Court rules that the IRS acted in bad faith, targeted Tea Party groups:

A federal appeals court spanked the IRS Tuesday, saying it has taken laws designed to protect taxpayers from the government and turned them on their head, using them to try to protect the tax agency from the very tea party groups it targeted.

The judges ordered the IRS to quickly turn over the full list of groups it targeted so that a class-action lawsuit, filed by the NorCal Tea Party Patriots, can proceed. The judges also accused the Justice Departmentlawyers, who are representing the IRS in the case, of acting in bad faith — compounding the initial targeting — by fighting the disclosure.

My greatest dream is to see those responsible frog-walked into a paddy wagon.   Like the “Clinton Indictment”, it’ll never happen – but hope is what it’s all about.

If Barack Obama had been president in the 1980s, he’d have extended the Russians a line of credit to help them forestall bankruptcy (for a while, anyway) and keep a fresh coat of paint on the Berlin Wall . He’s have opened the nation up to trade and “public-private partnerships” (by companies that agreed to play ball with the Soviets, of course).  And he’d ahve not only thrown Solidarity and the legions of the Soviets’ political prisoners under the bus, but stomped on them a few times to keep them there and out of the way, incapable of sidetracking the narrative.

Thankfully, Obama was not president.  Reagan was.

[After Reagan called the USSR an “evil empire” – how un-Obama-like can you get?], Anatoly Shcharansky was in the Gulag. (After, he would become Natan Sharansky.) He and his fellow zeks heard what Reagan had done. Had the American president really called the Soviet Union an “evil empire”? Yes. Years later, Sharansky reflected:

“It was the brightest, most glorious day. Finally a spade had been called a spade. Finally, Orwell’s Newspeak was dead. President Reagan had from that moment made it impossible for anyone in the West to continue closing their eyes to the real nature of the Soviet Union.”

Barack Obama has thrown the Castros a lifeline – which, with the demise of the USSR and the disintegration of Venezuela, their major benefactors this past fifty years, they need to avoid being put, eventually, to the pike.  He was “opened” the country (to those who will play ball with the Castros, the Castros way).

And he’s just re-upped the sentence for every human rights and liberties dissident on the island.

I’m ashamed of this president.  That’s nothing new, of course.  But it never gets easier.

To:  The Twin Cities Media
From:  Mitch Berg, Uppity Peasant
Re:  A Guide To Gun-Grabber Rhetoric

Dear Media,

When the topic turns to guns, the Second Amendment and gun control, there is so much that so many of you are groaningly misinformed about.

Now, many of you are actually doing what, 20 years ago, would have been unthinkable; going to people on the gun-rights side who know something about the issue, like Andrew Rothman and Bryan Strawser – as you write your stories.  Not all of you, but enough so that one can be satisfied the facts can be found – which is a good start.

But I think many of you are unclear on a basic, unalterable fact about the gun issue that needs to be reinforced.  I’ll emphasize it here.   Remember it in your dealings on this issue, and you will have a good head start.  I’ll give it some emphasis, so it sticks out:

The Minnesota “gun safety” movement – Heather Martens, Jane Kay, Kim Norton, Joan Peterson, singularly or as a group – has never made a statement about guns, gun rights or “gun safety” that is simultaneously original, substantial and true.  

What does that mean?

I’ve provided this little truth table to help you figure it out:

Apply this test to everything Heather Martens, Joan Peterson, Jane Kay, Nick Coleman, “Everytown” and “Moms Want Action” say; is it original, AND substantial, AND true?  Ask someone who knows the facts about the issue – Rothman, Gross, Doar, Strawser, or even lil’ ol’ me.

And you will – inevitably and without meaningful exception – find it to be an absolute truth; the “Gun Safety” lobby in this state has never, not once, said something that was true, original and substantial.

Never.

(Want to challenge me on that, gun-grabbers?   Let’s do it. In public.  Neutral turf, neutral moderator, debate rules.  I will win, you will slink from the room at best, slink from the room behind a screen of ad-homina at worst.  I’m up to the challenge.  Let’s pretend that you are, and go for it).

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Read the Old Testament.  War was constant in ancient times, tribe against tribe.

Read Medieval history.  War was constant in Medieval times, family against family.

