Archive for the 'Progressive Tyranny' Category

Declaring The Causes That Impel Us, 2024 Edition

Wednesday, January 10th, 2024

The below is an update of a piece I first wrote almost four years ago. It was at that moment about the time when people – smart people, anyway – were starting to realize that Covid wasn’t the new Bubonic Plague, that the sky was not falling, and that whatever “model” Governor Klink was reading that was predicting 70,000 deaths in Minnesota alone by mid-July of 2020, and 20,000 dead as a best case if they shut the state down completely, was perhaps…wrong.

I was looking at the gutting of civil and religious freedom that Minnesotans had countenanced – perhaps more or less voluntarily in March,

Over this past weekend, Big Left went through what’s become an annual orgy of celebrating what’s become their secular holiday, January 6.

Governor Klink took a break from his regimen of selfies of him being fed donuts by Co-Governor Flanagan to have his social media intern blurt this out:

The DFL, likewise:

So – a year and a half after Governor Klink reluctantly gave up his “emergency powers”, and after three years of Joe Biden serving as the doddering mouthpiece for Barack Obama’s third term as the greatest stealth authoritarian since Woodrow Wilson, let’s take stock of the state of “democracy”, in Minnesota and nationwide.

One of the obligations of a free people – and especially of a free people that wants to stay that way – is to push back when government overreaches. Not just in emergencies (although that was the initial subject of the original post), but always, on every facet of liberty. Conservatism holds that order and liberty exist in a constant state of tension; without order (or health) prosperity is impossible; without health, freedom is academic (subsistence farmers don’t have time to petition for redress of grievances); without freedom, order is onerous and, let’s be honest, prosperity is most likely concentrated among those keeping the order.

Three years ago, I said that Government power is like a handgun – sometimes, a necessary tool in extreme circumstances, under terms that are as strictly circumscribed as any rule on justifiable use of lethal force. And like any necessary tool, free people need to make sure that the newbie isn’t sweeping people at the firing range with her hand on the trigger, and that government isn’t getting drunk and profligate with its use, or abuse of power.

Of course, three years later, it’s clear that the Biden and Walz regimes great government power less like a handgun on the nightstand, and more like a Reaper drone, orbiting loudly above everything, ready to strike arbitrarily and without a whole lot of reason or respect for the niceties of constitutional law.

Just as Governor Piglet’s administration used Covid as a pretext for seizing unprecedented arbitrary power, Democrats nationwide are waving “January 6” around like a bloody shirt, to try to justify their ravaging of the spirit and letter of AMerican democracy.

So lets list the outrages. Let me know what I’ve missed; I intend for this list to live on as long as needed:

Life and Liberty

  • The emergence of the crypto-Maoist “Democratic Socialists of America” as the most powerful bloc in the Democrat party nationwide, and even moreso of the DFL – as both parties arrogate more power, wealth (transferred from taxpayers)
  • The multi-pronged bringing to heel of the education system, from pre-school through the post-doctoral level, is “the long game” in attacking not just liberty, but the entire underpinning of Western Civilization. Creating a generation of ignorant droogs who think “freedom” is just material satiety is both a key goal of those who’d gut the American experiment and, seemingly, a long way toward being accomplished.

The Pursuit of Prosperity

Here, the DFL’s disdain for business and private property rears its head, above and beyond any actual response to the epidemic.

