys a copy that you can examine for free.

 I’ll look into it.

 Joe Doakes

It’s only worth it if it’s free, Joe.

What does the “Alt-Right” have in common with 2014’s Koch Brothers, 2012’s “ALEC”, 2010’s “Tea Party”,  2004’s “neocons”, and 1994’s “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy?”

Everything!

One of the great staples of politics – in this case, the left, although the right does it too (although with less cynical panache or institutional momentum) – is “finding a boogeyman to wave around to scare the crap out of your base”, ideally motivating them to come to the polls.

• In 1996, it was Hillary’s “vast right-wing conspiracy” – the shadowy, all-powerful and, as it happens, fictitious conglomeration of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and, er, others, I guess – whom the left trumpeted as the real machers behind the scenes, operating against the plucky underdogs of the left (like George Soros and Paul Allen).
• In 2004, it was the “Neocons” – a shadowy, all-powerful, and vaguely Jew-y band of conspirators who wanted to control All the Oil and kill All the Muslims for Israel, or something, arrayed against the plucky, grass-roots left ((like George Soros and Paul Allen).
• In 2010, it was the “Tea Party” – a fairly spontaneous outpouring of libertarian populism which threatened the plucky, organic left ((like Journo-List, George Soros and Paul Allen).
• In 2012, it was ALEC – a run-of-the-mill policy think tank much like many others on all sides of the political aisle that the left’s PR machine, plucky grass-rooters that they were (like George Soros and Paul Allen and Michael Bloomberg), tried to paint as a shadowy, sinister conspiracy that drove public policy via unprecedented means like, well, circulating model bills and stuff.
• In 2014 it was the “Koch Brothers”, a couple of libertarian billionaires with a history of donating to libertarian causes on both sides of the political aisle who, though they aren’t even among the top fifty individual political donors, were portrayed by the left’s plucky, grass-roots PR machine (funded by George Soros and Paul Allen) as a shadowy, vaguely Jew-y conspiracy to buy the government.

So of course the “Alt Right” – a tiny, politically inconsequential group of marginal people with marginal-radical views on some hot-topic issues – is suddenly in the news.

Of course, in every case, Berg’s Seventh Law applies; for every one of these purported right wing big-money “conspiracy”, there was a real-world left-wing counterpart doing exactly what the left accused the right of doing.

Reading over the story about Saturda’s “gun buyback”, I have a question.

By Joe’s count, there were a total of six cops at the South Mpls location, most of them on overtime.  Let’s assume the same number at the North Side “buyback”.

If I recall correctly, cops get about $40 an hour for overtime (someone correct me if I’m wrong.

If there were six cops at each location, and they were all on overtime, that’s $480 an hour; since the event was schedule for eight hours, that means someone, somewhere budgeted just shy of $4,000 for 12 cops’ overtime…

…for what is, let’s be honest, a frivolous political exercise – turning over Pillsbury donors’ money, essentially, to “artists” and owners of unserviceable firearms.

So was it just Pillsbury donors, or was it also Minneapolis taxpayers paying for crappy agenda art?

The Betsy “The Besty!” Hodges regime in Minneapolis held a gun buyback (via the Pillsbury Foundation, a non-profit that is part of the DFL family in Minneapolis) over the weekend.

Kind of.

I originally intended to attend – but other events caught up with me on Saturday morning.

Fortunately, Joe Doakes from Como Park attended.  He emailed his report:

Saturday, August 2, 2016

9:47 a.m.        

I am standing in the rain at Fire Station 17 on South 38th Street, waiting for the Pillsbury-sponsored Minneapolis gun buy-back to begin. The firemen are here but nobody else in authority.  There are six cars of middle-aged white people waiting to sell their guns.  A cop just pulled up.  We must be getting started.

10:15

Finally getting started.  I’m sixth in line (technically seventh: a woman in a wheelchair and her husband are front of me but I’m counting them as one Seller).   There are about 15 people in line behind me, all middle-aged White people. 

Middle aged guys of all races are phenomenally low crime risks.

 10:35

They’re out of money.  I turned in three pistols (limit three per customer), the Range Officer approved me for payment, but the Community Service Officer doesn’t have enough gift cards.  They ran out.  The cop in charge is on the phone calling for more gift  cards.  Or, if you want to go, just leave your guns as a voluntary donation.  No takers for that offer.

10:45

Cops just announced the gift cards are on the way, be here in an hour.  Those of us who already turned in our weapons can leave our name and number and can pick up our gift cards in an hour.  Everybody else in line hang on, they’re not buying more weapons until they get the money sorted out.  Or you can leave them for free. About two dozen middle-aged, middle-class White people in line holding various gun cases.  I think I’ll work the line to see what others are selling. 