The Treaty of Westphalia, signed in 1658, nationalized war.  From that point on, “war” could only be conducted by nations.  All other violent conflict was “crime.”

We’re still operating under that intellectual framework.  President Obama doesn’t consider terrorism to be “war” because it’s not being waged by a distinct nation.  It’s just “crime.”  That’s why he sent the FBI to investigate the Benghazi consulate bombing – to look for clues so they could prosecute the criminals who blew it up and murdered our ambassador.

At some point, we need to shed our antique notion.  Military historian William Lind theorizes war has moved into a new generation characterized by smaller groups loosely affiliated in furtherance of a long-term goal.

That’s what Belgium looks like to me.

That’s what war looks like today.

Joe doakes

The good news:  we’ll never see another World War 2 again.

The bad news:  we’ll never see another World War 2 again.

While sometimes it seems society is sliding backwards into oblivion, there are occasional bits of encouragement to be found.

The biggest one of recent years?  The Hulk Hogan lawsuit may finally kill Gawker Media.

Last week’s jury verdict awarding Hulk Hogan $115 million had onlookers predicting the death of Gawker Media, a collection of gossip and news web sites that was found to have invaded the privacy of the 80’s wrestling star by posting snippets of him in a sex tape online

It’s not a done deal – appeals, and possible requests to lower the awards, could save the most loathsome brand in American media.

But until then, the policy of this blog is to support killing the Gawker with fire.

The day Gawker finally shuts its pustulent doors, I shall throw a party.

A couple of years ago, it almost appeared as if the MinnPost – a creation of Minnesota liberals with deep pockets intended to serve as a DFL PR outlet – might do the unthinkable; engage in some responsible journalism on the issue of the Second Amendment and gun rights.

Oh, make no mistake; they did plenty of dross – the normally excellent Erik Black underwhelmed with some of his work, and let’s not talk about their “public health” angle.  But they also engaged freelance journeyman journalist Mike Cronin, who did some excellent, inquisitive, even-handed work on the subject – so much so that the MinnPost apparently stopped publishing it.

They’re back to classic form, with this bit from Kristoffer Tigue, who apparently hasn’t gotten the memo – which someone needs to pass along to him.  To wit:

Heather Martens has never, not once, said a single, original, substantive, true thing about the Second Amendment or the Gun issue.  

Just to elaborate a little, and yet as much as any journalist should need? If you use Heather Martens as a source, your credibility is shot, as it were, right out of the gate.

Just try to count all the lies, non-sequiturs and piles of complete buncombe that this article slops in front of the public.

A Steaming Pile Of Premise:  It’s hard to know where to start with this bit:

Eighteen-year-old Dae’veon has seen everything from assault rifles to handguns, and it wasn’t hard for him to find them. In fact, he’s owned several handguns, shotguns and even a submachine gun, he said. And all of it he bought without a background check, no questions asked.

Last year, Dae’veon, who agreed to talk if his last name was kept anonymous, was caught with a gun and charged with aggravated robbery.

That’s when he decided he needed to keep his head down, focus on school and try to turn his life around. But he knows if he wanted to, all he’d have to do is make a quick phone call to get another gun, he said. “It’s like going to the store to buy a pop,” he said. “You just call whoever you know that has a gun and tell them what you want to spend.”

So let’s stop and take stock, here; we’re being asked not only to believe that seventeen-year-old Dae’veon owned pistols and “assault rifles” (already illegal for juveniles) and a “submachine gun” (illegal for most everyone for about 80 years, now), but that he bought all of them (illegal for minors)..

…from “dealers” who didn’t give him a background check while carrying out acts that, as we’ve seen above, are state and federal felonies?

Why, perhaps if we passed a background check law, those dealers would have been able to gently chide young Dae’veon to wait until he was older?

Do people actually think young Dae’veon bought his little arsenal from a law-abiding citizen, much less Gander Mountain?

Earlier this month, two DFL lawmakers, Sen. Ron Latz and Rep. Dan Schoen, introduced a bill that would require background checks on all gun sales in the state, a measure supported by a number of advocacy groups and law enforcement associations, who say it could help prevent firearms from reaching the wrong hands — like those with criminal backgrounds or minors like Dae’veon. It too has received pushback from gun-rights groups.

