Dennis Prager has a great line – “Relationships can survive a lot, but no relationship can survive contempt”

When parties can’t see one another as human, forget about reaching common ground on differing ideas and ideals, can there be any point to trying to live together? I wouldn’t work for couples – why would it work for a nation?

It dawned on the world too late that when the Nazis actively portrayed the Jews as not very human…

…they meant it.

If there’s one thing more useful than one eliminationist Nazi cartoon, its’ two. Here goes:

Wait.

That wasn’t even in German.

That was the Washington Post.

On Christmas Eve.

This is up there with “bitter, gun-clinging Jeebus freaks” and “Deplorables” and the rest of the litany of conceits Blue America holds on Red America.

But most importantly? It’s about contempt.

I’ve been pointing out examples of Blue America’s contempt for the rest of us in this space since the beginning, really. And if the Trump era has done anything, it’s helped parts of the right come out of their shells (yes, some, like our friend Pete Strunk, haven’t been in their shells fir a very long time, but its fair to say Pete’s always been an outlier)

A friend of the blog emails:

I don’t really like having police departments barricaded. But, I understand it. I look at [Saint Paul city councilwoman] Nelsie Yang’s post and I really don’t see a lot of support for her demand that the barricade be torn down, especially from non-White constituents, the very people she claims to be supporting in this action-

To social justice warriors like Yang and, let’s be honest, most of the Saint Paul and the entire Minneapolis City Councils, “social justice” with all its intellectual and political trappings is an abstract, academic concept that has little to do with the lives of their constituents – or at least the ones not employed in non-profits and academic humanities and soft science departments.

Rarely do people like Yang allow themselves to come into contact with the real life concerns of those they “represent”

When they do? It’s entertaining, at least.

Democrats conspired with Deep State bureaucrats to prevent Trump’s
election with the phony dossier. Didn’t work.

Democrats conspired with Deep State bureaucrats to impeach Trump based
on claims Russian Facebook ads influenced the election. Didn’t work.

Democrats conspired with Deep State bureaucrats to steal the election by
falsifying the machine count (as well as by stuffing the ballot box with
truckloads of illegal ballots).

Democrat Governors used the false election result to certify a slate of
Electors.

Republican legislatures adopted their own Electors.

When Congress meets in joint session to count the Electors’ votes,
Republicans will challenge Democrat Electors from the fraudulent
states. Under the Counting Electors Act, the House and Senate will
separately debate the challenge, Democrats will refuse to concede they
cheated because that would blow the whole plan to win by cheating.
Instead, Congress will be deadlocked so under the Act, the Governors’
slates will be counted. A Chinese puppet will be elected President.

To prevent that, President Trump declares there was foreign interference
in this election and Democrat governors conspired with the foreigners to
deprive Americans of their fundamental right to elect their government;
therefore, the Governors are engaged in an act of insurrection and
rebellion against the United States. The Governors’ slates of electors
are illegal and cannot be accepted.

Liberals already have a tame federal judge lined up to sign a
nation-wide injunction declaring the President’s actions illegal and
directing Congress to accept the Governors’ slates of electors. Trump
will declare civil courts have no jurisdiction over states in
rebellion. The Supreme Court will order him to stand down. Trump will
declare it’s a separation of powers issue wherein the Judicial Branch
has no authority over the Executive Branch exercising his Constitutional
Duty to defend the nation from insurrection. The President will ignore
the Supreme Court. If they send US Marshals to arrest him, he will order
military troops to arrest the Marshals and also arrest the justices who
are conspiring with the rebels.

The President will announce that his exercise of authority under the
Insurrection Act will be temporary and will last only so long as
necessary to correct the damage done by the rebellion. He will order
the military to take charge of all ballots in the disputed states and
count them by hand, in the presence of observers who can challenge any
ballot. Protestors or demonstrators attempting to interfere with the
recount or intimidate witnesses will be arrested as insurrectionists and
held indefinitely without trial. The right of habeus corpus will be
suspended in rebel territories until the rebellion ends.