11:30

Still no gift cards and the cops are not sure when – or – if more cards are coming.  In response to complaints, the cops now are saying that the program was advertised “quantities are limited” so it’s not their fault they were overwhelmed by demand and ran out of gift cards.  But this event is scheduled to run from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm and held at two locations . . . how many people did you think would respond?   I was the SIXTH customer and I didn’t get paid.  You only budgeted enough for FIVE customers?  Seriously?

12:00

Just scored a sweet deal on a classic rifle.  A woman joined the line – now halfway down the driveway – with her husband and daughter, all holding long-gun cases.  An aunt died and left them.  One is a Remington .22 LR bolt-action single shot, almost identical to the one my Dad taught me to shoot, and it’s in great shape.  I offered her $100 which was exactly what the buy-back would pay, if they ever got more cards, if quantities weren’t limited, if she wanted to wait.  She took it.  We’re both pleased.  Another gun off the mean streets of south Minneapolis.  I’ll all sleep safer tonight.

12:30

The cops have taken down the sign and are closing the doors.  The buy-back is over, six hours early.  They’re out of money and aren’t getting more.  The cop in charge promised that everybody inside the fire station would get gift cards in the mail, just leave us your name, address and phone number (that whole anonymity thing?  Forget about that if you want your money.  Or you can leave your guns for free).  What do I care, I’m legally in possession of the weapons and they haven’t been used in any crimes so sure, here’s my name and address.  Send me my cards in the mail.

Conclusion

What a complete and pathetic joke.  This is how we fight crime?  No wonder it’s a tidal wave.  One cop in uniform running the show, three cops wearing Range Officer shirts making sure the weapons are safe, two Community Service Officers handling the money plus one young man wearing a similar shirt taking photos of the guns turned in, might have been a PR guy, all working on a Saturday?  The staff cost more than the guns.

Everybody in line was annoyed.  Started late, ran out early, promised resupply never arrived, scrambling for paper to take addresses for mailed cards, chaos from start to finish.  Total number of firearms collected could not have exceeded six dozen and based on the ones I saw, they all were junk and all were sold by people who weren’t likely to commit a crime with them anyway.  You could have gotten more guns by randomly stopping cars in North Minneapolis twelve hours from now, and taken them from people who posed a more serious danger to society – the people riding around in cars after midnight with guns in their hands and trouble on their minds.

If any private business ran itself this way, the Attorney General would be all over them for Deceptive Trade Practices which is a vile form of Consumer Fraud.  Not surprising to see Liberal Gun Banners acting like this but I felt sorry for the cops who got sucked into playing a part in the charade.  As I was standing in line waiting for payment, I commented to one of the Range Officers “Good thing you’re getting guns away from these middle-aged White people. North Minneapolis will be a lot quieter from now on” and he grimaced in reply “Yeah, well, I can’t comment on that.”   They know it’s a crock.  But if the brass wants PR, at least the overtime is good. 

Best of all, I met a buddy in line.  He was hoping to sell his shotgun for the promised $100 – hey, it’s a single-shot 12 gauge pump-action with serial number and the camo duct tape makes it “tactical.”

 I wonder if they paid off?

Joe Doakes

Apparently the Pillsbury Foundation doesn’t want that  much “art“.

The Magical Number!:  Another attendee at the South Minneapolis location – like Doakes, a Twin Cities attorney – writes:

I’d say more than five [people got their guns purchased by the buyback] but less than 10. There was a three gun limit that wasn’t enforced so there were a couple people at the front that brought in more than three.

The cop in full uniform said he thought they brought a couple thousand [dollars] in gift cards to start off with.

Even if it was 3,000 that’s only enough for 15 handguns. Totally inadequate.

If we assume these two attorneys’ accounts are accurate (and I do), then the Star Tribune claim that the buy-backs “took 150 guns off the street” – indicates to me that the Strib’s writer, Liz Sawyer, took the number from the Pillsbury Foundation’s press release without asking any questions.   

And further evidence Ms. Sawyer has some learning to do about this issue (emphasis added):

Long after the buyback closed, a Brainerd man stood nearby with a cardboard sign reading “Will Pay More 4 Guns.” He said he was hoping to buy some antique weapons with historical value. He typically only asks sellers for an ID and their permit to carry.

And right there, Sawyer and the Strib play into the hysteria, and prove they don’t know what they’re talking about.

The permit means they have a clean criminal record.  You have to prove you have a clean record to get the permit in the first place.

But I’ll cut Sawyer some slack, if only for this quote:

Others criticized the event for failing to attract the kind of firearms typically used in shootings. “There are police here,” said Phillip Murphy, owner of a North Side flower shop. “The bad guys know that and aren’t coming.”

