Goons disrupt a showing of Dennis Prager and Adam Carolla’s No Safe Spaces, in – where else – California:

“After all of the previews and ads were over and the movie was just starting, two thugs sporting hoodies, masks, sunglasses and carrying huge duffel bags ran, not walked, up the aisle and sat at the back of the theater right behind us. They looked like bank robbers, home invasion criminals… they were trying to act scary,” a moviegoer named Vanessa, who asked for her last name not be used, told Fox News.
“As you can imagine, I was nervous that they were planning something even more nefarious than just visual intimidation,” Vanessa said.
Vanessa and other moviegoers complained to the theater and called the police. She said she was issued a refund and left.
“When the manager went in to check on them they had removed all intimidating items. They knew what they were doing,” Vanessa said. “Potential criminals got to stay while we had to leave because we were afraid they might do something violent. My son did not want to leave because he didn’t want them to succeed in their plan of intimidation and free speech suppression. But I told him a movie was not worth our lives in case they had weapons or something.”

I figured this would happen. The movie commits, to Big Left, the ultimate sin: it tells the truth about it.

By the way – I highly recommend you see it. I caught a screening a few weeks ago – and it’s everything I’d hoped. I may have to do a proper review.

In re this incident? The cops never filed a report.

“They came full sprint to the top of the theater with bandanas on their face,” another attendee, Scott Stroud, confirmed to Fox News.
Stroud said that he pressured management to call the police, and they eventually obliged after initially downplaying the situation and assuring that the backpacks of the men were searched. Stroud said he explained the subject matter of the movie to theater workers in an effort to be taken seriously.
Stroud said police told him theater management didn’t think it was necessary to investigate further, but he disagrees.

It’s California. Progs get a pass. Sort of like Saint Paul.

Not that I want to see anything terrible happen, but it’d be just a shame – a shame – if one of those wannabe thugs gave someone just enough reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm to get his face legitimately blown into the next county.

No, I said a shame. We just do not want this to happen.

Even if the FBI had a good faith basis to open the inquiry, it did not have one to continue the inquiry.  
And what about all those unmaskings? FBI wiretaps Trump campaign, gives information to Susan Rice in the White House, and it ended there? Nothing got forwarded to the Hillary campaign? Do we believe that?
Joe Doakes

If The People can’t trust the institutions that ostensibly protect democracy, then democracy is in trouble. 

Democrat activist psychiatrists support impeachment because President Trump is mentally unstable.  They’ve confidently diagnosed him, without having met him, and without his having committed any specific dangerous act.  But Congress must take them seriously, they’re doctors, they have lab coats and everything.
Next up, gun control activist psychiatrists support seizing your guns under Red Flag laws.  They will confidently diagnose you as mentally unstable, without ever having met you, without your having committed a single dangerous act.  The judge must take them seriously, of course; they’re doctors, they have lab coats and everything.
Joe Doakes

This should surprise nobody who’s read their history. It’s in the America left’s DNA.

As this is written, Saint Paul is getting around the plowing non-emergency streets. Sort of. Tonight and tomorrow will be the big nights for clearing Friday and Saturday’s fairly significant snowfall.

Guess who didn’t have to wait?

Mayor Carter.

And Public Works director and former City Council boss-lady Kathy Lantry:

But the city’s plows got everyone in the area – right?

Please. It’s Saint Paul – AKA “Animal Town”. And it appears some animals may just be a little more equal than others:

So that’s why property taxes are rising – to make sure our ruling class gets the level of service to which it’s accustomed.

A friend of the blog emails:

Here we continue the liberal saga perpetuated by white men that women and people of color do not have any power. I haven’t looked back far enough in history to see if Andy Richter was happy that Clarence Thomas was appointed and sharing power with white Supreme Court justices. 

Of course, more recently, liberals still aren’t accepting that there actually has been a demographic and ideological shift going on. Women and people of color may not have admitted to pollsters that they were supporting Trump, but they did. 
So, I am curious, what does “sharing power” with people of color mean? Does it mean we only accept those people of color who share the liberal ideas as people who are worthy to share our power? Or does it mean we actually look around and see we already have a pretty diverse country with lots of men, women, of all races, who hold vastly diverse opinions on the political spectrum and who already hold various levels of power, including independently minded voting? I think we are already there, and I think that’s what bothers white men like Richter. 

