To:  The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
From:  Mitch Berg, Presbyterian peasant
Re:  False Witness

Dear ELCA,

One of your reverends is lying through her impeccable teeth:

Your reverend keeps telling black people and Muslims that the HR288, the “Self Defense Reform Act”, is a special danger to them, because, she says, it’ll allow people to shoot people who “make them feel uncomfortable”.

It’s a lie.  Nothing more – and if you take your Ten Commandments seriously, nothing less.

The Reverend has had the truth about this matter explained to her, repeatedly.  “That hoodie / disdasha / person’s skin color made me scared” is not grounds to use lethal force in self defense¹.

Ever!

She is not “mistaken”, and she certainly isn’t telling the truth.  She is not only willfully misleading people – she’s using her clerical office to lend her lies credence.

Is this the example your clergy should be setting?

Please see to this

That is all.

(more…)

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Minneapolis is considering an ordinance requiring private landlords to accept Section 8 tenants.  This is the housing analogue of health insurance.  From the comments to the article, it appears there is much confusion about how private enterprise is affected by democratic socialism.  Let me break it down for those who need detailed explanations but have short attention spans.

 Sellers of nice things must charge enough to make a profit, else they go out of business and nobody can have nice things.  But not everybody has the same amount of money, so pricing nice things to keep the seller in business means not all customers can afford to buy nice things.  That results in unequal treatment: some get nice things and some do not. 

Unequal results are unfair.  To Liberals, this is a Law of Nature no less binding than gravity.  Society cannot tolerate unfairness.  Fairness must be imposed by making everyone equally able to afford nice things. 

 Society can achieve fairness by guaranteeing student loans, making income-adjusted forgivable loans for home ownership, subsidizing health insurance, giving away free cell phones with data plans to surf the web . . . all the nice things are then affordable by everyone, including the seller who still makes his profit.  Everyone has nice things.  Results are equal.  Life is fair.  Liberals are satisfied.

 Until it turns out that some renters can afford nice places and others cannot.  Unequal.  Unfair.  Intolerable.  Impose.  Solution: make every landlord accept Section 8.

 But Section 8 is not like the other solutions.  Section 8 is more like wage and price controls.  If you tell the seller he must accept 60% of his cost as payment in full, he cannot afford to cover his mortgage, taxes, insurance, snow plowing, yard maintenance, repairs and still have enough left over to feed himself and his family . . . he goes out of the rental business.  That’s what was happening to medical providers under Medicare, which was a big push to impose Obamacare (which is now seeing the same effect – insurance companies who can’t charge enough for their policies are dropping out of markets, which is the big push for Ryancare).  Wage and Price Controls are why Venezuelans now are starving.

 If Minneapolis adopts the proposed ordinance, some landlords will comply, some will convert their buildings to coops where members buy shares of ownership in the building to qualify for leases, and some will turn them into condos and sell the units instead of renting them.  To the extent private landlords stop renting their units, Minneapolis residents will have even less affordable rental housing than before the solution was imposed.  All renters will suffer.  But they will suffer equally, so it’s still more fair than it was.  Liberals will be satisfied. 

Liberal policies destroy Liberal values.

 Joe Doakes

Except for the whole “getting and holding power” thing.

EU top bureaucrat vows ¹ to “Break up the US” in revenge for Trump backing the Brexit.

EUROPEAN Union boss Jean-Claude Juncker this afternoon issued a jaw-dropping threat to the United States, saying he could campaign to break up the country in revenge for Donald Trump’s supportive comments about Brexit.

In an extraordinary speech the EU Commission president said he would push for Ohio and Texas to split from the rest of America if the Republican president does not change his tune and become more supportive of the EU.

Please, Herr Juncker.  Take California, New York, and DC.

[1] possibly jokingly…

Remember when loyalty oaths were a bad thing?

The Big Left in Big Academia doesn’t.