And for good reason.  The bill is complete baked wind.  It asks us to accept two complete balderdash premises:   that criminals will follow laws, and that government will follow the rules.

Our Diligently Law-Abiding Criminal Class:  I’m going to be charitable, and assume the reporter, Mr. Tigue, just doesn’t know the issue all that well, and is reciting what he’s been told by one Bloomberg operative or another.

There are some tells, of course (emphasis added):

And yet, for all the disagreements over whether increased background checks will work, one fact is beyond dispute when it comes to guns in Minnesota. Like it or not, they are remarkably easy to acquire.

Well, no.   They’re mildly annoying to acquire if you’re a law-abiding citizen.  They may or may not be easy if you’re a criminal buying from other criminals.

Which is a distinction the gun grabbers really, really want to keep obscured.

In Minnesota, to legally buy a gun from a store requires that the purchaser be at least 18 and have a permit issued by the applicant’s county sheriff’s office — a process that also subjects the applicant to both a state and federal background check.

But here’s the wrinkle: For those who already have a permit and simply want to sell a gun to someone else, there’s no law requiring a background check.

Therein lies the problem, said Heather Martens, the executive director of Protect Minnesota, a group advocating for tightening gun laws. The lack of regulation around private gun sales makes it too easy for those who shouldn’t own guns to be able to get them, a complication that goes beyond the oft-cited issue of gun show sales.

“If you want to fill the trunk of your car with guns and drive to any street, park there and start selling guns, you can,” Martens said. “There’s no law against that.”

Remember – it’s Heather Martens.  She has never said a single substantial, original, true thing about the gun issue.  And she’s not starting today.

So while there’s no law against loading up a trunk with guns and trying to sell them,  there are laws against selling them to criminals, and minors.   If they sell a gun to someone who goes on to use it in a crime, and it gets traced back them them, there are nasty legal consequences.

You can even do it on line, if you want:

Technology has made things even easier. Many individuals also sell their guns online on websites like Armslist.com, where all people need to do is create a free account to gain access to people selling firearms all around the state.

Right.

Now let’s say you’re one of the people who sold a “submachine gun” (banned by the feds since the thirties) to a young Dae’veon (also a crime); in other words, someone who routinely commits gun-trafficking felonies.   Ron Latz’s background check bill goes into effect.

Are you suddenly going to start running background checks from the back of your car?

If you’re the guy fencing stolen pistols in the men’s room of a bar in Farmington, are you going to step outside and run a NICS check?

If you said “why, sure”, then you might be a Ron Latz voter who thinks Heather Martens makes sense.

The scourge of plastic bags has been lifted from your lives.

Now, on to solving the worst-in-the-nation achievement gap, poverty, the worst-in-Minnesota crime rate (which, in the Camden and Near North neighborhoods, is up there with Baltimore and Detroit), the sagging business climate, the eroding infrastructure (notwithstanding the staggering amounts the city has spent) and the tense racial climte.

With the bag thing out of the way, it should be a breeze.

Bear with me, here.

So how does the GOP save the party, the conservative movement, the country, and perhaps Western Civilization itself – from the Dems, from Trump, and even from themselves?

I’ve got an idea.

Assumptions:  Trump is going to get slaughtered by Hillary – but he’ll drawn a lot of “disenfranchised”, PC-weary voters from both parties; Dems who’d never dream of voting for Cruz, but find Hillary warmed-over and underwhelming.

So Here’s The Plan:  Here’s how it works:

1. The GOP should “steal” the nomination from Trump.  And they shouldn’t be even a little bit subtle about it; they should make it big, arrogant and blatant.  They should poke the bear’s gargantuan ego with big nasty sticks – the better to inflame The Donald.    They should do it, and do a big, ugly, arrogant end-zone happy dance when they do.
2. The Donald, his ego suitably affronted, will launch a “Great” third party bid – The Trump Party”, most likely.  It’ll be the best ever; Trump will bring more money to the table than Croesus himself.  By the time he’s done, nobody will care about “that loser” Cruz or “that witch” Hillary.
3. Of course, they will.  The three parties will split the vote such that nobody gets 270 electoral votes.    Oh, it’ll be close – but let’s look at the Electoral College under my scenario:

Lets assume Hillary takes Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania – none of which I consider givens, but lets be, ahem, conservative here.

