If you think fighting disaster with economic devastation is a bad strategery, this is what Channel 11’s weather talking head thinks of you:
And Sven? When you go on to talk about the “sacrifices we are making”, don’t tell it to social media. Go to the small businesses who are arbitrarily shuttered and tell the owners whose lives’ work is being destroyed while competing business are chugging right along, exactly how “in it together” you are with them.
I”ll wait.
Back in 2010, when the Tea Party was at high tide, there was a wave of sightings of some disturbingly racist and violent signs at Tea Party rallies. These signs got all kinds of media attention.
Thing is, when people were able to crowd-source the people carrying the signs, a huge portion of them turned out to be ringers – people from leftist groups who just happened to wind up in front of the news media with their objectionable signs. Not just a few, eitheri – there was a very high correlation.
Of course, some of the less curious members of the media just ran with it – killing the Tea Party and other obstreporous bitter clinging deplorables was just fine by them.
But before I MCed the 2010 Tax Day Tea Party rally, I made sure the organizers got the word out as publicly as possible – anyone with an off-color sign would be photographed, and publicized, and “outed” either way – but especially if they were lefty ringers bent on slandering the Tea Party.
Sounds like certain conservative groups need to re-learn this lesson.
How likely is the woman’s sign a hoax?
Is there a number over 100%?
Former Crystal Mayor ReNae Bowman took one of the dumbest swipes I’ve ever seen at Andy Richter, founder of “Community Solutions” and one of the driving forces behind Crystal’s libertarian/conservative insurgency – an insurgency that’s undone a lot of ex-mayor Bowman’s toxic legacy.
But never let it be said the woman doesn’t ooze class.
Emphasis on “ooze”:
Bowman’s lunacy, and borderline slander, gets worse – including a swipe at Richter’s wife that’s straight out of some trailer park reality show.
I’m going to presume Bowman is angry with Andy for two reasons: he clobbered her in a city that was supposed to be a DFL sinecure, and Andy helped lead the way doing the most unforgivable sin in the “prog” religion; peeled back “progressive” power.
Richter’s response was as classy as Bowman’s was toxically “progressive”:
The truth is Ms. Bowman you don’t scare me. You’re nothing more than a classless coward. While I go out and work hard with my blog and my podcast and on campaigns, you sit around on social media and spread 24/7 hate. it’s a pathetic existence. If you’d like to be as successful as my group I have a suggestion; why don’t you come up with a positive agenda and persuade people to support it?
I know I’ve helped defeat you and all your friends in Crystal and that has to be eating at you. I can understand that. Losing that much has to drive someone crazy. She probably dreams about defeating our group in just one election. And why not? Dreams are important. I won’t knock them.
And since Bowman still harbors political ambitions, I’m gonna post this for my friends in Crystal:
Having said all this, I will support Ms. Bowman’s right to free speech. If I try and shut her up then I’m no better than she is. Her first amendment rights will be supported by this group even it attacks me and my family. What I will not do, under any circumstances, is stop exposing her vulgar and despicable words. These are her words, published in their entirety. Voters of Crystal will know what she says and who she supports. No amount of attacking me will intimidate me into silence. One thing Bowman won’t do is shut up, so you can rest assure that her conduct will continue to be exposed here.
Your choice is clear – achievement, competence and success, or “Honey Boo Boo Moves To City Hall”.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Counter-terrorism official claims that mass shootings in America are White right-wing terrorism and therefore should be handled like any other terrorists.
Author ignores untreated mental illness, claims it’s all White Supremacy and easy access to guns. Only nation in the world to have this problem. Article is easy to read, conveniently free of citations to studies or news reports or actual proof. Entirely based on “I’m an expert, believe what I say,” which is a form of the logical fallacy “appeal to authority” that I’ve found particularly annoying since junior high school.
And what’s the proposal – treat White Supremacy like Muslim terrorism? How? Put all White American Presbyterians under surveillance? Infiltrate spies into White organizations like the Kiwanis? Tap the President’s phones (wait, already did that, it was a bust). No, the author wants the country to adopt two gun control bills presently in Congress, tinkering with background checks.
Suppose the FBI receives a background check application. Applicant has no criminal record, never officially diagnosed as mentally ill, not in their database. But the FBI agent finds disturbing Facebook pictures of the applicant in front of a Nazi flag giving the Nazi salute saying “Finish what Hitler started.”