To:  The Entire Twin Cities News Media
From:  Mitch Berg, ornery peasant
Re:  The Reverend Nancy Nord Bence

Back during my brief and unlamented reporting career, I had not a few editors and producers warn me off using certain sources – the ones that had a habit of feeding them bum information.

I’m going to do the same for you today.  To wit:

On the subject of guns, the Reverend Nancy Nord Bence – the director of “Protect” Minnesota – has never made a single, substantial, original, true statement. 

Not One..

Every word in there is a key qualifier.  I don’t doubt that she makes true, substantial, original statements about other things – Lutheran theology (I’ll let you Missouri Synod people mix it up on that), her family, sports trivia, whatever.   Those are not at issue.

But on the issue of guns, gun laws, gun owners, violence statistics, then the Reverend Nord Bence and her organization have never – not once – made a single statement that is simultaneously substantial, original, and true.

She/they may have made statements that are substantial and true – like, repeating broad statistics from the Department of Justice website (before they embroider them, anyway) – but the statements aren’t original.

They may have said things that are substantial and original – like “Stand your Ground is a threat to minorities and immigrants” – but it’s not true.   It’s devoid of fact.

The Reverend may have said things that true and original – like “Ron Latz supports our agenda” – but they were not substantial contributions to the debate; they were, as lawyers say, de minimis.  

And of course, as we’ve shown in several long series of threads on the Reverend, her predecessor in the office, and their “organization”, they have a long history of saying things that are substantial but unoriginal and false; of things that are original but insubstantial and false, and of course things that are true but insubstantial and unoriginal.  That goes without saying.

But the overriding realization is that the Reverend, and her precessessor Heather Martens, and their entire organization have yet to say a single thing on Second Amendment issues hat is simultaneously all three things – original, substantial and true.

And I’ll welcome the chance to prove it to any or all of you, point by point, with or without the Reverend there to speak on her behalf. The challenge is rhetorical – she openly tells her group never to engage with dissenters, and all too many of you in the media indulge her inability to defend her largely fraudulent agenda.

But this isn’t about her.  This is about you.  You need to stop treating the Reverend and her group as a legitimate source on Second Amendment issues.

She is not.   She feeds you false information, and you – God bless you all, journos tend not to know much about the subject – run it without any serious fact-checking.

More tomorrow.

Why yes – it was ten years ago I started biking to work again.

Of course, I haven’t had ten straight years of biking.  After four years of working downtown (in easy biking distance), I followed up with a year of working someplace with a sixteen mile ride across Saint Paul, Minneapolis, Saint Louis Park and all the way to Hopkins, and then a few years where biking was just not practical.    I had a job two years ago that involved a fairly interesting ride from Saint Paul to Bloomington – but that ended after five months.

But now that I work out of my house (fingers crossed, knock wood), the time is right again.

So I got out and rode to downtown Saint Paul yesterday.

And I was surprised.  For not having ridden much in the past two years, it could have been a lot worse.  My legs actually worked the rest of the day, and when I woke up this morning.  Which was more than I could say ten years ago, when I started for the first time.

But I think I’ll give the legs a day off today…

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

A woman in Britain spoke an unpleasant truth: feminism has made women worse off.  It’s another example of Berg’s Law: Liberal Policies Destroy Liberal Values.

 She concentrates on the economic effect of women entering the labor force but that’s only the half of it.  Cutting everyone’s wages is bad, of course, but looking around various government offices, I don’t think that’s the worst thing.

 The worst thing is productivity dropped by half, as well.  More people doing less work for less money means work-produced-per-dollar remains constant which looks good on paper but is a massive disaster for management.   

 Focusing performance on time-on-task or units-per-hour is oppressive, patriarchal, and just plain no fun, especially with your co-worker said something that hurt your feelings so you simply can’t bear to work right now; or your kid is sick so you can’t come in today; or you’ll get to my project as soon as you finish texting your friend, or you are certain you have medical reasons why you can’t work even if the doctors are too stupid to figure it out.