My two cents – since “progressives”, especially flappy jaws like RIchter, don’t recognize the legitimacy of any power from outside the “progressive” orbit, I think this sort of outburst is mostly self-purging – progressive honkies “sharing” meaningless “power” with the people to whom they’ve denied it.

The opinions of people outside the “progressive” sphere, white or black, male or female, are irrelevant at best, apostatic at worst.

This week is one of those time when one hopes that the people of Hong Kong know what Lech Wałęsa knew, and our “elites”, then as now, didn’t:

he Hong Kong pro-democracy movement achieved a stunning victory in Sunday’s district-council elections. With turnout exceeding 70 percent, close to 90 percent of the seats went to pro-democracy candidates, who took 17 of the 18 district councils. As the first electoral barometer of public sentiment since protests began in June, the results are a turning point in the conflict that has wracked Hong Kong for the last six months.
Though the district councils’ authority is mostly local, they appoint 117 of the 1,200 members of Hong Kong’s Election Committee. Coupled with the roughly 400 opposition members already sitting on the election committee, the additional seats will give the pro-democracy camp much greater sway when the next chief executive of Hong Kong is selected in 2022. The current chief executive, Carrie Lam, has denounced this year’s protests and remained staunchly on the side of Beijing.

Watching how squarely our “elites” have come down , not so much “on Beijing’s side” as “trying not to cheese off the benevolent dictors” reminds me of life in the late seventies, when “detente” so frequently overrode any desire to call out the Soviets for what they actually were. It remained up to the locals – the Poles, Estonians, Czechs – and dissidents here at home, the “crazies” and “McCarthyite Cold Warriors”, to remind the world.

And the idea that the world would go from the squashing of Solidarity in 1980 to the fall of the Wall within ten years was almost as unthinkable as the idea of calling for a landing on the moon by 1970 in 1960.

As it seems today.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Oh, so NOW they’re starting to talk about it?  I’ve been pointing out this looming problem for years.
Look, people can afford about $1,500 per month for housing.  If interest rates are 7%, then most of the payment goes to interest so principal must be lower – home prices fall. But if home prices fall, Baby Boomer home owners lose equity.   
The Fed has kept interest rates low to preserve the equity in Baby Boomers’ homes; but that also meant low interest rates on savings.  Boomers have money tied up in their houses because there’s nowhere else to invest. 
Most Boomers are sheep, they follow the herd.  When they decide to sell their existing homes and move to retirement homes, the competition for buyers will lead to reduced home prices.  The race to the bottom, coupled with low interest rates on savings, will wipe out the wealth of an entire generation.
Since they have no savings, and no equity, Boomers will be dependent Social Security and Medicare.  But those programs already are incapable of self-support and young people carrying college debt and new homes can’t afford to pay higher taxes.  The entire thing is an actuarial nightmare.  Or more accurately, a house of cards awaiting the slightest puff of breeze to bring it down.
When the US economy collapses in a mountain of unsustainable debt, the world economy goes with it.  
Our military preparedness is low, our economy is suspect, our enemies are gaining strength, our borders are undefended.  It’s beginning to feel as if I’m sitting in Rome in 450 AD.  What lies ahead is a thousand years of darkness.
Luckily, Democrats are focused like a laser on what’s important – making sure Americans cannot defend themselves after the crash. 
Joe Doakes

Best case, that collapse leads to forced privatization of…well, most everything. It’s not implausible.

But given the sheep-like nature and entitlement of the “elites” of the Millennial generation, I’m not too bullish on best-case solutions.

More on that, probably, later this week or next.

Business opportunity: training young Republicans/conservatives how to respond to hate crimes and bullying like this:

Not saying Big Left is trying to start a hot civil war.

But if they were, I’m not sure what they’d be doing differently.

In the old Soviet Union, people used to joke that they could tell when there was a shortage of butter, winter boots or heating oil was on the horizon, when  Pravda would start running stories about how bad butter was for your health, how good it was to get your feel wet, and the benefits of a cooler house. 

