Category: 2020 Riots
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Planet Of The Humans, Part 3: Steam
Democracy can’t survive if we can’t trust our institutions. We’ll come back to that. Steamed In Tom Wolfe’s 1987 satire Bonfire of the Vanities, a young black man is run over by a car driven y a millionaire bond trader. A Bronx DA and couple of New York cops investigate. In one part of the…
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Planet Of The Humans, Part 1: The Devil Wears Orange
Donald Trump inspired clichés by the big-box store-load long before he dipped his toe into politics. Even back when he was a pop-culture hero of sorts among the crowd that worshipped blinged-out idols, even before MC Hammer brought it to the mainstream: Y’know – back when he was a Democrat. You don’t need me to…
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Just In Case Anyone Forgot
Violent riots were cool, before they weren’t. I’m going to guess every “#Resist” and “Question Authority” bumper sticker disappears from every single Subaru in the country over the next two weeks.
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Adding Insult to Injury
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…
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Follow The Money
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…
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Rule Changes
Democrats in the Senate couldn’t get President Obama’s judicialnominations approved under the old rules, so Chuck Schumer changed therules. Republicans saw the rule change and used it to President Trump’sjudicial nominations approved. Rule changes cut both ways. Democrats couldn’t get Joe Biden elected using legitimate ballots, sothey kicked out poll watchers and dumped half-a-million phony…
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Higher Calling
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…
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Just In Case
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“…
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After 29 Years…
…it’s great to find Minnesota is the champion at something again. Well, not “good”…: More “notable”, I guess. Read the whole thread.
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The Inmates
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…
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Tipping Point
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…
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“It’s An Ideology!”
“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…
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Toward A More Awesome Union
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 JudgeTo: All Employees You may have read or heard that the Court House was locked down today for about 15 min. After a…
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Dead, Dead, Dead
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…
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Representative Molotov
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…
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It’s Better To Look Good Than To Be Good
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…
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DIY Part 2
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 –…
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Watching The Defectives
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.
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Worst Ever
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”
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DIY
When people can’t trust “the system” to keep them safe, they take matters into their own hands. Italian immigrants – with social, religious, linguistic and cultural impediments to assimilation, cutting both ways – brought their underworld organizations from the old country to get some order (at a price) in their lives. Ditto the Irish in…
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Surpising Nobody…
…who has been paying attention: Violence in Portland is being orchestrated by a behind-the-scenes organization who, we are told, doesn’t exist: We have overwhelming intelligence regarding the ideologies driving individuals towards violence and why the violence has continued,” Murphy wrote. “A core set of threat actors are organized, show up night after night, share common…
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Question
There’ve been 27 people charged so far in connection with the rioting over Memorial Day week. Just curious – look at the list. Anyone appear to be a “white supremacist” to you? Because on the one hand, white supremacists are a bunch of inbred losers. On the other, they evade capture like Mossad agents. Weird.
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The Worst Thing Ever
Ryan Winkler, the House Majority Leader, isn’t thrilled with President Trump stealing Joe Biden’s thunder: Then the Majority Leader has had a pretty sheltered life. Know what’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard? Other than the Holocaust, the Great Leap Forward, the Gulag, the Holodomor, the Rape of Nanking, the subjugation of Tibet, the history…
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Ted Antoinette
Remember when your “progressive” acquaintances would scoff and say “there’s no such thing as a ‘limosine liberal’, a ‘condo pink’, or any of that?” I do. And they’ll do it again. But here – along with Lori Lightfoot’s haircut and the blowout that was apparently inflicted on Nancy Pelosi by GOP operatives – is Exhibit…