Jeremy Joseph Christian kills two in an anti-Muslim rampage on a train in Portland, Oregon.

Word gets out that Christian was a “white supremacist”.  Media assume that means “Right Wing Pro-Trump Hate Criminal” – and brows are furrowed as our  high priests of knowledge obsess over What It All Means.

Then, it turns out Christian is actually a Sanders guy.

Writing for Willamette Week, Corey Pein said he interviewed Christian during [a “Free Speech” march in Portland], and the alleged killer chanted the n-word and threw Nazi salutes. Pein writes that amid Christian’s rants about Jews on Facebook, he expressed support for Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein for president. The Willamette Week writer describes that as a “distraction” others will seize upon as they contradict the narrative of Christian as a real white supremacist.

Simple fact – and Berg’s 19th Law has controlling legal authority, here – is that Christian was a nihilist, if you want to credit it as an actual train of thought, and apparently deeply mentally ill if you don’t.

Either way?  The mainstream media promptly lost interest.

The DFL wants to kill the budget bill and shut down the state government to…

…well, just guess why (emphasis added)?

“I am urging our DFL leader and my friend, Governor Mark Dayton, to veto the Public Safety Omnibus Bill. It is long overdue that Minnesota do the right thing and lead on this important moral issue. The language inserted at the last moment by the Republicans will make it harder for the State to grant drivers licenses to all people working in Minnesota. As an ally of Minnesota’s diverse immigrant communities, I want to bring awareness to how devestating (sic) this policy is to immigrant families throughout our state…I am sharing this letter from the DFL Latino Caucus who very movingly capture the importance of this issue to their community and the broader immigrant community here in Minnesota…

In other words, drivers license for illegal immigrants.

“But Mitch – he just said “immigrants”.  Why do you infer “illegal” into that?”

Because when the DFL refers to “immigrants”, they pretty much always mean illegals.

And why is that?

“Given demographic trends, earning the Latino vote is critical to the DFL’s future success. According to DFL Chair Ken Martin’s recent report to the DFL State Central Committee, although many other demographic groups didn’t turn out to vote in large numbers in the 2016 presidential election, Latinos in Minnesota greatly increased our voter turnout and helped keep Minnesota blue. We are the fastest-growing community of color in Minnesota, and will progressively represent a larger portion of the electorate. Signing this bill in its current form could damage the bond between immigrant communities and the DFL, and could depress Latino voter turnout in future elections.”

Bones are being thrown.

…at a level ahead of what your typical college kid learns..

…or there’s some brainwashing going on out there.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Students walked out of Pence’s speech.

“The move was not totally unexpected, since the student organization WeStaNDFor had shared their plans ahead of time. They believe that the politics Pence, the former Indiana governor who was raised Catholic, represented contradicted the Catholic social virtues Notre Dame extols.”

“Our members lived in South Bend when Mike Pence was governor,” the group said in a statement. “We know all too well how his policies endangered or caused direct harm to public education, health care, women’s rights, the environment, LGBTQ individuals, immigrants and refugees, reproductive rights, local infrastructure, the economy of our state, and more.”

Hang on – reproductive rights?  That’s Liberal code speak for “abortion” which Pence opposes but so does the Catholic Church.  Doesn’t Notre Dame oppose it, too?  Isn’t protecting innocent life a Catholic social value?

Are these kids heretics, Protestants or simply idiots?

(Ahem, Joe – might wanna pick some better comparisons – Your Pro-Life Protestant Editor)

Notre Dame used to stand for something.  It could again.  If you walk out on the Vice President of the United States during commencement, that indicates you failed to learn the values of inclusiveness, of open-minded discussion, of discovery and examination of issues from all points of view, of basic human respect AND respect for his office; it’s an insult not only to him but to this entire campus who you embarrassed.  In consequence, you don’t graduate from Notre Dame.  Take your credits someplace where that behavior is tolerated.  We’ll share your transcript same as anyone else, you can take your credits over to leftist U and get their diploma but you won’t have one with our name on it.  You failed the final exam, and there is no do-over.

Joe Doakes

If only.