Is that enough to deny him the gun? On what legal grounds? That he’s a member of the American Nazi Party? “Being a hater” isn’t listed in any state or federal law as grounds for denial and for good reason – it’s political speech protected by the First Amendment, and thus cannot be used to deny firearms purchases under the Second Amendment.
The author was a Deep State government employee for years. And his big solution to mass shootings – background checks – can only work if it’s expanded to include crushing unapproved political opinions. Now we see why draining the swamp is more important that anyone thought.
Joe Doakes
If I were President, it’d be the moral equivalent of…
…well, not “war”. Maybe “dismantling the Department of Education”.
Which is, to be fair, mighty important.
I don’t know about you – but these days, when a accusation of a “hate crime” gets massive, immediate coverage, I’ve started to assume it’s a hoax until proven otherwise.
Don’t get me wrong – hate crimes exist. But the more publicity the unproven allegations get, and the more lurid the charges against someone in a MAGA cap, the more likely it seems the whole story turns out to have all the substance and integrity or a Ryan Winkler presentation on Black History Month.
Jussie Who?:Three weeks ago, I had not heard of Jussie Smollett. I’ve never had occasion to watch Empire, and I doubt I ever will.
But when I heard the story of the “Hate Crime” that reached out and, per his story, caught him a few weeks ago, nothing, even to my rather cursory listening, seemed to add up.
Kyle Smith – not a cop, but rather a writer at National Review – noticed the same things, and has 27 questions for the “journalists” who presumed Smollett’s story – of “MAGA”-screaming rednecks who attacked him without really attacking him – was unassailably true.
8 . How likely do you think it is that attackers would shout, “This is MAGA country” in Chicago, a place that no one thinks is MAGA country?
There are 26 more – the sort of thing “journalists”, ostensibly being the curious sort, should have asked.
13. Don’t you think it strange that his attackers fled without much harming Smollett or robbing him?
14. Related to (13), did it not occur to you that the whole alleged attack looked a bit like the criminal equivalent of a press release, meant to send a message rather than accomplish anything?
15. If you were beaten up, would you somehow remember to pick up your Subway purchase afterward?
Goalposts Moved: Over the weekend, as Smollett’s story began to collapse, the narrative changed; Smollett’s actions weren’t themselves a publicity “hate crime” against deplorables; they were “starting a conversation”:
Don’t let anyone say this latest hate crime hoax was okay because it “started a conversation.”
— Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) February 17, 2019
This episode SHOULD start a conversation – about the outright bigotry of the media and those who hate Trump and his supporters so much they will do things like this.
I don’t know about you, but I think Jussie Smollett, and especially all the #Resitance media sycophants who parroted the story because, if you hate the MAGAs, it’s just too good to fact-check, just made life a lot harder for people who actually do wind up on the wrong side of bigotry.
Other than deplorables, obviously.
From Twitter yesterday:
“Conservatives pounce on failed attempt to smear conservatives” are the best conservatives pounce stories.
— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) February 17, 2019
I’m not sure about you, but it’s almost gotten too easy.
Don Lemon pulls off a rhetorical triple Salchow:
It took me a couple of reads to make sure I wasn’t missing something.
Followers of the party that has undercut Israel for 40 years, many of whom cuddle up to Louis Farrakhan, and where Keith Ellison and Ilhan Omar are leading emergent figures…
…says Donald Trump’s rhetoric promoted an anti-semitic attack.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
You know the pipe bombs are fake when celebrities and politicians start MeToo-ing them.
Obama, the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, George Soros – sure, they are Conservative hobgoblins. It’s believable some Conservative might send them bombs. But Robert DeNiro? He gets a bomb? And now New York Governor Andrew Cuomo wants in on the action (NYPD denies he got one).
Receiving a fake pipe bomb is the latest status symbol. How come I didn’t get a bomb? Did you get a bomb?
“Getting a bomb” is the new “once dated Taylor Swift”.