Well, duh.  Gun buybacks are to street crime what the TSA line is to hijackings; theater to make you think something is being done.  It’s like the people in the dreamsicle shirts with their sanctimonious rallies far from where the violence is; giving old, hacked-out guns to “artists” just makes people in the non-profit community feel better about ignoring all those dead black people.

Gawker is dead.

You could read their sniveling, responsibility-denying self-post-mortem…

…or you could let Sean Davis do it for you:

Gawker is dead; let us dance on its rank, festering grave.

I only hope that sometime in my life I get the chance to pelt Nick Denton with taunts and garbage.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

There was a cholera epidemic in Nepal.  UN Peacekeeping forces from Nepal were sent to Haiti.  They set up camp by a river.  Their latrines discharged raw sewage into the river.

 Haitians downstream drew water from the river.  They got cholera.  At least 10,000 people died and hundreds of thousands were made ill.

 The UN finally admitted yes, its troops caused the epidemic but no, they wouldn’t compensate any of the victims for it.  So far, pretty much what I expect from Liberals.

But here’s the interesting part: 

 “ . . . the United Nations’ cholera eradication program has failed. Infection rates have been rising every year in Haiti since 2014, as the organization struggles to raise the $2.27 billion it says is needed to eradicate the disease from member states. No major water or sanitation projects have been completed in Haiti; two pilot wastewater processing plants built there in the wake of the epidemic quickly closed because of a lack of donor funds.”

 Wait a minute – wasn’t there some big-name Foundation raising millions of dollars specifically intended to help Haiti?  Where’d that money go?

Was the money spent on executive salaries and luxury travel while thousands died a horrible death?

Joe Doakes

Someone who can count on the American people being badly educated, incurious, too hooked on reality TV (including a reality TV election) to pay much attention, and a media that will never, ever question them?

Just off the top of my head, I mean?

Am I the only one feeling deja vu, here?

SCENE:  Mitch BERG is driving down a rural two-lane road near Rapid City, South Dakota. 

He notices a plume of smoke up ahead, so he steps on it to get closer.  Presently, he notices the burning car is a 12-year-old Subaru.  Standing by the side of the road, looking away from the car, is Avery LIBRELLE.  

BERG pulls over, pops his trunk, jumps out, and grabs a fire extinguisher.  He runs over to the car.  As he pulls the pin and points the extinguisher, LIBRELLE notices him. 

LIBRELLE:   Merg!   I’m driving among the red-state welfare queens!

BERG:   Avery, your car is burning! (Directs fire extinguisher towards engine compartment)

LIBRELLE:   Oh, yeah.  Don’t change the subject. Paul Krugman says that Red States get more money from taxpayers than they pay in…

BERG:   (distracted, as he extinguishes fire) Uh huh

LIBRELLE:   …while Blue states pay in more than they get back!

BERG:  (Coughing as cloud of smoky steam engulfs him, as the fire dies down).

LIBRELLE:   Red staters are welfare queens!

BERG:    (Finishing a bout of coughing).  Look, Avery.  See over there?  (BERG points over to Ellsworth Air Force Base).  See those planes over there?  Probably close to two dozen B1B bombers, which rolled off the dealer floor at $300,000,000 a piece and probably cost $30,000,000 a year apiece in fuel, maintenance, aircrew and ground crew salary, benefits and maintenance, not to mention the cost of the base itself in terms of people, supplies, and the cost of the very valuable farmland it and its associated training areas are built on?  Not to nThat’s tens of billions of dollars, just at this one red-state military base – which, divided among the sparse population.

Now – are you saying those planes, those personnel costs, all this physical infrastructure, is a transfer to the people of South Dakota?

LIBRELLE: (Idly stares at nearby prairie dogs).

BERG:  Then look over there (points at nearly Black Hills mountains).  That’s a huge national park.  Hundreds of thousands of acres, along with lots of other federal land.  Is that a transfer payment?

By the way – while there’s a ton of military spending and federal land, there’s a very tiny population with very low cost of living.  Blue staters pay lots of taxes because their cost of living, and income, are higher.  So – progressive taxation is suddenly bad?

LIBRELLE:   Yeah, you’re a racist, and why do you advocate killing Hillary Clinton?

BERG:  Naturally.

LIBRELLE:   Hey  (pointing at prairie dogs) – are they regstered to vote for their best interests?

BERG:  Not yet.  So – why did your car catch fire?

LIBRELLE:   Oh, yeah.  The oil light was on for like a month.

BERG:  Well, why didn’t you add oil?

LIBRELLE:   I didn’t want to enrich Big Oil.

(And SCENE)