When the ballot contests are decided, and the hand recount of paper
ballots is completed, the President will announce the results of the
election and will end the restrictions. If he loses, he will leave
office gracefully. If he wins, he will appoint Special Prosecutors to
root out the insurgents and insurrectionists.

Democrats, professors, students, the media will scream that the
President has engaged in a coup to overthrow the government, that he is
Literally Hitler, and that everyone who supports him should be fired
from their jobs before their homes are burned down and their children
shot. The names and home addresses of suspected Trump supporters will
be published on the internet. Stores will be burned and looted. A few
looters will stray into residential neighborhoods where they will be
shot dead by homeowners. Law enforcement who arrest those homeowners,
and County Attorneys who prosecute them, will find their own homes
firebombed, their own staff and officers shot by snipers at home, in
their cars and on the streets.

Governors will attempt to call out the National Guard to restore order
but President Trump will have nationalized them to serve under his
command. They will be ordered to protect federal properties and let the
rest of the insurrectionist state burn.

This is the Good scenario. Only a few people die. We avoid the massive
casualties of total civil war. But people will die.

Unless Joe Biden concedes.

Joe Doakes

What seemed far-fetched a year ago seems “enh, not unimaginable” today.

I believe a blogger of our acquaintance predicted this was going to happen.

c”A Minnesota court recently agreed to an uncommon approach to resolve criminal charges filed after the statue of Christopher Columbus was toppled at the Minnesota Capitol on June 10, 2020.

Ramsey County Chief Judge Leonardo Castro accepted the restorative justice approach proposed by the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office. Under the arrangement, a suspended prosecution would end in no conviction for defendant Mike Forcia.”

So in other words, if you’re fashionably “progressive” in Ramsey County, you can commit a crime, and be “punished” by telling school kids why the crime you committed was a good thing.

I can’t have been the only one to think of this episode:

…only done with a straight face.

Whether government responded to Covid with draconian lockdowns (New York, the UK, Germany, Norway) or deferred to individual responsibility (most of the rural west), or skittered back and forth between both extremes (Italy, Sweden), Covid infection rates have seemed to exhibit the behavior of…

…well, respiratory viruses, waxing and waning along with weather conditions more than any government action, or lack of it.

But throughout, the pro-authoritarian (“Mascist”) wing of America’s response has had one consistent villain; Americans. “If they only followed the rules and wore their masks”, they whinge (when not whinging about the feds’ response), “we’d have already conquered this” – completely ignoring the fact that many of the places that “conquered” the virus with aggressive measures are still, or have started, suffering horribly of late).

Of course, it’s pure gaslighting. Even early in the summer, before the “Mask Wars” became part of the ongoing cultural bar brawl, Americans were wearing masks voluntarily at among the highest rates in the Western world.

And, studies show, they always have, and still are:

The data, released in [the CDC’s] weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report, is roughly in line with other polls showing that most Americans report wearing masks, at least when they are inside stores.

For example, Pew Research reported in August that 85 percent of 13,200 adults they surveyed said they wore masks in stores, up from 65 percent in June.

In a National Geographic poll released early this month, 92 percent of 2,200 Americans surveyed said they always or sometimes wore a mask when leaving the house.

Now, this thread isn’t about whether masks are or aren’t effective – that discussion has happened more than a few times in the comment section.

It’s about government – as it becomes ever more authoritarian – using “masks” as a vehicle to blame the average schnook for its own failings in dealing with the pandemic.

Which is only going to get worse over the winter.

Downtown Minneapolis boosters are split over the news that Dollar General is putting a store on the ever-more-desolate Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis.

On the one hand, you’ve got the one that chortle at all the “People of Walmart”-style stories they associate with Dollar General – a chain usually associated with towns too small or neighborhoods too poor for a Walmart.

On the other hand you’ve got the “aren’t we better than this?” mob.