  • The DFL “Trifecta” burned through nearly $18 Billion worth of “surprlus”, every dime of which came from a taxpayer of some kind or another. That’s nearly $3,000 for every man, woman and child in Minnesota – nearly $12,000 for a typical family of four. In one year. And they raised taxes enough to cover that and a whole lot more. And given that the state is inevitably falling into deficit while the Democrats control the Legislature, it’s going to get much worse. That money would, in fact, be better employed by the people.
  • As Governor Klink established during Covid, the right to transact business is clearly subject to arbitrary, and in some cases seemingly capricious, interference. Small businesses are shut down (as big ones, and business with more, better lobbyists remain open), in many cases without regard to the business’ actual susceptibility to the virus (lawn services? nd smoke shops aren’t. It’s best that your vices not be politically unfashionable.
  • Looking a back at the concept of “Essential” and “Non-Essential” workers – designations determined almost entirely via the political expediency of the designations, and their importance to the lifestyle of the “Laptop class” workers who make up the political class – feels like staring into the soul of Orwell’s universe, even three years later.
  • The government started by barring all evictions and foreclosures, and halting student loan payments. The Twin Cities governments have moved on to rent control – furthering the road to gutting the affordable rental market, and completely foreclosing the existence of the small landlords that used to provide most of the metro’s “affordable housing” – while the Biden regime tried to unilaterally wipe out personal obligations to private student loan lenders.

Government Transparency

  • The DFL created a “Hate Speech Registry”. What’s in it? What’s it for? How do we see what, and who, is in it? For what purposes will it be used? The registry’s supporters couldn’t and wouldn’t answer questions. They just jammed it down.
  • The Governor’s “Covid Snitch Line” showed us not only the DFL’s ability for setting up a Stasi-like network of informants, but how much they genuinely enjoy it.
  • School boards around the state are gradually, and sometimes not so gradually, being turned into rubber-stamps for district administrators and the state department of Education.
  • For years, people complained, legitimately, that most of the legislature’s big decisions were made by the Governor, the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House, operating behind closed doors. That was intolerable and stupid when there were opposing parties involved in those negotiations. Now that they’re all with the same party? While elections have consequences, this is pure authoritarianism.
  • Covid-era restrictions on meetings have morphed, post-pandemic, into a glib disregard for state open meeting laws, which serve more as suggestions these days.

First Amendment

  • The collaboration of Big Government, Big Tech, Big Media and the Big Left’s non-profit/industrial complex completely gutted free speech in time for the 2020 election. The vituperation of their response to Elon Musk buying Twitter tips the hand; the Axis of Authority really, really wants “free speech” to be more about crappy art than actually holding government accountable.
  • And as Big Left endlessly drones on about the “Threat” of “endemic white supremacist terrorism” that we’ve been told for 15 years is everywhere, honest, one of these days now – the threat of being swatted, of crowds of professional protesters and rioters making your free exercise of too much inconvenient speech potentially dangerous is always there. The March 4, 2017 “Anti”-Fa attack on a Republican gathering at the MN Capitol rotunda (and the fact that Ramsey County’s “criminal justice” system did everything but take the “protesters” out for dinner to apologize for the inconvenience of being arrested) was a warning; shut up, or you just might get cut up. Democrats and the DFL are very aware of this, because that malevolent mass of wannabe thugs are their children, nephews, classmates.

Second Amendment

  • While the Second Amendment community remains strong, and with the departure of Wayne LaPierre may get some of its teeth re-sharpened at the national level, the attacks on the law-abiding gun owner in Blue jurisdictions are increasing, unconscionable, and not consistent with “protecting democracy”. More below.

Fourth Amendment

  • The surveillance state has gotten steadily worse.
  • The presence of anonymous “snitch lines” – and especially “hate crime” lines, may not have led to any Fourth Amendment perversions of probable cause yet – but don’t bet against it.
  • “Red Flag” laws have largely trashed the Fourth Amendment (more below).

Fifth Amendment

  • With the courts pretty much closed your right to a speedy trial by an impartial jury is pretty much toast for the duration.
  • Let’s not forget how the state gutted the justice system – including the rights of defendants to speedy drials, to face their accusers, and of their attorneys to effectively prepare cases – under the pretext of “public emergency restrictions”.

Privacy

  • Among the many other depredations of Minnesota’s “red flag” law – “Mental Health” professionals are in fact now deputized to participate in the abuse of those laws. I’d say “consider the unintended consequences”, but I don’t think there’s anything “unintended” about them.
  • Government used your cell data to track the effectiveness of social distancing. Think that genie’s going back in the bottle?