 Throw in public sector unions and civil service rules making it impossible to fire slackers and you have a workforce that is hostile to the point of being unmanageable.

 Welcome to the Deep State.

 Joe Doakes

Orwell wasn’t wrong, and he wasn’t even all that far off time-wise.  He just got the degree a little off.

One of the pro-criminal, anti-liberty movement’s fondest conceits about guns is that “nobody needs more than <fill in a number> rounds of ammunition for self-defense”.

These, of course, are people whose only background in self-defense is watching “Law And Order”, where firing one or two shots sends the perps flying head-over-heels backwards.

In real life, of course, things are much foggier. The average cop fires seventeen rounds for every hit they score – which is great, if you’ve got 18 rounds and you’re only facing one perp.  And, movies notwithstanding, one shot doesn’t always take a perp down; with enough adrenaline, or drugs, perps have been known to kill the good guys even after they’ve been hit several times; it’s very rare for a shot to take someone down immediately – and adrenaline can carry someone up to the ragged edge of bleeding out.

Of course, some perps rely on the force of numbers.  “Home Invasions” are a particularly scary form of robbery, where multiple people, usually armed, storm a house simultaneously.  It’s usually pretty safe – for the robbers.   The shock and numbers usually cow the homeowner – or make resistance a short,, sharp, ugly thing.  Because when a homeowner only has six rounds, the only thing separating a living homeowner, a body on her kitchen floor and a couple of robbers high-tailing it across the lawn, and a dead  homeowner in a ransacked house, is blind luck.

We’re written before about cases where civilians – including chidlren – have used the AR15 to defend themselves against violent home invasions.

Thirty Chances At Life:  And I’m doing it again.

The Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the triple homicide in the 9100 block of South Clearview Drive.

Wagoner County deputies said at about 12:30 p.m., three masked intruders entered the home, which was occupied by a father his 23-year-old son.

Deputies said the son shot and killed the three intruders with an AR-15. Police said two of the intruders were juveniles and another was an adult.

Deputies said Elizabeth Rodriguez, 21, was arrested after authorities said she drove the three intruders to the Broken Arrow residence. Rodriguez was arrested on three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of first-degree burglary.

No bond has been set for Rodriguez.

The father and son were unharmed.

As we’ve noted before in this space – the people who say there’s no legitimate self-defense use for 20+ rounds in a magazine really have only the most academic possible understanding of the topic.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

A young woman who works in my building looks to be about 24 years old.  Chatty person, tell you her whole life story. Went to 2-year course for some paraprofessional thing, been working here 3 years. 

 She has student loans, of course.  She racked up credit card debt then consolidated that into another loan.  Old car was junk, bought a new one, has a car loan.  Constantly texting her friends about how tough it is, using her brand-new hand-held computer with unlimited data plan, all on convenient monthly payments.  Every month is down to the wire.  Getting married this fall, needs to save money. Moved back in with her fiancee’s parents to save on rent.  Money is tight.

 Okay, listen, I get it.  I know about stretching the budget. I worked days while I went to law school nights.  My wife and I raised three kids and that ain’t cheap.  We’ve been there.  Nothing wrong with that.

 She’s got an appointment to get Lasik surgery.  She’s tired of wearing glasses.  She wants to be to see without them.  Yes, it’s $1,000 or so but she’ll save money in the long run because she won’t be buying glasses every year.  It’s not an indulgence, it’s an investment, see?

 I bumped into her in the hall a moment ago.  She was running out to Subway to buy lunch because she doesn’t get up early enough to pack a lunch and besides, sandwiches get dried out and that’s just gross.

 Why do I feel so old, all of the sudden?

 Joe Doakes

We’ve got a generation – or part of one – that’s never really known want, and, since their Depression-era relatives are mostly gone, haven’t heard about it.

What would they know?

On the one hand, I do believe that rehabilitation makes sense; once most people get out of their 20s and 30s, the small-brain hormonal impulsiveness behind a fair portion of crime starts to fade just a bit, and long-term prisoners need something to replace that part of their lives with.