Andrew McCarthy on the media’s treatment of the “pipe bomb” story:
There is plenty of media commentary at the moment about incivility, in the form of incendiary rhetoric and actions. This is entirely appropriate. But I’m at a loss to understand how the climate is improved by spicing up reports with thinly veiled suggestions that President Trump may have triggered a series of potentially murderous attacks on political opponents. When Bernie Sanders supporter James Hodgkinson opened fire on the Republicans he targeted and nearly killed Representative Steve Scalise, I don’t recall much Times speculation about whether he could have been set him off by Democrats urging their supporters to get aggressive — “get in their face”; “if they bring a knife, we bring a gun” — when dealing with political adversaries.
Every one of these episodes is like a mini Reichstag fire, a Gliwice incident; every Democrat from Maxine Waters to Kathy Griffin to the New York Times can openly fantasize about killing the President and attacking Republicans – but let Trump talk smack about reporters and suddenly we’re on civility patrol.
As we often observe after terrorist attacks, everyone needs to take a deep breath until facts begin to emerge. The investigators are doing their jobs. Chances are we will know soon enough who is actually responsible for the pipe bombs. Then we probably won’t need speculation about motive and incitement . . . though there will be no shortage of it, anyway.
As Andrew McCarthy points out, there is no evidence yet as to who did it – which doesn’t excuse the media’s double standard in covering the story. At any rate, my speculation is of no more (or less) value than what you’re seeing on the news right now.
So I’ll speculate:
Seeing that, what would YOU think?
Joe Biden attacks Trump supporters as the “Dregs of Society”:
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden assailed President Trump’s supporters during a speech Saturday at the annual Human Rights Campaign dinner in Washington, lamenting that “virulent people” and the “dregs of society” still had a friend in the White House.
Mr. Biden told an enthusiastic crowd of LGBTQ rights advocates that social conservatives at home and abroad who used religion or culture as a “license to discriminate” were committing a “crime” of prejudice.
“Despite losing in the courts and in the court of public opinion, these forces of intolerance remain determined to undermine and roll back the progress you all have made,” he argued. “This time they — not you — have an ally in the White House.
He’s speaking, of course, of a President who was supporting gay marriage and other “LGBTQ” rights long before the Obama/Biden White House felt it’d be politically worth it.
Because the key to maintaining a “Progressive” majority is whipping up and maintaining a culture of hate and fear toward the “others”.
Which are, well, pretty much me and my entire audience.
I’m on the brink of declaring…not so much a new “Berg’s Law”, but a corollary to Berg’s Seventh Law.
Something to the effect of “the more the Left’s hangers-on jabber about “Right Wing violence”, the more left wing violence will be going on.”
Oh, the media will continue to parrot the narrative, even as they occasionally, perhaps unwittingly, undercut it with some basic facts, still, the deep-down depravity of the left’s inner id is always out there.
NBC Ignores
If a conservative were to say bla blq bla that Jimmy Kimmel just bla bla bla yadda yadda:
In the place of ABC’s late-night Jimmy Kimmel: The “Man Show” Jimmy Kimmel. The only thing missing were the women on trampolines.
Kimmel took aim Thursday at the Christian proprietor of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado. For the late-night funny man, the takeaway from Jack Phillips’ refusal to bake a cake celebrating a trans person’s transition is that the cakemaker might be gay, and that he sure looks gay.
“It’s funny because this is a guy who spends all day, every day, meticulously designing flowers out of icing. His whole life is gay, OK?” Kimmel said to laughs. “I don’t know if the wrong cake might bring that to life or what.”
The late-night host turned his attention to the shop owner’s physical appearance, adding for good measure that Phillips is “the totally straight cake baker.”
“You would think that someone who looks like the Reba McEntire’s version of Col. Sanders would be more sympathetic to gender identity issues,” the host laughed.
“Progs” jabber about “right wing hate”, and then marinade their own culture in the real thing.
The most depressingly evergreen story in all of media.
When Democrats whinge about “right wing violence”…
…well, you know what comes next, don’t you?
If you read a report of a hate crime, and it doesn’t involve unrelated witnesses, much less actual physical presence (to say nothing of physical contact), assume its a hoax first, then verify.
And, on verifying, almost invariably congratulate yourself on not being fooled!
I did that with this story. And most every one like it in the past 18 months.
It’s served me well.
SCENE: Mitch BERG is mowing his lawn. He stops to clear some crud from around the blades as Avery LIBRELLE slowly walks up behind him, picking up a flattened pop cup from the sidewalk. LIBRELLE gets behind BERG and throws it at him. It catches the air and planes away from BERG, who notices the sound of it flopping to the ground.