Hillary comes up one electoral vote short.  Cruz, 24 shy of a win.  Trump, 247 light.

And then what?

Here’s What:  According to the Constitution, if there is no winner in the Electoral College, the House of Representatives chooses the President.

Disclaimers:  I’m not going to bet money on any of this.  Also, I’m being tongue-in-cheek as can be (which, I’m going to guess, completely escapes any left-leaning commenters and bloggers who read this.  In fact, just watch; that, I’d bet money on) .

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

SF2680 is a bill in Minnesota legislature to increase penalties for crimes motivated by Bad Thoughts.

Punishing people for how they Act is traditional American justice; but punishing people for how they Think is the crime of Heresy.

That’s not who we are.  This bill is a mistake.

Joe Doakes

By golly, you’d best not think the wrong things when you’re attacking someone, or you’re really gonna get it!

The Star/Tribune’s editorial board is a group of people, apparently in their sixties and seventies, who seem to spend their days pining away for a time when the media could say anything they want without fear of being caught out in public by people who know better.

Those days are long gone.  Only the editorial board doesn’t seem to know it, or recognize it, as shown in last week’s editorial calling for, at the least, hearings on a “universal background check” bill.

And like everyone on the institutional left, they participate – with all the grace of a German jazz band – in the left’s only real tactic on the issue of gun control; Lie First, Lie Always.

Why, it’s almost as if Heather Martens, in addition to being a State Representative, is a Strib editor…

(more…)

The Great War had made unlikely alliances since the first shots had been fired.  And in the spring of 1916, there were few stranger alliances circulating through the Entente’s halls of power than the triumvirate of William Thaw, Norman Prince and Edmund L. Gros.

The trio of Americans had all arrived in France at the start of the conflict with the motivation of aiding a beleaguered Entente, albeit with vastly different strategies.  Thaw and Prince were military dilettantes; the children of some of the most wealthy individuals in the world.  Thaw had served with the French Foreign Legion while Prince was flying with the French Air Corps.  Gros had been interested in saving lives, working as a field director for the American Field Service (AFS), a volunteer effort providing medical services to the French trenches.  Together, they had lobbied (thus far, unsuccessfully), to create an all-American volunteer air wing.

The group had much working against them.  While the Germans were pioneering airpower as a means of attack, the Entente still viewed the biplane’s principle role as observational.  And considering those lobbying for an expansion of France’s air force included one pilot, a soldier with terrible eyesight who wanted to fly, and a doctor with no military experience, the odds appeared long that the group’s proposed “Escadrille Américaine” would ever come to be.

But the French Air Department saw the propaganda value of American volunteers fighting against the Kaiser and renewing the spirit of the centuries’ old alliance between France and America.  On March 21st, 1916, what would become the Lafayette Escadrille was born.

—

The Lafayette Escadrille – yes, those are lions in the picture, the squadron’s mascots

The concept of aircraft influencing the outcome of wars was as revolutionary in 1914 as flight itself.  Orville and Wilbur Wright had only achieved heavier-than-air human flight nine years earlier.  The first commercial use of aircraft had only actually happened months before the Great War started – a brief 23 minute flight from St. Petersburg to Tampa, Florida.  And in terms of combat, the first bombs dropped by plane had no impact on the outcome of the Italo-Turkish War of 1911 – why would they now?    (more…)

Minnesota DFLers are romping and frolicking in money from the “surplus” – a misnomer referring to the billion dollars overtaxed from Minnesota’s productive class.

But more and more, the evidence shows that the “surplus” is a false positive – and that Minnesota’s productive class is choosing greener, lower-tax pastures:

Minnesota, on net, lost $1 billion of income to other states between 2013 and 2014. Specifically, the state lost $944 million in adjusted gross income reported by tax filers who moved in and out of Minnesota. This is the largest net loss of income ever reported for Minnesota, and it represents a dramatic rise from just three years ago, when the state lost $490 million.

Gotta tell you – if Wisconsin somehow manages to stay the course, the greater Hudson area is looking better and better…

“But it’s mostly retirees leaving the state!”.

Well, no (emphasis added):

While the IRS has been tracking income movement since 1992, it released a new data series last year that for the first time provides annual information on who is moving from state to state, based on age and income. These new data refute a long-held assumption that Minnesota’s income loss is primarily due to retirement.