So the prison college program hignlighted on NPR earlier this week would seem to make some sense.

On the other hand, the sound bite of one of the classes:

Professor Delia Mellis teaches a modern U.S. history class and, when I arrive, 18 men dressed in green jumpsuits are discussing sexual identity politics.

“I don’t think he’s saying that; I think he’s making a distinction between it being gay acts — homosexual acts — and it being a gay identity,” one student interjects.

Mellis responds, “That’s absolutely his central idea, right?”

 

…makes it clear that retribution and revenge would seem to be part of the goal, still.

Ten years or so ago, during the heyday of the political blog, some of us – conservatives with fond memories of the punk era in music – quipped “conservatism is the new punk”.

In places like Minneapolis and Saint Paul, it’s still pretty true; conservatives and conservatism are the counterculture, the disruption, the sound of the gleeful underdog that makes the establishment froth with rage.

And life today is imitating us.

(more…)

The more I write this blog, the more I realize how prescient Berg’s Seventh Law is.

Remember when the left had their intestines tied in a knot over people open-carrying guns?

Then Trump got elected – and the rules have changed:

So I headed straight to the Capitol, but the pro-Trump event was petering out. One of the cops present told me that the MAGA march consisted of a group of about 100.

However, across the street, on the Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza-side of 17th Avenue were the left-wingers, some of them masking their faces, some not. Many of them were armed with long guns. You know, just like the “patriot” groups.

How thoughtful – they even wore brown shirts.

While I was taking photographs of them, a woman approached me and told me that the group would not be granting interviews. She gave me a flier with a statement from something called the “Redneck Revolt,” which according to the flier aims to “put the RED back in redneck.”

Yep.  There’s video.

Mark my words:  when the left says they’re worried about violence, what they’re really worried about is someone beating them to it.

As this is being published, there’s a hearing going on down at the State Office Building.

With that in mind, let’s run down the current situation for the two Second Amendment bills we’ve been following:

Deadlines And Commitments:  As of today:

• “Constitutional Carry” is pretty much dead for this session; House Public Safety passed it, but it never went to the floor, since the Senate never passed a companion bill.  It’s not been added to the House version of the Public Safety omnibus bill, since the Senate isn’t adding it.  It’s effectively over – for now.
• The Self Defense Reform bill – which, in cases of otherwise-legal self-defense, would take away a county-prosecutor’s discretion to try to send you to jail for not running as fast and as far as he thinks you should – looks like it’s in the same situation.

But it’s not.  Not quite.

Stay with me, here.

The Long Game:  At the hearings  House Public Safety Committee is going to be voting on Representative Nash’s Self-Defense Reform bill.

After which it will go to the floor for a vote.

You might way “What’s the point?  There’s no Senate companion!   It’s dead!”

And you’d be right.  For this session.

Here’s the deal; if it passes from the floor this session – the first of the biennium – it remains passed for the next session.  We don’t need to pass it in the House again for two more years, if needed.

This means we’ll have ten months to pressure the Senate into listening to the real will of the people.

What this mean:  Your job – our job – is, if not crystal clear, at least vital:

• Today – as in, today – call the members of the House Public Safety Committee.   Tell them this needs to pass.
• Before The Bill Comes To The Floor (and I’ll let you know when it does):    Call your representative.  Tell them you will not be amused if HF 238 isn’t passed.
• Before the next session:  Get on the horn with your Senator.  Their leadership just missed a golden opportunity to score a win with three whole years before their next election.  They can still do it with two years of cushion.  Don’t blow it.

Let’s get on this.

Some believe that liberals have no princples; that it’s all about power.

Well, some liberal have some principles, it’s true, and some of them aren’t about getting and keeping power.

But as Jonah Goldberg points out, it’d be a mistake to think that liberals aren’t constitutional originalists, as seen during the Gorsuch hearings (I’ll add the emphasis):

After noting a bunch of court cases that reaffirmed Roe, Feinstein went on to make an additional point: “Importantly, the dozens of cases affirming Roe are not only about precedent, they are also about a woman’s fundamental and constitutional rights.”