LIBRELLE: Merg! Get the hell out of public!
BERG: (Shakes head wearily) Hey, Avery. What, now?
LIBRELLE: We’re shutting you down!
BERG: I’m mowing my lawn. On my own property. Why so violent?
LIBRELLE: Oh, yeah? What about when the Tea Partiers yelled at us progressives during the Town Hall meetings in 2009?
BERG: Individuals expressed anger – but not violence – at events intended to be public dialogues. No GOP leadership called for violence against the opposition…
LIBRELLE: I am the Resistance! I am going to attack you, because Trump is literally Hitler. So get off your lawn before I kill you!
BERG: Seems a little drastic (Resumes clearing blade).
LIBRELLE: Besides, you need to know…
BERG: You know I have surveillance cameras on my yard, and our entire interaction has been taped, right?
LIBRELLE: DON”T YOU DARE! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO TAPE ME! HOW DARE YOU! (Turns and runs).
BERG: (Shakes head, restarts mower)
And SCENE
As opposed to a legal defense fund, I mean?
Because I’d love to donate.
The Atlantic hired, and then fired, Kevin Williamson – perhaps America’s best political journalist, and one of the best interviewees I’ve ever had in a decade and a half of doing the NARN.
Andrew McCarthy has thoughts on the subject.
My thoughts?
I’ve observed for years that one of the greatest side-effects of Urban Progressive Privilege is a complete inability to “debate” anyone who’s not part of their club – because they have no concept of cognitive dissonance when it comes to politics or any area of life touched by politics (and politics touches every area of their life.
Differ with an blind date’s politics? Ghost ’em!
Differ with a fellow student’s politics? Shame them!
Disagree with a co-workers’s politics? Slander, ostracize and try to destroy them!
There are times I wonder if this isn’t the right answer.
UPDATE: Clearly, I wrote this before looking at the map. While the article makes sense, clearly the author thinks all northerners look alike. The idea of the Dakotas, Montana and Idaho siding with New England is as risible as Rebecca Otto’s candidacy.
My two cents? It’s not just two nations (Dems aren’t the only ones fighting the last war). Short of dividing up by counties (which would be much more politically accurate), I could see several options:
But again, it’s all hypothetical.
Or is it?
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Northam beat Gillespie for governor of Virginia. The New York Times notes it was a racially charged campaign and that Gillespie dragged in the Confederacy. Not one single word about the Confederate pick-up ad run for Northam. Masterful job of projection – accusing Republicans of doing something they’re not doing, while completely ignoring Democrats who actually are doing it.
Joe Doakes
Almost worth a new corollary to Berg’s Seventh Law.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Every day, new claims of sexual harassment against powerful men. Some are admitted and therefore true. Some are denied and may be true, may not be. All are possible only because powerful men spent time alone with women not their wives. Which brings us back to Vice President Mike Pence, who got a ton of grief for practicing the defensive policies necessary to avoid false claims of sexual harassment and avoid the temptation to engage in it. I assume an apology will shortly be forthcoming.
Joe Doakes
Of course it will be…
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
America was great in the 50’s.
There were no Muslims in the 50’s.
To make America great again, we must be rid of Muslims.
Trump’s MAGA hat is secret code for genocide.
Teens who wear it are brain-washed haters.
America will never be great again.
Yes, Liberals actually believe that. They saw it on MSNBC, read it on Slate and heard Nancy Pelosi say it so it must be true.
That’s why kids wearing MAGA hats is a crisis. Article quotes some Muslim soccer mom who’s threatened by the fashion fad, and rebutted by a 14-year-old kid who says “I don’t think of how my hat will offend people. That’s silly. I wear what I want because I want to,” which is the ESSENCE of freedom in America. Too bad you don’t understand it, lady.
Joe doakes
Red America is living with LIvia Soprano. cultu
I’ve told the story before; one of the most illuminating lessons I’ve ever gotten on human nature was from my 11th grade history teacher, Mr. Dudley Butts – who was perhaps the most “Big Lebowski”-ish football head coach I’ve ever met.
He’d been drafted during the Vietnam War; he was proud to point out that he’d been stationed in Washington DC, and the Viet Cong never attacked the Capitol on his watch; mission accomplished.