When Democrats refer to Republicans as “fascists”, it’s a Berg’s Seventh Law case. .

Enforcing Public Ordure

Monday, January 8th, 2024

Pro-Hamas protesters blocked a freeway in in Toronto.

But…is there something special about the neighborhood?

So – what is the Canadian government – the government that sicced the military on entirely peaceful anti-Covid-lockdown protesters three years ago – doing with this disruption to public order?

Canada – or at least, Toronto and Ontario and the Canadian federal government – have made manifest the message that Minnesota’s government has been sending this past three years. IF you’re part of the favored class, there’s literally nothing you can’t get away with. From blocking public thoroughfares to political vandalism to inflicting violence, it’s all OK…

…provided you’re pals with “progressives” with money and power.

A Pattern

Tuesday, December 12th, 2023

SCENE: Mitch BERG is walking to his parked car after a political event in downtown Saint Paul. As he walks past a near-empty office building, MyLyssa SILBERMAN, Reporter for National Public Radio’s Saint Paul bureau, covering the “Fake News” and “Diversity” beats, steps out.

SILBERMAN: Merg!

BERG: Er, hey, Mylys…

SILBERMAN: In recent years, you’ve pounced on Demcorats for saying “tut, tut, nobody’s coming for your guns…”

BERG: ….and pointing the reams of legislation that shows that they are, but that that’s not good enough unless there’s actually a cop beating down your door.

SILBERMAN: Uh…

BERG: If the cops are busting down one’s neighbor’s door, I should shut up because they’re not storming my house yet. Point being, the progressive line on all outrages against freedom is “If it’s not happening to you right this second, no matter how imminent, then it’s not a threat”.

SILBERMAN: Don’t you think that’s a bit unfair?

BERG: You tell me:

SILBERMAN: Not sure I get your point…

BERG: Yeah, I don’t imagine you do.

AND SCENE

Just A Couple Of Quick Questions For All Western Feminists

Monday, December 4th, 2023

To: All Western Feminists
From: Mitch Berg – Obstreporous Peasant and the Twin Cities Best Feminist
Re. #YouToo?

Dear every “Feminist” I’ve just been getting a refresher course on the horrific, ritualized sexual violence that Hamas inflicted on Israeli women and children.

And I’m wondering – where’s the *#MeToo” hashtags?

Where are all the “#BelieveWomen” bumper stickers?

Where are all the sanctimonious celebrities with their “#BringTheGirlsBack” signs and selfies and tiktoks?

It’s almost like you have a double standard.

That is all.

Don’t Cry For Milei, Argentina

Monday, November 20th, 2023

As Don Surber notes, suddenly everyone’s an expert on Argentina.

We’ll come back to that.

Libertarian-Conservative Javier Milei crushed his center-left opponent, showing Argentina’s crushing dissatisfaction with over a decade of center-to-far-left politics.

Big Left is, predictably, unhappy:

“A radical libertarian and admirer of Donald Trump rode a wave of voter rage to win Argentina’s presidency on Sunday, crushing the political establishment and bringing the sharpest turn to the right in four decades of democracy in the country.

“Javier Milei, a 53-year-old far-right economist and former television pundit with no governing experience, claimed nearly 56% of the vote in a stunning upset over Sergio Massa, the center-left economy minister who has struggled to resolve the country’s worst economic crisis in two decades. Even before the official results had been announced Sunday night, Massa acknowledged defeat and congratulated Milei on his win.

“Trump also congratulated Milei. ‘I am very proud of you,’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. ‘You will turn your Country around and Make Argentina Great Again!’”

Don Surber’s response – “don’t anoint him yet, but the vote matters more than the candidate – isn’t wrong at all.

But he adds:

I don’t recall Argentina being great before but diplomacy requires a certain suspension of reality. It’s the 1970s chant of I’m OK, You’re OK updated for international relations. I’m Great Again, You’re Great Again.

