Nancy Pelosi urged U.S. Olympic athletes not to speak out against the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights abuses while in Beijing, saying the athletes shouldn’t risk “incurring the anger” of the “ruthless” CCP…“Make no mistake — our athletes should participate,” Pelosi said. “They’ve trained, they’re disciplined, they’ve dreamed, they’ve aspired, they’ve worked hard. But this year we must celebrate them from home as they compete in China.”
But Pelosi also indicated that she believes U.S. athletes should keep quiet in China to avoid the Chinese government’s wrath.
If we’re worried about a government’s “wrath” – particularly that of a regime that is historically among the most murderous in history, and one that is currently engaging in genocide – why are they over there, anyway?
I write this, not because I think my audience needs to see it, but because it illustrates something that’s right on the verge of being a Berg’s Law.
To something like wit: Democrats can tell their audience anything they want, because they know that their voting base – whether they have a Masters in Education or are non-profiteers from Linden Hills – are ignorant, devoid of facility in critical thinking, and basically intellectual herd animals.
The White House is crowing about the “economic growth” under Brandon:
You know as well as I do – it’s a dead cat bounce, up from the government-induced trough at the end of the Trump term:
If American public education taught critical thought, the Democrats would poll somewhere below the Legal Marijuana party.
Anyone say “it’s not about science, it’s about power?” Perish the thought:
– Fifty-eight percent (58%) of voters would oppose a proposal for federal or state governments to fine Americans who choose not to get a COVID-19 vaccine. However, 55% of Democratic voters would support such a proposal, compared to just 19% of Republicans and 25% of unaffiliated voters.
Who are those 19% of Republicans, anyway?
Of course, that’s benign compared to some of the other things Dems favor:
– Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democratic voters would favor a government policy requiring that citizens remain confined to their homes at all times, except for emergencies, if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Such a proposal is opposed by 61% of all likely voters, including 79% of Republicans and 71% of unaffiliated voters.
Forget about the First Amendment…:
– Nearly half (48%) of Democratic voters think federal and state governments should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications. Only 27% of all voters – including just 14% of Republicans and 18% of unaffiliated voters – favor criminal punishment of vaccine critics.
Hey, if reason and messaging don’t work, you can just ship ’em off to southern Idaho:
– Forty-five percent (45%) of Democrats would favor governments requiring citizens to temporarily live in designated facilities or locations if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Such a policy would be opposed by a strong majority (71%) of all voters, with 78% of Republicans and 64% of unaffiliated voters saying they would Strongly Oppose putting the unvaccinated in “designated facilities.”
Remember when people said comparing vaccinations to the Holocaust was abhorrent? Well, it still is – but a lot less so, in view of that graf.
The more you read, the. more you realize: Orwell underestimated Democrats:
– While about two-thirds (66%) of likely voters would be against governments using digital devices to track unvaccinated people to ensure that they are quarantined or socially distancing from others, 47% of Democrats favor a government tracking program for those who won’t get the COVID-19 vaccine.
I swear, sometimes – if AOC called her next campaign “the Great Leap Forward”, not a single Dem would get the irony:
How far are Democrats willing to go in punishing the unvaccinated? Twenty-nine percent (29%) of Democratic voters would support temporarily removing parents’ custody of their children if parents refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine. That’s much more than twice the level of support in the rest of the electorate – seven percent (7%) of Republicans and 11% of unaffiliated voters – for such a policy.
Whenever someone chants “there’s no difference between the parties”, reference this poll.
SCENE: Mitch BERG is looking for a new heat gun at a hardware store when Kirk THUNT, used car salesman and chairman of The Arne Carlson Project, an anti-Trump organization based in Forest Lake, walks around the corner.
THUNT: Merg.
BERG: Er…hi ,Kirk…
THUNT: You routinely refuse to condemn Donald Trump for trying to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when he was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.
BERG: I condemn, and condemned, the riot, the “storming” of the Capitol, and anyone who thought they could overtake the Constitutional process by force. All the talk about killing the Vice President is just baked wind; the Secret Service would have leveled anyone who tried. The electoral commission was alarmed – justifiably – but they finished their job. Democracy was never in danger, and everyone involved is in a world of legal hurt. The federal criminal justice system is doing what it does.
THUNT: The January 6 Commission just learned that Chief of Staff Meadows has text messages proving Trump was involved.
BERG: Maybe they do.
THUNT: Maybe? So you support the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.
BERG: The commission is an investigation – of sorts. Findings are not a conclusion. I’m not going to pretend I know enough to draw a conclusion, even if my conclusion matters to anyone. Let the investigation run its course.
THUNT: Huh. Let it run its course? So you’re right there behind the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.
BERG: Again, no. I am saying I believe the left has glommed onto it as a way of deflecting, eternally, away from their many very deliberate attempts to undercut out democracy, and the riots that they supported from 2015 to 2021.
THUNT: Deflection? So – you are a big fan of the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.