In fact, people in their prime working years represent the largest portion of the net loss of taxpayers and income. Working-age people between 35 and 54 account for nearly 40 percent of Minnesota’s net loss of tax filers for the 2013-14 period. People between 55 and 64 — most of whom are still in the workforce — account for another 23 percent.

“But it’s just the ‘one percent’, moving to their beach houses in Coral Gables!”

Some of them certainly are; capital is mobile, and when it needs to, it moves.

But no – in fact, the biggest chunk is the part of the middle class that provides both much of the spending and many of the entrepreneurs that provide jobs for, well, everyone else:

But this isn’t just about the top 2 percent, as the governor wants people to believe.

Minnesota taxes on the middle class are still high relative to other states. Not surprisingly, Minnesota is, on net, losing this population, too. In fact, between 2011 and 2014, taxpayers earning between $100,000 and $200,000 accounted for 41 percent of the state’s net population loss.

 

Minnesota’s consistent net loss of people and income to other states poses serious challenges to the state both today and into the future. Economic growth is currently constrained by a tight labor market, which, in part, is due to the state not attracting the people with the qualifications necessary to fill today’s jobs.

The parable of the ant and the grasshopper springs to mind.

The DFLers are the grasshoppers.

Joe Doakes, de Como Park, envía un correo electrónico:

I recently vacationed in Mexico.  The shops advertised Cuban cigars.  I remember President Obama normalized relations with Cuba so Americans can now bring home Cuban cigars worth $100 for personal use.   Great, I bought a box.

Except . . . I’ve learned not to trust that guy.  Before I brought the cigars on the airplane, I did a little more checking.  Media accounts were what I remembered but Newsweek mentioned “Americans eligible to travel to Cuba” can bring home cigars.  Hang on, that’s lawyer speak, what’s that doing in the article?  What does it actually mean?  Finally found the Customs website.

If you buy Cuban cigars in Cuba, you can bring them home; if you buy Cuban cigars anywhere else, they’re still illegal.  Attempting to bring them home is smuggling, a federal crime with a whopping fine and prison time.

Typical for this President, just like his big talk about closing Gitmo, slowing the rise of oceans, gun control . . . it’s announced to great fanfare but amounts to small beer.   I left the cigars for the hotel maid in addition to the cash that I tipped her for looking after our room.  I hope she finds a use for them.

Joe Doakes

Back in 2008, when people said “Obama will be a splendid president, because constitutional lawyer”, I used to respond “a President needs to know the same about the Constitution as a good cop, or maybe a high school civics teacher.  Politicians who are lawyers like to play games with the law.  Never trust them.”

I take no pleasure from getting the last laugh.

Walter Hudson’s piece on the post-apocalyptic conservative movement.

And of course, ♫ today’s music playlist.

Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network – America’s first grass-roots talk radio show – is on the air! I will be on live from 1-3PM today!

Today on the show,

• Walter Hudson joins me to talk about the “post-apocalyptic Conservative” movement.

Don’t forget – King Banaian is on from 9-11AM on AM1440, and Brad Carlson has “The Closer” edition of the NARN Sundays from 2-3PM.

So tune in the Northern Alliance! You have so many options:

• AM1280 in the Metro
• Streaming at AM1280’s Website
• Streaming on IHeartRadio
• On Twitter (the Volume 2 show will use hashtag #narn2)
• Via my UStream video and chat channel.
• Send us an SMS text message – 651-243-0390
• Good ol’ telephone – 651-289-4488
• Podcasts are now available; for my show and for Brad’s
• And make sure you fan us on our new Facebook page!

Join us!

SCENE:  At the offices of Kornbluth Chadwick Communications – a big Democrat-leaning PR firm in Boston.   A tastefully spare room furnished in the Danish style, with a full-height window overlooking downtown Boston, includes a number of people in just-ahead-of-the-fashion-curve PR-wear.  

Hanna EPSTEIN-FAEGER, director of the firm’s political communications practice, sits at the head of a glass table and calls the meeting to order. 

EPSTEIN-FAEGER:  We’re here to find out what went wrong with the independent expenditure ad we did against Ted Cruz.  Ruth?