Thing is, Argentina was, if not “great”, at least doing really, really well not that terribly long ago:

So what happened?

As Paul Johnson pointed out in Modern Times, socialism – in this case, populist socialism in the form of Juan and Eva Peron – happened. Argentina went from relative wealth to decay and authoritarianism, and all it got was a lousy musical.

Huh – a great political entity that got sucked into a vortex of authoritarianism, stagnancy and decay by leftists who just kept winning elections?

Huh. Weird.

Making The Trains Run On Time, Part MMMCLVI

Friday, November 17th, 2023

The shocking part, at least to me, is not that he did it, or talked about it.

https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1724093441519341573

It’s that most “Progressive” voters don’t get what an authoritarian statement and action this is, or why that could possibly be a problem.

Things I Didn’t Have On My Bingo Card For Today…

Wednesday, November 15th, 2023

…or ever: Ryan Winkler is right.

And the Minnesota Federation of Teachers has gone full Brownshirt.

Notice that the “Resolution” says nothing about the Hamas Charter’s call for the extermination of the Jews “from the river to the sea”.

Weird.

Also – BDS is not “peaceful”. It’s just an unarmed form of belligerency.

Muslims: Shut Up Or Get Cut Up

Thursday, November 9th, 2023

Lest anyone doubted that Big Left today is Marxist to its foetid roots, we now join a white, uppser-middle class white progressive member of the Saint Louis Park School Board pulling intersectional rank on….

…Muslim parents objecting to porn in elementary schools:

That’s the thing about intersectionalism; while more virtue attaches to people the farther they go out on the intersectional tree (the transgender Afro-Muslim handicapped lesbian is the peak), the actual executive authroity is supposed to remain toward the center, with the white “prog” women.

The Cano Corollary To Berg’s 21st Law

Wednesday, November 8th, 2023

The Cano Corollary to Berg’s 21st Law is a new addition to the canon – and like all the Berg’s Laws, it is an observation that started as satire.

To wit:

In Blue city electoral politics, “blue” never gets “lighter” or less “progressive”.  There is only one electoral direction – more “progressive”.

It’s named for the former Minneapolis 9th Ward council woman, dotty dimbulb and “third world feminist” (a term almost as grimly hilarious as “queer for Palestine”) who, in retrospect,not only seems moderate, but likely would have a hard time getting nominated for office in MInneapolis, due to being “too centrist”.

It was in full effect in Minnneapolis and Saint Paul last night, Democratic Socialist-endorsed DFLers Aisha Chughtai and Aurin Chowdhury swept to wins. Depending on the machjinations of Ranked Choice Voting, it appears Soren Stevenson – another DFLer with DSA endorsement – might eke out a win over council president Andrea Jenkins – the leftist transgender black woman who, not so long ago, seemed like the left edge of the Overton Window, and may as well be Jesse Helms today.

I’ll point out that not only did I predict this after 2021, but so did Big Left; after the “Defund” question went town to humiliating defeat, Big Left swore they weren’t going to let that happen again. The DSA – which is now well within the left edge of the Overton WIndow – started pumping money and resources and lots and lots of noise into the race the week after the 2021 election.

Expect everything in Minneapolis to get worse, coarser, less civil, uglier and more stupid – until 2-4 years out, when a group comes along, refers to the DSA as “centrist” and the mainstsream DFL as “Republicans”. I wouldn’t rule out an overt Communist party, to the extent there’s actually a meaningful distinction anymore.

Saint Paul? Well, call it a split: DSA-endorsed Hwa Jeong Kim appears to have won in Ward 5; the DSA’s Pa Der Vant appears to have lost – but narrowly – in Ward 7.

The 1% sales tax hike to pay for the things the city was already supposed to be paying for with its ridiculous taxes, and perhaps to try to compensate for the gutting of the city’s retail sector? It passed overwhelmingly. There was never any action on that bet. The most regressive tax there is just got increased on a city full of people who are less able to pay it every day (thanks, “Bidenomics”).