I’m a bit fuzzy about what she sees as the distinction between fundamental and constitutional rights, but that doesn’t matter. Clearly her bedrock belief is that the process of constitutional evolution stopped with Roe v. Wade. One might say that instead of being a 1789 originalist, she’s an originalist of 1973.

As Bill Clinton said to the intern after sitting on the couch and patting his lap, do you see what I’m getting at?

To borrow a phrase from Michelle Obama, today’s liberals weren’t really proud of America until then…

To:  The Star/Tribune
From:  Mitch Berg, Deplorable Peasant
Re:  You’re Not Even Trying To Deny It Anymore, Are You?

Dear Strib:

I’ll take the headline of this piece as a tacit – and, let’s be honest, redundant – admission that your paper isn’t so much a “journalistic” endeavor as a PR arm for the DFL.     You’re taking run of the mill dissent, and romanticizing it (using a term that should never, ever be “romanticized”).

I could say more – but that’d be pretty much bouncing the rubble, wouldn’t it?

That is all.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Scott Adams (yes, the Dilbert guy) explains why climate science doesn’t persuade him so far. 

He’ll never do lunch with NPR people again.

On Saturday, a rally at the state capitol asked Saint Paul and Ramco authorities to actually enforce the law against the spoiled children of their golf buddies.

Many people at the rally said they were concerned that not prosecuting the protesters would send the message that it’s acceptable to interrupt a peaceful event with noise and violence.

“It disturbs the heck out of me to see we’ve descended into lawlessness,” said James Brunsgaard of Hastings, who said he was sworn at and called a racist during the March 4 rally. “It disturbs me beyond belief.”

Several of the speakers expressed frustration that their event was disrupted, while recent Democratic or liberal-leaning events, like the Jan. 21 Women’s March, were not significantly disturbed.

No, let’s be honest:  we’re frustrated because while we, the good guys, will take a out permits that spell out the rules for where and when we can protest, and still get routinely shouted down and often attacked [1], groups in sync with the DFL’s agenda seem to have carte blanche to do whatever they feel like doing [2] with, as we saw on March 4 (and other instances [1]) no consequences whatsoever.

Why, it’s almost like:

1. there’s a two-tiered system of “free speech” and “justice” in the Twin Cities, and
2. they – not just the protesters, but the DFL on the official level – are trying to provoke frustration that breaks out into a fight, which will in turn confirm, finally, the left’s long-standing claim that there’s a frothing undercurrent of violence on the right just dying to erupt.  Any day now.  Honest.  Seriously.

And there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it!

Here’s the problem:  on the one hand, “democracy” can only survive while people trust government and the “justice” system to be impartial.

On the other hand, the people with the upper hand in the Twin Cities – the DFL establishment – have no interest in democracy.

[1] Attacks on conservatives that I can recall off the top of my head:

• Protesters shouted down Jeanne Kirkpatrick at the U of M in 1987.
• The shutting down of conservative speakers at Saint Thomas in the mid-2000s
• The selective enforcement of rules against protesting, ,applied with strict caprice against pro-life protesters and protesters at the Mexican Consulate, largely ignored against leftist protesters
• The riots at the RNC in 2008
• The repeated attacks on Trump supporters in Minneapolis in 2016 and, of course, this past March 4 in Saint Paul.

[2] Protesters on the left, on the other hand, got away with:

• Closing down I-35 – without a permit.
• Closing down I94 3-4 times – without a demonstration permit.
• Closing down Snelling Avenue on the closing Saturday of the MN State Fair in 2015 – without a permit
• Closing down the Green Line on the opening Sunday of the 2015 football season – without a permit.
• Staging an un-permitted protest on March 4 for precisely the reason that they issue demonstration permits in the first place – to prevent violent confrontations – without any consequences.