Rick Nelson at the Strib kinda straddles the line:

Yes, “tacky” and “depressing” are two words to describe the appearance of a dollar store on what is widely viewed as Minneapolis’ Main Street, a thoroughfare that recently underwent a $50 million makeover. “Distressing” could be another, since the appearance of this type of merchant might be an indication that downtown’s dwindling retail scene is taking yet another step in the wrong direction.

The store’s new home in the Andrus (the historic building formerly known as Renaissance Square) at S. 5th Street and Nicollet Mall won’t be sullied with a glaring yellow-and-black Dollar General logo. Instead, there will be a hip “DGX” marquee, reflecting Dollar General’s curated version of its discount store.

So what does it all mean, for a street that the city of Minneapolis just spent tens of millions of dollars refurbing (and BLM and “Anti”-Fa spent a couple of nights hacking away at)?

Why, it’s almost as if when you treat a major city like an urban studies lab, make driving onerous and parking prohibitive, and treat public safety as a sign of misbegotten privilege even if someone hasn’t burned down your favorite destination (or closed it forever via a hamfisted lockdown), the people from the outlying parts of the city that downtown used to depend on for all that juicy revenue will take their money elsewhere?

Democrats in the Senate couldn’t get President Obama’s judicial
nominations approved under the old rules, so Chuck Schumer changed the
rules.  Republicans saw the rule change and used it to President Trump’s
judicial nominations approved.  Rule changes cut both ways.

Democrats couldn’t get Joe Biden elected using legitimate ballots, so
they kicked out poll watchers and dumped half-a-million phony ballots in
key counties to steal the election.  Democrats refused to play by the
old rules in this election.  Republicans, seeing this . . . what?  Will
keep playing by the old rules in the next election?  That means losing
for certain.  Even die-hard RINOs like Pierre Delecto and Susan Collins
aren’t that stupid.

In 2022, if Republican activists block polling places armed with
AR-15’s, burn down Democrat poll watchers’ homes, storm into vote
counting centers to throw ballots on the floor amidst thousands of fake
ballots . . . who can complain?  The old rules no longer apply, remember?

And if Democrat activists try to do the same but Republican activists
resist and innocents are killed in the cross-fire . . . is this truly
how we want future elections to run?

Will there even BE future elections?  Will President Harris allow them? 
The rules have changed . . . .

Joe Doakes

It’s only “paranoid” until it comes true.

“Anti”-Fa and the parts of BLM that are more forthright about their Marxism make no bones about the fact that it’s a revolution they want.

Violence?

With or without, they are clearly fine either way.

Florida governor DeSantis proposes broadening Florida’s self-defense laws to make shooting in defense of property against looters more legally tenable.

The media is howling that it would enable roaming packs of vigilantes to slaughter people on the streets. Like most media reports on expanding self-defense rights, it’s a lot more nuanced than that:

The law would expand the state’s self-defense law, which currently forbids “the use of force in defense of property,” by increasing what constitutes a “forcible felony,” according to the Miami Herald. DeSantis seeks to make looting or “interruption or impairment” of a business such a felony, thereby justifying deadly force to prevent it…The Republican’s bill would also make it a third-degree felony to obstruct traffic, and would allow drivers to have legal immunity if they unintentionally kill or maim anyone engaging in blocking a roadway during a demonstration, according to the Herald. The law, which is only a draft at the time of publishing, is also set to grant state authorities the ability to withhold funds from localities that choose to reduce their police budgets

Expect much pants-wetting from the class that still thinks looters are “mostly peaceful”.

But they’re missing the point. The target of this bill isn’t looters.

It’s Kamala Harris.

DeSantis is setting himself up as the “Law and Order and Competence” candidate for the presidency in 2024.

And after this past year, I gotta say he’s on my short list.

Apparently, the Menards in the Midway was worried about rioting Trump supporters.

They stacked up huge pallets of lumber in front of the doors – just like they did during the George Floyd riots / May.

Apparently, those Trump supporters I’m going to riot.

Any day now.

Just like those waves of “white supremacist terror“ we’ve been assured are imminent for the past 12 years or so.

“Anti”-Fa is an “idea”.

So are ISIS, Al Quaeda and every other toxic ideology in the history of the world.