School board? Garbage in, garbage out.

The closest thing I have to good news in the Cities proper? In my ward, Ward 4, people expressed their dissatisfaction with the “choices” – the unknown Bob Bushard and incumbent Mitra “Chasing Intersectional Perfection” Jalali by submitting about as many write-in votes than the rest of the city put together.

Other news that might, depending on what happens, be good? Duluth turned out Emily “Turbo-Karen” Larson for explicitly more moderate DFLer Roger Reinert. Will he be able to moderate the Duluth City Council – about whose results I know nothing. While you can’t judge a book by its cover, the winners last night all have names that scream “Progressive Karen” to me. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. .

Action on that bet? Step right up.

All Relative

Wednesday, November 8th, 2023

The incredibly aptly named Representative Debbie Dingell lectures us on semantics:

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free“ means different things to different people in different times!“, says the font of wisdom, in rising to the defense of the loathsome modern Nazi Rashida Tlaib.

And she’s right, in a sense.

The phrase “the final solution” can mean a lot of different things; it can be the formula that gets rid of your Creeping Charlie, or solves your credit card debt. So, too, can the German phrase “Arbeit Macht Frei”, or “work will set you free” which, set free of other context, seems straight out of Horatio Alger

Except.

Except when you’re talking about people who wanted, or want, to remove Jews, from some corner of the world.

Then, they mean exactly one thing, and one thing only. And anyone who pretends otherwise is being disingenuous, precious, a useful, idiot, or lying like a sack of garbage.

And if Dingell is capable of being anything, it might very well be all four.

Compromise

Thursday, October 26th, 2023

Someone walks up to you with a baseball bat. They say they want to kill you.

Your response is “no, I don’t want to get beaten to death with a baseball bat”.

Looks like you have a standoff. A controversy. A conundrum.

Someone else steps in and asks “How about we compromise? Will you settle for a traumatic brain injury?”

It’s the middle way, after all. The guy with the bat might even say “sure, I just wanna hit you, hard!“

You might respond “No – in fact, I don’t want anyone hurting me in any way. At all”

And the buttinski responds “Why won’t yiou compromise?”

Who’s right?

You?

The guy with the bat?

Or the person striving to find the middle ground between the two of you?

If your response is “I’m putting my foot down; nobody is hitting me with a bat for any reason at all“, and the other to ask “why do you hate the guy with the bat?“, does that change anybody’s mind?

Point being, sometimes the middle path, the compromise, is not the most moral path forward.

America’s Hitler Youth

Tuesday, October 24th, 2023

Americans overwhelmingly consider Hamas a terrorist organization, and condemn the wanton slaughter of October 7.

But among Americans under 24 years old, the split between pro-humanity and pro-Hamas is not only depresslingly closely-fought, but the pro-terror side has a slight edge.

Putting it bluntly, a thin majority of young Americans are OK with genocide. They may couch it in intersectional twaddle, they may hedge the ugly parts.

But a generation that grew up chanting “punch a Nazi” yapping about colonialism and calling their elders “fascists” around the Thanksgiving table are now supprting an actual Fascist regime that actually is killing minorities to further a thousand year old colonial movement.

Why?

It’s the professors:

The first order of business is to heap scorn on a generation that has adopted this morally bankrupt perspective and the older adults in their lives who have so maliciously led them astray. The second task at hand is for us to understand what convinced the younger generation to sacrifice their humanity upon the altar of an intellectual fad. The answer can be found, at least in part, in one odious word that has claimed the benignity of this generation and so many before them: “framework.”

On October 13, the Atlantic published a fascinating reflection by Helen Lewis on the callous indifference her compatriots on the American left have shown toward the wanton murder of Jews for being Jews. She correctly identified the origins of this phenomenon in the intellectualization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on college campuses, which flattens the distinctions between civilian and terrorist, between West Bank and Gaza, between Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian Authority and Fatah, and so on. But that flattening is the outcome. The instrument that pummels the complexities of the region into an unrecognizable paste is that detestable word, “framework.”