Completely unrelated:  I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that about the time Big Media and Big Left (PTR) start telling us that “maybe freedom of speech is too complicated for peasants today“…

…that we start getting “news” like this? 

The FBI is politicized.

The Federal law enforcement system is largely an extortion racket.

The IRS is weaponized against conservative groups.

Academia from Kindergarten through Post-Doctoral levels is an indoctrination scam.

The media – on whom we once counted to keep government accountable – is a PR firm for one political party.

Sometimes it seems like our self-appointed idiot “elites” have this thing sewn up.

And I don’t think they know what a bad thing that’s going to be for them:

So what are we to do? When faith is gone, both of the spiritual and the political variety, what remains? People seek peace and prosperity, and will happily live with an untold number of illusions so long as they have those two things. Perhaps we’ve been doing that for a while. But what happens when those are gone? History shows us that when the ruling class and elites refuse to do what they should and instead do what they can, creating a government rigged in their favor, destroying the rule of law, and papering over corruption and injustice, the peasants pick up pitchforks and torches and they come for those who have behaved so abominably. Perhaps our elites should read more of that history.

I’m not sure the “elites” are quite that clueless; it is why they’re trying to grab the guns.   And, eventually, the pitchforks.  

…that right about the time big left/big Media (pardon the redundancy) start telling us basic human lights like free speech and the right to keep and bear arms are bad for us…

… they also start telling us that a diet of insects is good for us and essential to save the world?

If you don’t think they’re connected…

“Progressives”, 2005 – “Question Authoritah! Speech is the greatest of rights!”

“Progressives”, 2019 – “I’m from the non-profit/industrial complex, and I’m here to protect you from all that ‘freedom'”.

I’m waiting for the first of them to say free speech is “against peoples’ best interests”.

So was there a pattern of passive-aggressive abuse in Mayor Frey’s manipulation of the Minneapolis Police Department, ensuring that they would in turn not inconvenience DFL politicians in the crowd and simultaneously not be around when mobs of droogs septuple-teamed, sucker-punched and spat on the elderly and female (but, curiously, rarely if ever young, fit male) Trump supporters?

I’m not saying “Hell yes, definitely, beyond a shadow of a doubt” – but I’m strongly hinting that you wouldn’t be wrong if you said it.

Also not saying that Mayor Frey is a soy-boi that strongly supports mobs of “toughs” roaming around picking off the elderly and female Trump supporters. I am, most directly, saying that if Jacob Frey pisses off the passive-aggressive soy-bois and social “justice” tyranny harpies, he’ll be looking for a new job come the next election time, since they control the DFL party to which Frey owes his career.

There is no chance of dealing with this through the City Council – that’s going to be a one-party fantasyland until some catastrophe makes conservatives of all the survivors.

Democrats so far have refused to answer any questions about the violent protest. This is especially important, given that one of their own—DFL state rep Aisha Gomez—was among the leftwing mob.
Specifically questions that have not been answered are: 
“Do you disavow the protestors who threw urine at cops, and hit and spit on Trump supporters?”
“Do you disavow the use of rhetoric like ‘kill a cop, save a life,’ and ‘blue lives don’t matter’?” 
“Do you disavow political violence?” 
“Do you disavow Mayor Frey for not allowing the Minneapolis Police to defend themselves?”
“Do you disavow state rep. Aisha Gomez for associating herself with the most violent group of protestors?”

Disavow? He owes them his livelihood.

But the courts offer some slim hope of justice:

Anyone hurt during the rally should seek legal counsel and file a suit against Frey on the basis of a civil rights violation (42 USC 1983).

Pass it along.

Trump goes to hostile areas – Minneapolis, the Nationals’ stadium.

“Progressives” – spoiled, entitled public unioneers, academics, PR flaks disguised as journalists, “students” and non-profiteers, eternal beneficiaries of a prosperity they had nothing to do with creating – act like spoiled toddlers, continuing the tantrum that started three years ago and looks unlikely to stop until 2025 at least.

In Minneapolis, hundreds of testosterone-raging post-adolescent rage-o-holics and their soy-boi significant others/servants beclowned themselves and ganged up on the occasional lone, elderly or diminuitive rally-goer, presumably feeling the earth move in the process.