Here’s the new documentary, “Antifa – Rise of the Black Flag”. It traces “Anti”-Fa’s roots back to the Communist Party of Weimar Germany…

…and straight through to the present day, right here and now.

Watch it:

This is not just an idea. It’s also not just a bunch of crazy kids. It’s not even just a domestic terror group. It is an insurgency.

Watch it.

Pass it along.

Make sure the Democrats, especially the MN DFL, owns it.

December, 2016: “Perhaps “blue” America, especially its “celebrity” class, has learned its lesson – that gratuitously insulting half of the population, treating them like a bunch of cartoonish caricatures, wasn’t the best approach to winning an election”.

November 2020: Narrator: “They did not learn their lesson”.

The problem isnt that Trump hasn’t condemned racism and “white supremacy”.

In fact, here we see him do it 38 times:

The problem is that it isn’t literally the first and last thing out of his mouth whenever he speaks, which Democrat messaging seems to assume puts it outside the attention span of the typical Democrat voter.

Which the partisan media is counting on.

And yes, the media is partisan.

…it’s great to find Minnesota is the champion at something again.

Well, not “good”…:

More “notable”, I guess.

Read the whole thread.

Don’t let the title – or the fact that it’s in the generally unforgiveable Slate, for that matter – put you off from reading this piece, “The Store That Called the Cops on George Floyd “.

This piece captures not only the history of CUP Foods, the South Minneapolis bodega whose employee called 911 on George Floyd last Memorial Day, a Palestinian immigrant family that’s worked a couple of generations of butts off to succeed in a “transitioning” neighborhood through a couple of waves of blight.

More than that, it captures the successive waves of fervid racism (Black on Arab, Black on European, Arab and Black on European), community spirit, delusion, and the unlikely trifecta of community spirit infused with delusion and racism:

Toussaint Morrison, a Black Lives Matter organizer in Minneapolis, said he doesn’t actually see any problem with CUP Foods reopening. But he doesn’t necessarily think anyone should shop there…On CUP Foods reopening, he said, “I say get a Black-owned corner store near there, and say shop here. We’ll beat all of their prices. Even if we lose money, whatever.” The point, he said, is to keep Black money in the Black community: “Whether they open or not, it’s on us as a community to not buy their shit. It’s that simple.”

So – far from dismissing it because of a “woke” copy-editor’s inelegant titling, or its laughable origins (Slate, for flock’s sake), I urge you to read it as a guide to everything that’s going to slowly strangle Minneapolis.

And to maybe hang onto it as a time capsule showing future generatons how “community” became impossible.

A majority of Americans are not only worried about violence after the election – they’re doing something about it:

When asked about just what sort of violence they expected to see, those polled responded with “riots,” “looting,” “burning” as some of their predictions. “Trashing of cities” was another response.

The YouGov poll was completed between October 1 – 2, 2020 and used 1,503 respondents.

It followed another poll released October 1 that found 61 percent of Americans agree with the concern the U.S. could be on the verge of another Civil War.

Additionally, 52 percent of consumers have also stockpiled food or essential goods in anticipation of social unrest tied to a resurgence of coronavirus in the coming months and/ or the election.

Unmentioned – they’re also gunning up numbers that crush all previous records.

This could be good news for conservatism in the long run; genuinely self-reliant people tend not to vote “progressive”.

Provided the GOP doesn’t screw it up…

…oh.

Smoke ’em if you got ’em.

Jen at Redhead Ranting, by way of a visit to her her family’s area in a local cemetary, notes a reminder of a crime that had a disproportionate impact on law and order in the Twin Cities a generation ago:

Not far from my grandparents are the markers of the graves of the 5 Coppage children who died in a fire ordered by a rival gang member of their older brother in 1994.