“Fitting Israel into the intersectional framework has always been difficult, because its Jewish citizens are both historically oppressed—the survivors of an attempt to wipe them out entirely—and currently in a dominant position over the Palestinians, as demonstrated by the Netanyahu government’s decision to restrict power and water supplies to Gaza,” Lewis wrote. Intersectionality is, indeed, the “framework” on display here. It started out as little more than a thought experiment, but it has since transmogrified into a way of life.

While our modern academic class is largely parasitical and counter-useful, they have perfected the art of self-serving logical gymnastics.

Urban Progressive Privilege: Peak Karen

Friday, October 20th, 2023

Henco is going to have a “contested” County Commission race, where “contested” means “a battle between bad, worse and worst” .

I think the found ‘worst”.

https://twitter.com/AlphaNewsMN/status/1714696874920173640

People inexperienced in the ways of Metro “progressives” might joke “I wonder if she’s going to put “Irritating people into behavioral change” into her campaign literature, yuk yuk”.

To those who know the breed, it’s not a joke. The suburban white upper-middle-class “progressive” seeks out different flavors of trite masochism and whiffle-ball self-abnegation – paying for bags, making “stolen land declarations”, putting up “In This House” signs – that have little financial and no moral cost, to signal dubious but convenient virtue to the less englightened.

I bet she wins.

The Fix

Thursday, October 19th, 2023

A “high trust” society – the kind of society where you can leave your doors unlocked, or at least not keep all your property under constant surveillance at the very least – depends on trusting your neighbors, and the institutions by which we govern ourselves.

When that trust is broken, society becomes “low trust” – a society where people don’t trust their institutions, or each other, to do the right thing; reverting to the “Law of the Jungle” becomes expedient, initially – and, eventually prudent.

And when it’s the criminal justice system?

It never took a rocket scientist to believe the Chauvin trial was swayed by, not so much “public opinion” but by “potential mob rage”.

But it’s actually written down in black and white:

https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1714729290636415389

I’m not saying the DFL in this state is trying to create a low trust society.

I’m just at a loss for what they’d be doing different if they were.

Anti-Democratic

Wednesday, October 11th, 2023

Given that justices Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett were appointed and confirmed via the same process that has covered for over 200 years…

… can someone tell me how our “junior senator” trying to popularize this kind of garbage isn’t a bigger threat to our system of government, the January 6 ever was

Instant Experts

Friday, September 29th, 2023

As we noted the other day, Target is closing nine stores in four, blue, cities.

The news brought out a flood of expert social media opinion from people who have never worked in the productive private sector. “Target is just using teh crime to cover up teh realz reazons they’re closing” was the big line around mid-week.

Including this, from our long time acquaintance, Molly Priesmeyer.

You may remember Molly – and “award winning journalist“ who is never let the fact she doesn’t know anything about a subject stop her from writing about it.

She turns her keen-eyed expertise to the world of business:

Let’s be frank – many things can be true simultaneously.

Business ain’t easy. Balancing supply, demand and asking price isn’t for the faint of heart, and that’s before you get into taxes, regulations, and externalities like regular “shrinkage”.

WIth all that, though, Target’s been in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and even NYC for literally decades, through good times and bad, ups and downs in markets, the works.

And the closures aren’t spread across the entire market.

As far as Target’s security? Not sure if they’re better than the FBI – but let’s say they perfected teh art of store security. That means they catch thieves, grifters, swindlers and other ne’er do wells.

And then…

Well, Target may do a lot of things, but rthey don’t run any county attorney’s offfices. Or any city councils, especially the ones making laws like shoplifting less than $900 doesn’t even warrant a charge, much less a sentence.

Target’s big, but not that big.

Perhaps “award winning journalist” Priesjeyer has some insight on the facts that aren’t apparent from, well, the facts. I’m all ears.