And in DC?

And I have to think that Trump has got to be looking at more such appearances in “Blue” territory; these outbursts of toddler tantrum-mongering have got to be racking up the contributions, the votes, and the moderate Democrats thinking “OMFG, who are these clowns?”

Chicago teachers are on strike.

Again.

But it’s not just for them, this time. Nosirreebob.

In the last two contract fights, the union brought up these issues, but they also had to concentrate on protecting their members whose jobs were being threatened by school closings and the opening of charter schools. The school district also had a budget deficit that made it difficult to argue for more resources.
This year, they saw an opening to try to win big on these social justice issues. The school district has more money after a change in the state’s funding formula and Lightfoot has said she believes schools need additional resources. The union also feels compelled to push these demands after years of budget cuts that led to staff losses in schools .
Many teachers say conditions in schools are unacceptable.
Lightfoot and her team have maintained they are committed to adding 250 more nurses, 200 social workers and more special education case managers to schools. But they say putting these promises in the contract would limit their flexibility.

Between the lines: it’s a weath transfer, from Illinois taxpayers to Chicago public employees.

Special “Elite” Media Messaging Bonus: Listening to MPR discussing the story this morning, “Morning Edition” host Bill Inskeep, talking with a Chicago NPR reporter, emphasized (and I’m very closely paraphrasing here): “Just to make sure we’re clear on this – the union is doing this for the kids’ well-being…”

“Black Boys with Guns” teaches afro-american yoots how and why, as well as why not, to use guns:

I can only imagine the caterwauling to ensue from the social justice mafia.

“Liberals”, 2004: “Question authority! Free speech is *the* most essential right!”

“Progressives”, 2019: “Free speech is too dangerous for people without tin ‘journalist’ badges to be using”

In the old Soviet Union, citizens used to joke that when a shortage of butter was anticipated, the state media would start running stories on how *bad* butter was for you.

I couldn’t help but think about this over the weekend. And not *just* because our media is resembling the old Soviet media more and more, either.

Following on the NYTimes’ op-ed on free speech being too “dangerous” for mere proles, NPR’s “On the Media” – which is to the big media what a fawning mall cop is to your local blue-and-white – took up the same refrain, giving Marantz a full hour to reiterate his claim (and in so doing giving a whole new spin on “physician, heal thyself”).

Oh, they wrap it in a dirty-sounding word, “absolutism” – but like the NYTimes piece…

…it’s all a rationalization for turning speech over to the “professionals”, to whittle that right (or “right”) down to a size that proles can handle.

And we’re seeing a *lot* of this lately; how checks and balances are just tooooo haaaaard, and the Bill of Rights is just tooooo complex for the herd to deal with.

Makes me think of Soviet Radio. Apropos nothing.

Just saying, Democrats – I liked y’all better 15 years ago.

New York assemblywoman argues that housing is a right:

“Unexpectedly”, she also is a plaintiff suing against affordable housing…in her district:

In a Wednesday piece for the New York Daily News, [Assemblymember Yuh-Line] Niou and activist Feliz Guzman argue that the Saturday murder of four homeless people in New York City could have been prevented by more government spending on housing and social services.
“If they had been housed, four of our neighbors would very likely still be with us today,” they write. “We must choose to guarantee every New Yorker the right to a safe and affordable home to prevent a tragedy like this one from ever happening again.” Niou and Guzman call out both Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio for falling short of their own promises to build affordable housing:

Awkwardly, Niou is also a plaintiff in a lawsuit against an affordable housing project being built by a coalition of developers, including Habitat for Humanity, in Little Italy. The project, named Haven Green, would add 123 units of affordable senior housing to Niou’s district, including 37 units for the formerly homeless…So why is she suing to stop it? It’s all about the open space.
The Haven Green project will replace the privately managed Elizabeth Street Garden that currently occupies the city-owned site. In March, the garden, and a separate non-profit that advocates for its preservation, filed a lawsuit against the city, arguing that it erred in approving the project without conducting an adequate environmental study.
“While Lower Manhattan is desperately in need of affordable housing, we cannot pit the need for housing against the need for green space, especially when so many good alternatives are available,” Niou said in a statement.