BERG: I’m pretty sure I said exactly the opposite, several times. My “crime” with you seems to be the fact that I haven’t wet myself with outrage over Trump, with regard to this episode or any other during his administration. I was a Trump non-fan back when you were watching The Apprentice. I’m intellectually honest about the things he did right and wrong, but if you’re looking for…
…on cue from me, you’ve got the wrong guy .
THUNT: So you dismiss concerns about the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.
BERG: For the fourth time in 90 seconds – no. I do think Big Left uses January 6 the same way a certain European socialist leader used this episode. But we’ve got a whole new set of problems to deal with, as a nation and, frankly, as a Republican.
THUNT: So you don’t think the GOP is forever rendered toxic by its association with Trump, meaning you support the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when he was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.
BERG: Er, Kirk? I’ve just explained that every single point you make is bulls**t. And yet every time you take a breath, you tell me I support the…what is it you say?
THUNT: You are a hypocritical supporter of the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.
BERG: And again, I am not.
THUNT: Denial means you are an enabler of the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.
BERG: That’s false.
THUNT: Disagreement means you are a supporter the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.
BERG: Once you got on the green, you only had to use your putter twice, right?
THUNT: Nonsensical responses mean you support the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.
BERG: Look. The heat gun I’m looking for.
THUNT: Using heat guns means you support the attempt to overthrow the government and erase the Constitution on January 6, when Trump was complicit in sending mobs looking for the Vice President, and the Electoral Commission, and members of Congress, to try to kill them.
Nonetheless, the strange, seemingly ever-changing details in the case have provided nearly three years’ worth of material for comedians and online commentators. Some of it has been quite funny, in fact.
Of course, there’s not a lot of there in the piece, which concludes:
Even more comical, in my view, was the predictable conservative outrage over Smollett’s allegations. Conservatives took to social media in 2019 to express outrage over the dropped charges. How dare someone make such a heinous claim about followers of their dear leader, they screeched. Violent, masked white guys who shout Trump slogans and use chemical agents to attack victims?
Many on the right shamed those of us who knew such a claim was totally plausible — and then the Jan. 6 insurrection happened.
And that’s it!
Of course, Berg’s Seventh Law applies. I’m sure there were conservatives that, after a decade and a half of watching hoax after hoax, and retraction after retraction of narrative-based claims of hate crimes, indulged in a bit of schadenfreud at a verdict that, had it not been on a case tried in crazy-blue Chicago, was utterly predicable to anyone with two brain cells to rub together to get some sparks.
But Jones is projecting, of course; it was everyone on the left – not just hoi polloi in comment sections, but an unbroken phalanx of blue-checks – who were dancing and cavorting about the usual chanting points; gut-shot to white cis-hetero privilege that this “hate crime” represented, the spotlight it still showed on the hatred that, they’d tell us, still roils beneath the surface of every honky.
Berg’s Twentieth Law – assume widely-publicized “hate crimes” are hoaxes until proven otherwise, which I obeyed in every particular even before I watched Smollett’s “alibi” crumble like a donut fresh out of a microwave – gave way to Berg’s Seventh Law; when the left accuses you fellow conservatives of moral turpitude, it’s almost invariably projecting.
Smollett’s verdict brings me no joy; we have a society that actively enables this sort of narcissistic showmanship, and uses it to further tribalize a society that doesn’t need any more.
I’ve taken a certain amount of flak over the years for saying things like “Democrat pols can say anything they want, because they know their voters just don’t think that critically”, and “the Democrat base are essentially intellectual herd animals”.
That seems…tart. Uncivil. Uncomfortably inflammatory, for a guy who tries to keep things as measured and “civil” (whatever that’s worth, these days).
But it’s accurate.
And we know this because Big Left tells us it’s accurate:
But the headlines above aren’t revelation. Just confirmation.
According to the associated press, the Covid pandemic has tied a “grim milestones“: The death toll is even with that of the 1918 Spanish influenza:
The delta-fueled surge in new infections may have peaked, but U.S. deaths still are running at over 1,900 a day on average, the highest level since early March, and the country’s overall toll stood at close to 674,000 as of Monday morning, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University, though the real number is believed to be higher.
Of course, if you are remotely numerate, you know the lede that got buried – in this case, down in paragraph seven:
The 1918-19 influenza pandemic killed an estimated 675,000 Americans in a U.S. population one-third the size of what it is today. It struck down 50 million victims globally at a time when the world had one-quarter as many people as it does now. Global deaths from COVID-19 now stand at more than 4.6 million.
But watching social media this past few days, it’s pretty clear – they’re not aiming the story at people with math or critical thinking skills.
My favorite part – the rows of black and latino service staff, swathed in masks, in the background behind the photos of all those “courageous” unmasked socialites.
The “attack” on Jussie Smollett was a reflection of everything wrong about Trump’s Amerikkka, until it almost inevitably turned out to be a hoax. Then it disappeared.
The attack on Larry Elder by a “woman” (we weren’t given any actual pronouns to use, so I’m not positive about that) in a gorilla mask – a bit of Jim Crow-era racism dating back to the systematic dehumanization of black people in the 1920s through 1960s – is…
Berg’s Eighth Law of DIversity states “”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 a reason it’s called Berg’s Law, and not Berg’s suggestion.