The Beatings Will Continue Until The Beat-ee Decides Otherwise

Wednesday, September 27th, 2023

Citing the rise in meth-related crimes and low revenue, Target is closing nine stores in Nebraska, Kentucky and Montana.

Just kidding. They’re in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and New York City:

Target is closing nine stores in major cities across four states, claiming theft and organized retail crime have made the environment unsafe for staff and customers – and unsustainable for business.

The big box chain is part of a wave of retailers – both large and small – that say they’re struggling to contain store crimes that have hurt their bottom lines. Many have closed stores or made changes to merchandise and layouts.

Of course, the hecklers are out in force; “crime can’t possibly be that bad…”.

It’s not clear that crime is growing significantly more serious. But as economic fears grow amid inflation and rising borrowing costs, shoplifting often comes with the territory, industry watchers say.

Somehow I suspect that’s not the reason these small businesses in Oakland were bucking the narrative:

Target was not the only retailer to raise concerns about retail crime today. Approximately two hundred Oakland business owners closed up shop for a couple hours Tuesday morning and held a demonstration to bring attention to crime plaguing the area.

Target was not the only retailer to raise concerns about retail crime today. Approximately two hundred Oakland business owners closed up shop for a couple hours Tuesday morning and held a demonstration to bring attention to crime plaguing the area.

If there were just some sort of connecting thread…

Darn Those Authoritarian Republicans

Monday, September 25th, 2023

Ever wonder why people on the left are so fond, over the past decade, of referring to people who disagree with them as “Fascists”?

Well, of course, it’s because of all the Republican governors who use their power to bulldoze constitutional checks and balances – in the case of this conservative governor, deciding she doesn’t really need the legislature to create or repeal laws, and waterboarding the definition of “public health crisis” into compliance to do it?

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday issued an emergency order suspending the right to carry firearms in public across Albuquerque and the surrounding county for at least 30 days in response to a spate of gun violence.

Or maybe it’s this “new right” prime minister, telling the world we need to destroy free speech to save it:

Because we’re “at war”.

Conservative love to turn social disagreements into “wars” to justify their overreach. It of course peaked when the conservative MAGA president gave a speech during which he “othered” half of the nation, in a speech redolent with martial natinalistic imagery…

… that fairly shouted “the time is nigh to do something about it”, part of a campaign of “othering” dissent that started in 2009.

Or maybe it’s the fact that a majority of Republicans favor curbing free speech “for the greater good”

On the issue of free expression, at least, Republicans are not the authoritarian party. That distinction belongs to the Democrats, the party launched by Thomas Jefferson — the Founding Father who famously said that if he were forced to choose between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Wait.- wut?

Why, it’s almost as if Berg’s Seventh Law is inviolable and absolute or something.

Make Those Trains Run On Time

Thursday, September 14th, 2023

Democrats warned me that if we voted GOP, we’d have fascism in the US.

And they were right:

Last Friday, New Mexico governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, announced a 30-day ban on the right to carry open or concealed firearms in public. She and the state health secretary, Patrick Allen, declared, “Gun violence and drug abuse currently constitute statewide public health emergencies,” and that provided sufficient justification for the governor to repeal the concealed-carry law, first passed in 2001, as well as the state’s open-carry law.

In New Mexico, about 46 percent of adults have at least one gun in their home.

The New Mexico state legislature is not under fire, missing, or incapable of performing its duties. It adjourned on March 18, and is scheduled to begin its next session January 16, 2024. The state legislature meets for a 60-day regular session in odd-numbered years, and for a 30-day regular session in even-numbered years. The governor can call a special session to deal with emergency legislation that needs attention before the next regular session; the state legislature can also declare its own “extraordinary session” and meet outside of the normal session, if three-fifths of each chamber agrees.

No Democrat can be allowed to live this down.