So her constituents’ desire for open space trumps the “right” to housing…

…in Niou’s district?

Gary Gross, proprietor of Saint Cloud’s Let Freedom Ring blog, noticed something fishy in the Saint Cloud Times‘ coverage of the postponement of a “Dismantling Hate Crimes” meeting being held in Saint Cloud.

The Times carried a statement from MInnesota Department of Human Rights commissioner Rebecca Lucero about the postponement. I’ll add some emphasis:

“Hate is not a value in St. Cloud or in any part of our state. Our community deserves better,” said Minnesota Department of Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero. “I am heartbroken by the attempts to silence discussion on hate crimes. The goal of the forum was to discuss the community we want to create. One that is full of dignity and joy.”

The “attempt to silence” the discussion was a protest against the event, and ostensible threats.

But Gary did something that the Times apparently doesn’t, anymore; checked the facts.

Found in their own coverage:

If they had done that, they would have read the quote from Assistant Police Chief Jeff Oxton, who said that the SCPD hadn’t received any threats regarding the event.

And the timeline (again adding emphasis):

…the event was cancelled at 1:16 p.m. That’s the timestamp on the Facebook post from the St. Cloud Regional Human Rights Commission announcing the cancellation of the event. That’s important because the “protesters” didn’t arrive until 2 p.m.
Isn’t it interesting that the event got cancelled before the protesters showed up? Why would the Minnesota Department of Human Resources and the St. Cloud Regional Human Rights Commission cancel an event that didn’t get threatened?

Because communicating with “progressive” audiences is never about facts. It’s about getting the desired emotional reaction.

From the Trump rally:

Who are the real fascists here? The so-called “resistance” assaults Trump supporters. pic.twitter.com/QH7PXK1gev

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) October 14, 2019

Notice the shrieking harpy sucker-punching the woman. Canny move – any response would have gotten on CNN as “Trump Supporters Attack Woman Of Color!”

And it was smarter still, in that “resistance” “men” would have needed 5-6 to one odds – but only if the boyfriend wasn’t there.

And no, charges will never be filed.

SCENE: Mitch BERG is walking through the Roseville Best Buy, looking for a USB-C to HDMI cable, when, engrossed in thought, he fails to notice Avery LIBRELLE walking up behind him.

LIBRELLE: Merg!

BERG: Er, hi, Avery. Just kinda busy…nñ

LIBRELLE: Voters need to stop voting against their best interests, and vote Progressive!

BERG: Because “progressivism”…

LIBRELLE: Why are you making scare quotes?

BERG: …is everyone’s best interests?

LIBRELLE: Of course!

BERG: So the places where “progressives have control are the places where all our “best interests” are being seen to?

LIBRELLE: Yes! Yes! Yes! We may be making progress here!

BERG: So places like Detroit, Cleveland, Newark, Camden, Baltimore, Chicago, Saint Louis, North Minneapolis, Oakland and New Orleans represent our “best interests”? Or California, the entire state, which is looking more and more like Venezuela?

LIBRELLE: Um…

BERG: Yes?

LIBRELLE: You see, the problem with “best interests” is that they’ve never been tried in their truest form.

BERG: Huh. Where have I heard that before?

LIBRELLE: You haven’t.

BERG: Of course not.

(And SCENE)

Fred Melo in the PiPress:

ISAIAH, the interfaith anti-poverty social justice coalition, is door knocking for the "Vote Yes" folks in St. Paul #TrashWars. Is that OK? (Fred whispers: Yeah, I think so. Nonprofits can spend 5-20% of their budget on lobbying, just not for candidates): https://t.co/rQsGJA8arC

— Frederick Melo, Reporter (@FrederickMelo) October 9, 2019

So – a fake “faith” non-profit is actively campaigning for a policy that’s made poverty even more miserable and costly in Saint Paul?

You mean, exactly as they’ve campaigned for policies that increase crime, destroy entry-level jobs, and turn the city into a warehouse for the poor?

Whyl, it’s almost as though ISAIAH is a fraud or something…

The media is gushing – not inappropriately – over Ellen DeGeneres’ defense of her friendship with Dubya.