Kevin Williamson in National Review comes perilously close to my riff on people who think being “Moderate” is, itself, a good thing:

Bipartisanship is desirable not because the best course is likely to be found at the midpoint between two extremes: The man who drinks to excess every day is a drunk, and so is the man who does so every other day. There is no compromise between fidelity and infidelity. When presented with a good idea and a bad one, there is no point in being a little bit stupid for the sake of compromise.

Which is a lot like my saying: “Moderation for its own sake is like getting a choice between ‘being beaten to death with a baseball bat, and living a long happy life’, and compromising on a traumatic brain injury”.

But he actually has a serious point.   It is high time the GOP descended into some petty partisanship by stopping the petty graft gravy trail that funds the institutional left.

Congress should also target grants and other federal funding directed to political organizations. For example: La Raza, through its banking operations (of course it has banking operations!) has received millions of dollars in federal subsidies…the comptroller general has found routine violations of existing laws against using federal funds for political advocacy and lobbying activities. There is in fact a federal criminal law against using federal appropriations to underwrite lobbying. You will not be surprised to learn that this law — which has been on the books for nearly a century — apparently never has been enforced. “The exact parameters of this law, adopted in 1919, are not precisely known,” writes the Congressional Research Service, “as there appears never to have been an enforcement action or indictment returned based on the provision.” Time to tighten that up. Congress should also adopt a general prohibition on distributing federal settlement funds to nonprofit organizations. Billions of dollars in federal settlements have been directed to “non-victim entities” such as the Urban League and La Raza, which are fundamentally political organizations. If Republicans cannot bring themselves to act out of prudence and principle, then they at least ought to have a sense of self-preservation sufficient to stop funding campaigns against themselves.

It’s time for Republicans to stop letting our sense of fair play be used against us.

Anyway – it verges on a Berg’s Seventh Law reference; for all the left barbers about tax dollars going to support any institution of faith, an insane amount of our money goes to support the left’s religion – leftist power politics (emphasis added):

The Left has a weakness: It is dependent upon government money. It has long accepted that arrangement complacently, on the theory that its friends will generally control the government, if not always at the elected level then at the administrative and bureaucratic level. (The Left has not been wrong about that.) According to the Congressional Budget Office, about 17 percent of all federal outlays take the form of assistance to state and local governments — funds that in turn account for about a quarter of all state and local government spending. A fair portion of that money ends up simply passing through to nonprofits and politically connected contractors who provide dubious “outreach” and “development” services.

The correct term for that is “Graft”.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I’ve been bewildered that Democrats don’t care about Obamacare and Social Security running in the red. Nobody acts irrationally in their own minds. Whatever they’re doing, it makes sense to them. But how can the government run in the red forever? How will Democrats repay the debt racked up to cover it? What’s their plan?
I figured it out. They have no plan; at least, no plan beyond today. They’re like teenagers looking at the newest iPhone. “I want that, I can afford the monthly payment, I’m buying it.” They know making the minimum monthly payment doesn’t pay down the principal but they assume something will come up, maybe Daddy will give them money for their birthday. As long as the teenager can make the monthly payments, there is no problem so they need no plan.
Now that Democrats are the government, they continue to make the minimum payment on the national debt and raise the debt limit to run up more. They won’t have a problem until the minimum payment required to service the national debt cannot be covered by additional borrowing. And since the government borrows from the people it appoints to print the money (the federal reserve), there is effectively no limit to additional borrowing and therefore no problem, now, or ever.
It’s genius, really. It’s a wonder nobody in history ever thought of that plan before.
Joe Doakes

Some conservatives describe liberal economics as “governing as if unicorns will descend from the heavents to un-screw things”.  And to be honest, the unicorns make more sense.

We’re told…:

http://www.gomn.com/news/why-the-twin-cities-will-go-dark-for-an-hour-saturday-night/

To which I reply:

I normally live under a vow of darkness, picked up during my formative years during the “energy crisis”.  I’m a frugal guy – far moreso than most Minnesotans.