Lipstick On A Pig

Tuesday, September 12th, 2023

A Gaffe is what happens when a politician accidentally tells the truth.
— Michael Kinsley

Governor Walz may have committed a gaffe the other day:

https://twitter.com/GovTimWalz/status/1700904036889674117

He’s being too modest.

With its proposed ban on liquid fuel, the DFL is working to ensure that no matter where you grow up or go to school, you have to stay in your community.

Only Human

Friday, September 8th, 2023

The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus has one at least one level of its case to legalize citizens ages 18 to 20 for carry permits.

Keith Ellison, being Keith Ellison, is fighting them:

https://twitter.com/robdoar/status/1700086954610618681

So just so we are clear on this: in the state of Minnesota, if you’re a 10 year old who has decided they want to get themself chemically castrated, you have full legal standing.

If you’re a 20 year old veteran of the Armed Forces who wants to defend themselves, you are not only not old enough, you are an unperson.

This may be the perfect metaphor for the state of Minnesota today.

NOTE: Nobody of any age should write blog posts using “voice to text“ without taking the time to edit.

Been Down This Road Before

Thursday, September 7th, 2023

The DFL wants “assisted suicide”:

https://twitter.com/FOX9/status/1699592204036042967

Further evidence of Big Left’s contempt for human life.

Fearless predictions:

2024: “assisted suicide” for specific conditions.

2026: “Conditions” list expanded to include depression, fatigue. (Like Canada)

2030: List expanded again to include “state thinks you’re too expensive (Netherlands)

2033: List includes political undesirables.

It’s A Start

Thursday, September 7th, 2023

The Georgia Attorney General is bringing RICO charges against 60+ “Anti”-Fa droogs:

“We contend the 61 defendants together have conspired against the construction of the Atlanta public safety training center by conducting, coordinating, and organizing acts of violence, intimidation, and property destruction,” said AG Carr, in a press conference on Tuesday.

As alleged in the indictment, the defendants are members of Defend the Atlanta Forest, which Carr described Tuesday afternoon as an anarchist, anti-police, and anti-business extremist organization.

Time to remind your “progressive” friends that “Anti”-Fa is the lineal descendant of the German Communist Party’s version of the Brownshirts – and unlike the Brownshirts, they still exist.

Watch for Democrats to claim RICO is an affront to democracy later today.

The Experts

Friday, August 18th, 2023

“Civilians shouldn’t have guns. Leave it to the experts”.

Some people are asking “why are IRS agents shooting?”

Those people would probably be a little alarmed to know that the Departments of Energy, Education, Interior, even HHS, have armed agents, and even access to “SWAT” teams.

I had an avocational acquaintance once upon a time who worked for the Department of Justice. He was a nice enough guy – and a preeningly arrogant old-school east coast liberal Democrat who’d gone to an Ivy League school and grad school as a third-generation legacy. His contempt for the law-abiding citizen’s right to keep and bear arms was legendary.

But he went to a session the BATFE threw at a government shooting range, to orient Federal employees to various kinds of firearms. He spent a day at the range, firing a bunch of handguns and a Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine gun, under (purportedly, given the story above) close supervision from the BATFE agents involved.

And, voila, he considered himself one of the chosen people with the secret handshake that should be allowed to be armed.

Because he’d “had training”.

Unlike all of us hoi polloi who’d been plinking away for decades, naturally.

Mitch’s DFL Translation Service

Tuesday, August 15th, 2023

I pride myself in being able to turn DFL English into Honest English.

Example:

https://twitter.com/LtGovFlanagan/status/1690418958359277568

Translated into “Honest”

While other states are getting agenda-porn out of middle schools, MN is writing a different story.  

And by “writing”, we don’t mean the actual kids. They can’t write for s**t now, and it’s not gonna get any better.

And by “story”, we mean “checks that shovel more money into the greedy maw of an unaccountable Dept of Education that’s already made countless corrupt DFL-linked nonprofiteers wealthy.”

I’m happy, as alwatys, to help.


--> Site Meter -->