Ruth LOWENSTEIN-NEDZVINSKI, an assistant project manager, picks up a sleek, buttonless remote, and presses “play”

EPSTEIN-FAEGER: I think we can all agree it was brilliant.  Joshua?

Joshua-Micah KORN-FLEEBER, the ad’s producer – a slight man in a lumberjack beard wearing a “Feel The Bern” t-shirt under his hemp sports jacket, speaks up.

KORN-FLEEBER:  That’s correct, Hanna.  The ad includes all the things that we believe that the vast majority of voters respond to:  belief in the need to reinterpret the Constitution, the throbbing desire throughout the country to repeal the Second Amendment and the traditional view of marriage and remove all reference to faith from public life – and, of course, Robert Reich himself.

LOWENSTEIN-NEDSVINSKI:  Americans  love Robert Reich!\

(Entire table nods assent)

EPSTEIN-FAEGER:  And yet the focus groups, one after the other, showed that representative voters from west of the Hudson River and east of the Sierra Madre unanimously thought it was an ad for Ted Cruz?

KORN-FLEEBER:  I’m sorry.  I just don’t get it.

LOWESNSTEIN-NEDSVINSKI:  One quote from one focus group said “this is a fiendish parody of the east-coast liberal echo chamber”.

EPSTEIN-FAEGER:  The what?

LOWENSTEIN-NEDSVINSKI:  No idea.

(Muted chuckling)

EPSTAIN-FAEGER:  So – middle-Americans unanimously thought it was a pro-Cruz ad, and some thought it was a parody of how the left thinks?

(General nodding)

EPSTEIN-FAEGER:  I say it’s a blip in the data.  Let’s run it!

(Everyone nods and gathers their notebooks, phones and tablets and moves to their next meeting)

And SCENE

Teachers unions hate charter schools, and are trying (via their wholly-owned Democrat legislative caucuses) to strangle them in the crib, using absurd, pointillistic regulation to try to do what the market won’t – for example, denying funding to schools that don’t hit racial, income, and special ed goals. It’s called “anti-creaming” – as in “charter schools skim the cream off the top of the studen pool” – and it ignores two things:

1. Have they actually looked at the stats?  I don’t know about the entire country, but in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, charters already get more than their share of poor, second-language and behavioral-issue kids.
2. That said, charters do skim the cream off the top – where “cream” equals “parents that give a crap”, a demographic that crosses ethnic, income and pretty much every other line.

Beyond that, though?  The fact that so many teachers, beholden to their unions, oppose charters is a tragic lost opportunity, for students and (good) teachers:

The hostility between many teacher unions and the charter school and voucher movement is a tragedy of modern American life. What we really need is a proliferation of teacher-owned, teacher-managed cooperative educational ventures—operating either in public school buildings or in churches or in other community spaces. These coops should receive favorable regulatory and tax treatment, and give teachers the latitude to teach in an environment they control. Different coops would cater to different kinds of students, or different age groups, or offer different educational philosophies. Parents would be able to chose among many alternative programs, and teacher assessment could be something that the community would do in a much richer and holistic way—good coops would get good word of mouth

As they already do in places like the Twin Cities, with charter markets that are thriving despite the unions and DFL’s (ptr) best efforts.

PS:  Who says public, union schools don’t look out for kids’ interests better?

Asher Edelman – the “inspiration” behind Oliver Stone’s character “Gordon Gecko”, played by Michael Douglas in the move Wall Streetˆ…

…is backing Bernie Sanders.

Of course he is.

SCENE:  Mitch BERG is at a hardware store, shopping for a chainsaw sharpener, when around the corner steps Bud GUNKEL, chairman of the CD2 chapter of “Former Republicans for Ron Paul”.  

GUNKEL:  Hey, Merg.  The only way to fix the system is…

BERG:  …yeah, I heard it.  To “withhold your consent from it“.   Feel free to tell the IRS, the BATFE and the Minnesota Department of Revenue you’ve “withheld your consent”; I’m sure everyone will get a good laugh but you.

GUNKEL:  He who would trade freedom for security…

BERG:  …deserves neither.  Good Lord, Bill, do you people ever communicate in anything but the form of clichés?   I mean, do you even know what that means?

GUNKEL:  It means he who would trade liberty for security deserves…

BERG:  …neither.  Yep, I got that.  Again.  I mean, have you thought through what it means?