And he told us that during basic training, as they were doing any of the things that mimicked killing people – at the rifle range, while doing bayonet drills and hand-to-hand combat practice – the drill sergeants never referred to their targets as humans. They were always collections of not-quite-human memes; “gooks” and “charlies” and “slopes” and so on. It took him a while to realize this wasn’t just the mark of a bunch of bigots with sergeant stripes; there was a method to it. It was much easier to train people who’d spent 18 years of their lives being taught “thou shalt not kill” to kill if you taught them to kill something that wasn’t really human.
Likewise, the theory goes, it’s easier to convince people you’re right if you get them to believe that your opponent isnt’ operating from rationalism or intelligence; in short, to get them to believe they’re not really human.
I’ve personally fought this over the years by trying to get people who disagree together over a beer and a cigar and to see each other as hiuman beings rather than collections of stereotypes.
But the problem is worse than it’s ever been; Big Left actively dehumanizes conservatives, flyoverlanders, and anyone Not LIke Them.
Wanting to kill someone because of his politics is now sort of passé. So is the chilling habit of calibrating empathy for the dead on the basis of their perceived ideology. The now-fired vice president and senior legal counsel at CBS Hayley Geftman-Gold posted her feelings after the Las Vegas massacre: “I’m actually not even sympathetic bc country music fans often are Republican gun toters.”
When Bernie Sanders supporter James Hodgkinson tried to assassinate Republican legislators during a baseball practice game, and almost killed Republican majority whip Steven Scalise, MSNBC host Joy Reid seemed to all but suggest that Scalise had deserved to be killed, given his conservative politics. She tweeted: “Rep. #Scalise was shot by a white man with a violent background, and saved by a black lesbian police officer, and yet . . . ” And then she followed that outburst with a list of Scalise’s conservative agenda items, such as his vote for a GOP House bill on health care, that apparently were meant to minimize the horror of his near-death. Reid’s commentary was not unusual; the Washington Post reported recently on liberal anger that a recovering Scalise was honored by being asked to throw out the first pitch at a Washington baseball game. His opposition to Obamacare and support for the Second Amendment should evidently have disqualified him from receiving sympathy for his near-fatal shooting.
There are times when I think it’s high time this nation called a divorce lawyer. Those times are getting more and more frequent.
PS: For those who say “Hey, Republicans do it too!”? Republicans on the fringe certainly do. Republicans in the mainstream do not. Saying they do marks one as unserious. And while being serious is overrated, being unserious is rated utterly correctly.
Holler if you’ve had this argument:
YOU: So that’s what I think.
THEM: Well, some people think that’s wrong.
YOU: You’re using “some” nameless people as your credibility? Name them!
THEM: (Chasing shiny object)
Senator Diane Feinstein – who was for gun control back when it was cool, and still is – gave an “inadvertent” slip this past week during a debate on “bump stocks” that pretty well spells out what gun control (AKA “Gun Safety”, “Gun Violence Prevention”) is actually about.
Preventing crime? Preventing murders? Curbing spectacular spree crimes?
“No, he passed background checks registering for handguns and other weapons on multiple occasions,” Feinstein told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”…“Regulations aren’t going to do it,” Feinstein said on the need for a law over an ATF rule. “We need a law. It can’t be changed by another president.”
So – banning guns, accessories and types doesn’t affect crime, or save a single life.
So why have it?
“America is a gun-happy country. And I think there are many of us in growing numbers that don’t want a gun-happy country,” said DiFi.
So it’s about controlling all those other people.
Of course, this isn’t a mystery to anyone who’s followed this issue; the real enemy, to Senator Feinswine, isn’t the criminal (whose activities foster the dependence, bureaucracy and authoritarianism that keeps her in power).
It’s you – the law-abiding gun owner. You are the enemy.
The shooting in Vegas was an atrocity. But it hasn’t been 48 hours.
Until 48 hours have passed, you’re better off getting your news from the crazy lady at the bus stop than the MSM.
Given the targets, it’s every bit as likely this attack was spawned by “Punch A Nazi” entitlement as anything.
(And if it was? Watch this be the least-publicized spree killing in history. Or watch for the Big Left to blame “Punch A Nazi” on Trump)