To which I, and the vast majority of middle America who actually have to live in this world, respond “this is real life for most of us, the ones who don’t live in progressive cocoons.

Of course, Urban Progressive Privilege is all about living in a cocoon:

Lots sharing this, but missing the broader point. Yes, Ellen and GWB can agree to disagree, great. The bigger issue is the only people who can’t do that these days are woke progressives. No conservative, libertarian or true liberal was upset by this. It’s not a two way street. https://t.co/mPcNuZBAzp

— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) October 8, 2019

Urban Progressive Privilege means feeling entitled to feel upset that cognitive dissonance exists, and feeling you’ve got the right to make someone pay for it.

Under Marxist-Leninist Theory, the end result is a perfect state in which everyone is equal, everyone shares, from each according to their abilities, to each according to their need. But we realize that people don’t act like that now, so to achieve that state, there must be a transition period during which people will be socialized to the new norms. It’s like when you take puppies to dog training class to socialize them to behave correctly around other dogs.
During the socializing phase, someone must determine the proper behaviors that will be acceptable and rules to enforce those behaviors. I’m perfectly willing to live in that society. I will set the behaviors, I will set the rules, you will all follow them and obey me. It’ll work perfectly.
What do you mean “no”? What, you want to be in charge? You expect me to surrender my liberty, my property, my money, daughters, guns? No, I don’t think so. I’m no more willing to be your slave than you are willing to be mine.
We both can’t be in charge. In fact all 300 million of us can’t all be in charge. So that’s not going to work. What’s the alternative?
The alternative is nobody in charge. Everybody does their own thing, not interfering with the neighbor, leaving each other alone. The most minimal government, laying the lightest hand, which is the system the founding fathers invented. And to ensure government doesn’t get out of control, we limit its power by a written agreement, the Constitution
That’s the system Democrats want to toss out today. They want to abolish the Constitution so they can be in charge and socialize everyone to behave their way, follow their rules. If we don’t voluntarily agree, they intend to accomplish it by force.
This isn’t going to end well.
Joe Doakes

So many of Big Left’s chanting points and buzzphrases – “voting for your best interests”, “moving things forward” – are niced-up ways of saying “shut up and let us run things.

I don’t know, but the Brits are tinkering away like a bunch of mad scientists trying new approaches.

The latest? Creating a new tier of “hate groups” whose views are un-woke but whose methods are, frustratingly, not violent enough to run afoul of existing terror and hate-group laws:

Available by Home Office fiat, such designations would be based on the fairly vague claim that a group might ‘demonise specific groups on the basis of their race, religious [faith], gender, nationality or sexuality’, or be guilty of ‘disproportionately blaming specific groups (based on religion, race, gender or nationality) for broader societal issues’. Or they might be regarded as ‘aligning with extremist ideologies, though not inciting violence’.
What would be the impact on a group that was designated as hateful? The report is short on detail, but it speaks in terms of such groups ‘not [being] allowed to use media outlets or speak at universities’, and not being allowed to ‘engage, work with or for public institutions’. They would be ‘suspended from the electoral roll’. (This is an odd phrase showing, perhaps, evidence of over-hasty writing. Presumably, it means the groups would be deregistered as political parties.) The designated groups would also be banned from holding any public marches at all.

One would like to think the consequences are unintended – but we all know better, don’t we?

Think about what kind of activity might fall under the ban. What about a Christian evangelical group known for its strong views on transgenderism? Could it be driven from public life until it mended its ways? On the other side, what of pro-choice activists who regularly call out what they see as the medieval bigotry of the Catholic Church on reproductive matters, or a group of gay-rights supporters who attack the Koran for its uncompromising view on homosexuality? Might they be found guilty of disproportionately blaming a religious group for societal ills and find themselves banned?

I don’t know about you, but I think the exceptions will be painfully obvious and utterly unwritten.

Sort of like the Minnesota election law that governed what people could and could not wear in polling stations, which which pro-2nd Amendment, tax reform or pro-life-wear was considered “political”, but anti-gun, pro-big-state or pro-infanticide paraphernalia was not.

I think Big Minnesota Bureaucracy is more than ready. And, likely, is looking at the British “advances” in thoughtcrime and licking its proverbial chops.