GUNKEL:   What are you talking about?  What else could there be?

BERG:  Here’s another quote for you; without order, prosperity is impossible.  Without prosperity, liberty is pointless.

GUNKEL:  So you’d give up…

BERG:  …no, no, no, stop right there.   Here’s a quote back atcha; without order, prosperity is impossible.

GUNKEL:  So you want to be like a herd animal…

BERG:  No.  “Order” is a very broad term!   It just means that there’s a general understanding that everyone is playing by the same rules, and that if you bring you product to market, there’ll be consequences for people who try to steal it on the way to the market, or swindle you when they get there.

“Order” can mean “a voluntary agreement that whose end of, everyone holds up”, like the anarchists say; that’s perfectly legitimate.  And it can mean full-blown Danish bureaucracy regulating the transaction, or a medieval baron making sure everyone upholds their end of the bargain for the good of his fiefdom.   And the whole American experiement was built around the idea that order should be maintained with the minimum amount of government and force possible – while allowing for the inevitability, given human nature, that some was likely to be needed at some point.

GUNKEL:  So you mean government!  Government is theft!  Nothing but!

BERG:  Sure, if you let it get out of control.  And we in the US largely have, and that’s a very valid discussion to have.  But the fact is, human nature being what it is, it’s inevitable that if the means of keeping order disappear, while 99% of the people will be just fine, there’s that 1% who’ll decide that what they want is what you got.  It can be a mugger, it can be those accursed Methodists, it can be that whole group of people over the ridge that think your ancestors stole from their ancestors, whatever.

GUNKEL:  So you’re a warvangelical?

BERG:  No – I merely observe human nature.  As I observed in my book, while the vast majority of humans are perfectly content to live and work and produce and interact peacefully, there are some that prefer to take what others produce.  It’s just easier.

GUNKEL: So  you’d give up freedom for thirteen pieces of silver?

BERG:  Wow – way to mix milieus.  Here’s another quote for you:  without prosperity, freedom is irrelevant.  If you don’t have prosperity – if you’re a hunter-gatherer or a subsistence farmer – “freedom” is a very relative thing.  You’re free to speak and worship and assemble – but you’re busy seeing to your survival from dawn to dusk, year-round, like a medieval fyrd.  Which means not only are your more abstruse freedoms irrelevant, but you have neither the time nor the energy to see to things like prosperity and order – making you ripe pickings for anyone who wants to take what you’ve worked for.  And this time you’ll have no surplus to see to your very survival!   Which is, by the way, a condition that also makes you ripe pickings for whomever would call himself your king, either against your will or, as tired and close to starvation as you are by this point, with your full consent.

GUNKEL:  So you will trade freedom for security!  Hah!

BERG:  You make it sound like a binary, black or white thing.

GUNKEL:  It is!    If you don’t have all the freedom, you have none of it!

BERG:   That’s just madness.  You say because the American people have given up some freedom, we’re no different than North Korea?

And no.  I won’t trade my freedom, all or nothing, for security – not while I have anything to say about it.   I will, as a constituent of a limited government that has a few carefully-enumerated jobs, engage some agents to keep the order we all need.  And no more.

GUNKEL:  That’s not how government works today!

BERG:  You’re telling me!  Y’see, that’s the problem with “libertarians”; they take poli-sci class absolutes and try to apply them to the real world.   So I’ll do it back atcha:  without prosperity, freedom is academic; without order, prosperity is impossible.  Therefore, without order, paradoxically, freedom is impossible.

GUNKEL:  So you say freedom is impossible?

BERG:   Nope.  I am saying that while absolute tyranny is very possible, absolute freedom cannot exist in a world where others have the “will to power” to become tyrants.

There is a trade-off; it’s the job of a free people to simultaneously see to the order that enables the prosperity that makes freedom possible, and make sure the “order” they create doesn’t become oppressive.

GUNKEL:  All involuntary order is oppressive!

BERG:  So you throw off a “government” that governs by consent of the governed…

GUNKEL:  Yes!

BERG:   And live in a world with only “gentlemens agreements” for order…

GUNKEL:  Yes!

BERG:   So that you can be conquered or killed by someone who took advantage of the fact that you have no means to see to public order?