The deaths were horrible. Few in the community were left untouched by the 1994 tragedy. The cops, as they always do with brutal crimes involving children, took it personally and declared war on the gang, building a federal drug case that led to the convictions of about 22 gang members in 1998. (full article)

This happened at about the apex of of the “Murderapolis” years, and I think it’s fair to say it marked a tipping point in law enforcement in Minnesota. People demanded that government do its one unambiguously legitimate job – preserve order, the job that makes living in close conjunction with other people, and the commerce, society and community that result, possible.

What followed was a period of relative (!) order and tranquility – or so it seems in retrospect. Minnesota became, up until this past spring, the safest state in the union that had a major metropolitan area; the Twin Cities, especially Saint Paul, were for all their faults quite a safe metro area.

The stats are up this year – but perceptions about crime aren’t about stats, especially when “rational critical thought” is near the bottom of the priority list.

But eventually, people will demand order. They’ll either get it from government, or they’ll get it themselves (that’s the romantic notion a lot of people have – and I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was occasionally one of them) or they’ll get it from whatever “strongman”, be it a street gang or a mob racket or a “vigilante militia” that offers enough of it in exchange for what they take to make it worth it, or worth it enough.

Here’s hoping sane heads prevail.

A “security guard” with lefty sympathies allegedly killed a pro-police protester, in Denver over the weekend.

The video is disturbing:

The “guard” – who apparently lacked a security guard license – was contracting through Pinkerton Security, one of the big rentacop jobbers, to Denver’s NBC affiliate.

The Denver Police quickly leapt to Big Left’s defense, disclaiming any “Anti”-Fa or BLM links…:

…although crowdsourcing showed quite the opposite – Dolloff appeared to have left-of-center sympathies. More on that will come out in the near future, I suspect (although you won’t get any of it in the mainstream media). Unconfirmed reports after a bit of social-media sleuthing indicate…:

Which, if proven by a county prosecutor (assuming Denver’s left-leaning administration allows a serious prosecution), could all be used as evidence that Dolloff was a “willing participant”.

Whatever Dolloff’s sympathies, Big Left was certainly clear on its feelings about the death of :

Be careful out there.

“Anti”-Fa, we’re told, is not a real group, but rather an ideology.

So, for that matter, was Al Quaeda.

An the comparison holds up all the way down to the root level:

There are different types of bloc organization styles. The building block of antifa is what’s called an affinity group, people you live and work with and trust and know in real life. All the planning is done within that closed bloc, and they don’t let everyone know [what they’re going to do]. I didn’t know that they were going to burn the Portland Police Association when I joined. What they did was put a call out that said, “Anyone show up in black that night at this place, and you can join the action.”

That’s called a semi-open bloc. The planning is done within the closed group, but anyone who’s dressed in black can come join the action. If you know what you’re looking for, you can spot affinity groups that are working together. One thing they’ll do sometimes is have written agreements with other protest organizations that aren’t in black bloc. I know of one from Berkeley that illustrates this: “We agree that to not take pictures of anyone in antifa.” It will say that literally in writing, so everyone’s working together. It’s like a combined arms type thing, almost like the military. They work together and are mutually reinforcing.

Cells, “Affinity Groups”, tomayto tomahto.

The first requirement of an orderly society is order which must be imposed by an impartial judiciary.  That cannot happen when the judicial system is afraid of violence.

***

Old:

From: Chief Judge
To: All Employees

You may have read or heard that the Court House was locked down today for about 15 min. After a sentencing hearing on a homicide, the families of the defendant and victim engaged in a dispute that was broken up by deputies. Soon after, gun shots occurred on Wabasha and 6th St.  Deputies locked down the courthouse as a result of the gunfire. It is not clear to me if the events were related. 

Based on information I have received, no one was injured and bullet casings were collected. The matter is under investigation. It appears that at no time was our courthouse security compromised. The deputies took swift and appropriate action throughout this disturbing incident.

New:

From: Chief Judge Joe Doakes
To: All Employees

In the past, when the judicial system was subject to violence, we hid and hoped to be killed last.  From now on, when a violent situation arises, all employees shall report to the nearest Arms Locker where the Master at Arms will distribute restraints, gas masks, and weapons, at which time use of deadly force to protect both judicial property and employee lives is authorized.  Employees may stand their ground to do so; the requirement to retreat is suspended.