I don’t know if Larry Elder is going to win next week’s recall election against Gavin Newsom.
But Big Left certainly seems to think he’s got enough of a shot to pull out the big, stupid, racist guns…
(No literal guns, yet – but let’s say a prayer for Elder anyway).
If you’re thinking referring to a black man as a “white supremacist” cheapens the term – well, Big Left is devaluing the term itself; since it seems Latinos in California, who’ve been the buttresses of the Democrat majority in the state for the past couple decades, are very underwhelmed with Newsom.
It’s going to be an insane five days. And not in a good way.
I’ve been a big fan of XKCD, the blazingly smart and cunningly simple web-comic, for a long, long time.
10 years? 15? Hard to say.
Which isn’t to say I agree with everything.
Like this bit here:
The word “Tantamount” is three syllables that serve as a front for enough horrible logic to fill all of Weimar Germany to a depth of eight feet. Because only in the world of cartoony quips is waving a flag, or even parroting Nazi (or Communist, for that matter) rhetoric “incitement” per the SCOTUS.
As longtime friend of this blog Sean Sorrentino put it:
Advocacy of force or criminal activity does not receive First Amendment protections if (1) the advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless actionand(2) is likely to incite or produce such action.
“Hey, we should round up all the Jews and put them in concentration camps.”
Not Incitement.
“There’s a Jew, grab him!”
Incitement.
Distasteful? Sure.
Deserving of censure? Absolutely.
Almost always, in our society, the hallmark of people who’ll never have the power to do much of anything, much less the sweeping assaults they’re talking of? Doy.
And of course, the whole “Punch a Nazi” and “Bash the Fash” conceits, combined with definition of “Naziism” and “Fascism” broad enough to cover, say, every single Republican, are the sort of mass dehumanization that leads us directly to…
The NY Times has an article saying that Arizona’s monsoon season this year is anything but normal. Local Arizona news is reporting that climate change is bringing more extreme weather. Surely, St Paul’s Chief Resiliency Officer has some advice for us as Arizona citizens are facing deadly flash floods and we are experiencing horrible a horrible drought. He must have some tips for us to protect ourselves, our Earth, our resources….
Nope. It’s just laughs, fun and games because the floods are tearing down the wall.
It would be easy to look at this and think that the post of “Chief Resiliency Officer“ was just a joke.
That would be a mistake.
The “resilience“ this officer is there to uphold and protect is the resiliency of the transfer of taxpayer money do you the political class.
Once you understand that, his job – and especially that of Kate Knuth – make all kinds of sense.
Joe Biden is senile, the election was stolen and everybody knows it, whether or not they admit it. Kamela Harris is incompetent and hated more than Hillary. Neither of those buffoons is the real Usurper whom The Big Steal was intended to install in office. The Usurper is secretly running things now but can’t officially take office until the placeholders are gone. How do they do it?
Harris is already dead but they’re hiding the body waiting for Afghanistan to blow over. The Usurper is waiting in the wings to be confirmed as Vice President. As soon as he is, Biden will be removed as senile. The Usurper moves into the Oval Office, some other patsy takes the Veep job, Congress goes back to debating how many helicopter loads of money to dump into the economy to maintain the illusion of economic success, and the new administration goes to war on the American way of life.
The Garden Administration will take in refugees from Guatemala but not Cuba. Why not? They are all Latinx. They’re all fleeing poverty and persecution. Why take some and not the others?
Perhaps because Cuban-Americans vote Republican? Could Democrats really be that crass, that callous, that low – sorting refugees by political affiliation?
I wasn’t living here in 1980. I’m not sure how Minneapolis’s Loony Left reacted to the “Solidarity“ protests in Poland – where the Polish “Solidarity“ trade union led a year of demonstrations against Poland’s communist government. The demonstrations – which newly elected President Ronald Reagan supported morally, symbolically and materially – were the beginning of the end of the communist bloc, and the Soviet Union with it.
I have vague memories, arriving in the Twin Cities years later, of sensing that an awful lot of Minnesota leftists had bet on the wrong side in that particular episode. I mean, two decades later some of them still did, in my comment section.
Now, 40 years later, as a similarly benighted country protests for similar reasons, a Democrat government is lending the Cuban demonstrators a bit of rhetorical support from a senile president, along with an executive branch that is, as we noted yesterday, laying down the law hard in favor of the regime.
Facing an economic crisis, food and medicine shortages and rising prices, the Cuban people are demanding that the communist regime give up power.
“We have to see the larger context of the pandemic, COVID-19. The economy has also collapsed, Cuba depends on tourism,” said Nimtz. The Minnesota Cuba Committee is also calling for an end to the U.S. trade embargo.
“What we are doing here is to demand, demand that the Biden administration end the embargo, lift the embargo, and do as he promised,” said Nimtz.
Minnesota Progressives; reliable communist useful idiots for 60 years.