GUNKEL:  Er…yes!  Better dead than…er…

BERG:  Naturally.

And SCENE

…it’s because of the people in this room.

Starting with the questioner, who notes what a disaster Obamacare has been to her family, but still “wants to vote Democrat”, is a great (aka terrible, depressing, enervating) start.

And of course, Hillary, whose answer to “my healthcare costs have tripled” is “my goal will be to get them down” (without further elaboration) is deeply, corrosively depressing.

No, really – that’s what she said:

And of course, the – I don’t use the term lightly – sheeple who applauded her non-answer answer.

And as of 2012, that was 51% of your neighbors.

There’s a reason I remove all poison, sleeping pills and sharp objects from the room before I write about Democrat party politics.

…it’s easier to vote than it is to check out a library book.  Than it is to buy groceries.  Than it is to cash a check, to get a prescription, or to take out a small business loan, or to adopt a child who just needs love.

Up to a quarter of death penalty cases involve some degree of prosecutorial misconduct;  prosecutors behaving badly is behind a majority of the over 130 people released from death row in the past forty years.

But how often do the prosecutors and police involved in twisting the legal system against the defendant pay?

Well, once, anyway:

Today in Texas, former prosecutor and judge Ken Anderson pled guilty tointentionally failing to disclose evidence in a case that sent an innocent man,Michael Morton, to prison for the murder of his wife. When trying the case as a prosecutor, Anderson possessed evidence that may have cleared Morton, including statements from the crime’s only eyewitness that Morton wasn’t the culprit. Anderson sat on this evidence, and then watched Morton get convicted. While Morton remained in prison for the next 25 years, Anderson’s career flourished, and he eventually became a judge.

And in exchange for railroading an innocent man, what happened?

In today’s deal, Anderson pled to criminal contempt, and will have to give up his law license, perform 500 hours of community service, and spend 10 days in jail. Anderson had already resigned in September from his position on the Texas bench.

It’s a start.

I urge you to read the whole thing.

To:  Mitch McConnell and the entire GOP Senate Caucus
From: Mitch Berg, cranky peasant
Re:  Put Up Or Shut Up

Senator McConnell,

This is the proverbial “hill to die on”.

Come back with your shield, or on it.

That is all.

Victor Davis Hanson reminds us:  If you don’t like something Trump has said, just take a deep breath…

…and remember when a Democrat inevitably said, or did, something much worse:

Trump reprehensibly has urged his supporters to physically tangle with opponents. But, after Chicago, did he emulate a presidential urge “to argue with them and get in their face!”? When Trump does his next Philadelphia rally, will he, in Obama fashion, egg on his Trumpsters with this: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. Because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.” Or maybe Trump could adapt another line from Obama and use it with his working-class white supporters, cautioning them that, instead of sitting out the election, they should say, “We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.” Or maybe Trump could try still another adaptation of a line from President Obama for those stubborn senators who favor open borders: “Those aren’t the kinds of folks who represent our core American values.”

Oh, there are many, many more.  Read ’em.

Berg’s Seventh Law is universal.

There’s going to be a rally for better safety in the Saint Paul Public School, on Tuesday, 3/22:

RALLY FOR SAFE ST. PAUL SCHOOLS

Date: March 22, 2016
Time: 5:30 P. M.
Location: 360 Colborne Street, St. Paul
Link: http://www.mapquest.com/us/mn/st-paul/55102-3228/360-colborne-st-44.930979,-93.119580
Come join us in supporting Safe Schools in St. Paul and let our school board know that we demand Safe Schools in St. Paul.  So far this year 19 St. Paul Public School employees have been injured by students and two have had to hospitalized due to serious head injuries.  Enough is enough!  We are demanding revised discipline policies for the protection of our students and staff.  Our schools need have a safe learning environment for our children and the workplace needs to be safe for our teachers and staff.
Let’s show the SPPS school board that we care about having a safe learning environment for both students and staff!  Join us on March 22, 2015 at 5:30 P. M. at St. Paul Public School Board meeting and let them know that we want Safe Schools NOW!
Tell your friends and neighbors!
Sponsored by the St. Paul Republican Party

I’m gonna be there.  I hope you will too – whether you live in St. Paul or not.  It’s everyone’s tax money going into this cesspool.