***

That ought to help. Now, let’s talk about the George Floyd trial, and about Supreme Court nominees.

Joe Doakes

The policies that’d go into effect if Mitch Berg were in charge – suffice to say it’d be more than judicial branch employees.

Once the governor declared “state of emergency” related to the breakdown of public order, the order to retreat would go the way of the Hibbing chopstick factory, and the sign of a weapon in the hands of a violent mob would serve as reasonable threat of death or great bodily harm, and one’s property would be every bit as defensible as lives.

Make me Governor, and this, I promise.

A friend of the blog emails:

Downtown St Paul does need some improvement. It has been pretty lifeless for a while.

But, I don’t think collecting more money from the few businesses that remain there is quite the way to improve it, though I guess it is better than burning it down as they did for the Midway Improvement Project.

If you see both projects as glorified transfers of wealth from whatever private sector remains in Saint Paul to the political class, it all makes perfect sense.

Once upon a time, I got some great life advice.

“Find what you’re good at, and run with it”.

John Thompson, would-be DFL rep from District 67A, the East Side, apparently got and practices the same advice.

He does seem to like burning down suburbs. Or at least talking about it.

A lot:

Sure, that’ll solve police overreach against blacks. Run with it.

Hey, DFLers – this is the mainstream of your party.

June – Minneapolis City Council President on CNN – expecting police to prevent crime comes from a place of white privilege.

June, July, August – Minneapolis City Council to all Minneapolis Police Officers: You’re horrible people and we’re going to de-fund your entire department, to start from scratch and reinvent public safety. 

September – Minneapolis City Council to Minneapolis Police Chief: Crime is out of control and residents are terrified.  Why aren’t police officers doing a better job of preventing crime?

The Minneapolis Chief of Police is Medaria Arrando, a Black man.  When the Council fires him, he’ll join the ranks of other Black police chiefs fired as scapegoats for White city council virtue-signaling gone wild including Le’Ron Singletary, Carmen Best, and U. Renee Hall. 

But firing the Black police chief flies in the face of a study claiming to prove that police departments run by Black police chiefs have Fewer shootings.

It’s almost as if Liberals don’t care about actual results, only about looking good to the media.

Joe Doakes

Among “progressives”, participation trophies are good enough.

Also mandatory.

When law-abiding citizens realize they can’t count on their government for justice – and they are – they’ll establish order for themselves. As we noted earlier, that isn’t always a “good” thing in any sense a modern American would understand.

But for the first time since the thirties – the seventies, in some quarters – people are thinking about it:

NSSF president and CEO Joe Bartozzi spoke at the 2020 Gun Rights Policy Conference over the weekend where he delivered the news on the surge in ammunition sales. He also noted that gun sales were 95 percent higher in the first six months of 2020 than they were during the same time period in 2019.

Bartozzi noted there were nearly five million first-time gun buyers in the first part of the year. He explained that “of all firearms sold to first-time gun buyers, 40 percent were sold to women and personal protection was by far the main purchase driver.”

He suggested there are a few driving factors behind the current surge in gun and ammo sales — one of the key ones being the anti-gun rhetoric of Joe Biden. He suggested Biden looks at gun makers as “the enemy” and recounted Biden’s vow “to bring them down.” He observed that the talk of “mandatory buybacks” of certain firearms is a driving force as well.

We noted some time ago that in most of the country – geographically, at least – gun rights have long since gone viral, and stand to win the parts of the culture war that’s taking place there.

Has the last six months moved the needle in Blue America? We’ll see.

Am I the only one watching the various prosecutions underway from the riots a couple weeks ago, and wondering which ones are the “white supremacists?”

Any guesses?

I’m sure stumped.

2020 – “I’m the worst yar in history!”

1942 – “Oh, that’s so *cute*…”

1933 – “Aren’t these years just so…precocious?”

1916 – (Makes inaudible sound of disgust)

536 – “No kidding”

2021 – “Hold my beer”