But my house may well have beeen visible from space.

The article on Minneapolis that I cited.

And it’s go time.  Please – join, or at least sign up for the email blasts and newsletters from, the MN Gun Owners Caucus and the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance.

Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network – America’s first grass-roots talk radio show – is on the air!

Today on the show:

• The GOP’s no good, very bad week – and the road back.
• Rob Doar Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network – America’s first grass-roots talk radio show – is on the air!

  Today on the show:

  • The MNGOP’s no good, very bad week
  • Rob Doar from MNGOPAC on the Legislative majority’s ignominious performance this past week on two vital gun bills – and what Real Minnesostans can do about it.

  Don’t forget – King Banaian is on from 9-11AM on AM1440, and Brad Carlson is normally heard on “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!

Don’t forget – King Banaian is on from 9-11AM on AM1440, and Brad Carlson is normally heard on “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!

At least one state in the upper midwest remembers who the good guys are.    NoDak governor (and husband of my high school classmate Kathy) Doug Burgum signed a “Constitutional Carry” law in North Dakota, similar to the one the MNGOP wet its pants over this week.

It’s been a frustrating week to be a Real American in Minnesota – an American who believes that law-abiding citizens should have more rights in the eyes of the law than criminals.

More on that tomorrow on the show.  Oh, yes – the show will fairly crackle with rage.

But there’s some comic relief.  Grim comic relief, under the circumstances, but relief nonetheless.

She Who Has Never Made  A Single Substantial, Original, True Statement About The Issue:  It’s been interesting seeing what the Reverend Nancy Nord Bence has rattling around her little ELCA-coiffed noggin.  This was in her email blast yesterday (emphasis added to highlight particularly comic passages by me):

I am pleased to announce that the House public safety committee omnibus bill introduced today in committee does NOT contain the Permitless Carry or Stand Your Ground bills! That was the goal of our Cure Gun Violence lobby day and rally on Tuesday—and we succeeded!

Make no mistake about it – the criminal-protection, black-victim-disarmament lobby, after spending ten times as much as the Real Americans in this past year for almost no results, obtained a victory of sorts, for now.  But they didn’t win it.   It happened due to nothing they did on their own.   Not one iota of it happened due to anything The Reverend Nancy Nord Bence’s fact-free rambling, the sanctimonious preening of the Dreamsicles, or the trunks full o Jacksons that the Bloomberg lobby spent.

No.  The GOP gave it to them.  They “won” a forfeited game.

Leadership in the Senate, apparently rendered pusillanimous via winning the majority, decided to play “protect the incumbents”, even though it’s three years ’til the election.

House leadership, hearing this, decided to play it “safe” – thus earning themselves a raft of well-deserved and impassioned primary challenges supported by a group of people…

…who, I can tell you right now, are pissed off at having their votes courted, but their policies ignored in the breach.

It was the kind of stupid error that makes being a Republican such a trying thing in this Godforsaken state.   How hard is it to dance with the ones that brung you?

But it wasn’t “Protect” MN’s f****ng win.  Those lumpen fossils and caterwauling shrews dominate their little echo chambers in Crocus Hill and Kenwood, and not a hell of a lot more.

The Lesson:  Even after years of winning, and of beating back serious challenges while in the minority, Real Americans not not relax.  We can not be complacent.  We can not trust the party for which most of us worked our asses off.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Every state issues its own driver’s license but the quality varies greatly.  TSA decided it needed a standard form of identification to screen people allowed onto airplanes.  As of next year, Minnesota’s driver’s licenses will not meet the new requirements.  A bill to upgrade them is stalled in the state legislature.

That means you won’t be able to get on an airplane using your Minnesota driver’s license.  The only other form of acceptable identification is your United States passport.  So even if you’re flying domestically – even a short hop from Minneapolis to Duluth – you must show your federal passport.

 An Internal Passport to travel within the United States.

 Your papers, bitte.  Have a nice trip, comrade.

 Joe Doakes

He’s right, you know.