Although suffice to say I will never hire any of them, if it’s my call…

I got this from a high school friend of mine..  He lives in a major city in the Southwestern US.  I’m concealing his identity for obvious reasons.

He had a close encounter with a couple bad guys over the weekend.  Or, should I say, a couple bad guys had a close encounter with him:

 

I love a happy ending.

Of course, that happy ending was brought to you by the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.

And who knows?  Maybe the two miscreants will take their close call with having their brains splattered over a granite countertop to get their “lives” back on track?

Several happy endings!

This isn’t gonna help.

To:  Senate Minority Leader Gazelka
From:  Mitch Berg, Ornery Peasant
Re:  Midcourse Correction

Senator Gazelka,

If Lori Sturdevant approves of you, you are doing something very wrong.

That is all.

David French on the wrong response to Manchester…:

Let me share with you some deeply flawed words from the editorial board of the New York Times. I do this not because the Times is alone in its sentiment but because the paragraph below is perfectly representative of the wrong approach to fighting terror. Reflecting on the Manchester bombing, the editors say this: Meanwhile, as hard as it is amid the shock and the mourning, it is important to recognize this attack for what it is: an attempt to shake Britain — and, by extension, the rest of Europe and the West — to its core, and to provoke a thirst for vengeance and a desire for absolute safety so intense, it will sweep away the most cherished democratic values and the inclusiveness of diverse societies.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447972/manchester-attack-britain-needs-vengeance-not-justice

…and the right one. 

So, Britain, ignore the New York Times. Give in to your “thirst for vengeance.” In a manner that is consistent with the laws of war and the great tradition of British arms, make an example of ISIS. Destroy terrorist safe havens with prompt, decisive force, pursue terrorists wherever they flee, and send a clear message. Terrorists have sown the wind. They will reap the whirlwind. Avenge your fallen.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447972/manchester-attack-britain-needs-vengeance-not-justice

Read the whole thing.  

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

If race is a social construct with no fixed definition but is something we do and others do to us, then why can’t a person identify as a different race?  Example, Rachel Dolezal, was the White woman who identified as Black so she could run the Seattle chapter of the NAACP.  What’s wrong with that. Apparently, asking that question is hateful.

I thought the justification for affirmative action and protection legislation was because people were being discriminated against on account of things they had no control over, such as being Black or being a woman.  But if race and gender are now self-determined, why do they need protection?  Shouldn’t those laws be repealed?

I was disappointed that neither the author nor the scholar mentioned the most brilliant transracialist of all: Godfrey Elfwick.  #wrongskin.  The struggle is real.

Dear George Orwell:  you were an optimist.

I’m just going to leave you with this story today.

Does this look scary?

I’m pretty sure it was supposed to look scary.  It’s from Channel 5, last Friday.

The Associated Press ran pretty much the same headline on their story.  If I’m feeling charitable, I’d assume the web producer at Channel 5 was too busy and under informed to change the AP’s hed.  If I”m not feeling charitable – and let’s be honest, I’m not – we can assume Channel 5’s producer shares the same myopic narrative that the AP’s writer does, and shares the same desire to inflict fear upon the audience at the thought that some Minnesota buyers might be able to buy guns without background checks.

Shiver!

Now For The Truth:  The truth is a little less scary; the BATFE has decided that Minnesota carry permits are sufficient substitute for the NICS background check; when a carry permittee – who, by definition, is over 21, has no criminal record, has passed a background check and a training course on skills and legal knowledge – buys a gun, they don’t need to get the online or phone-in background check in addition to their carry permit check.

That’s carry permittees  – of whom there are a quarter million in this state, and whose rate of criminal offense is nearly two orders of magnitude lower than the general population.

Not quite as scary-sounding when you put it that way, is it?

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

Today on the show:

• End of Session
• Memorial Day

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

I take a dim view of most social “science” – and none is dimmer than the social “science” that the partisan fringe media toss around every from time to time as a palate-cleanser for the kool-aid drinkers in their respective audiences.  You remember them – “Study shows Liberals are Smarter” or “Conservatives are happier”, usually based on some very, er ,focused reading of data from other studies that found a correlation that served the writer’s narrative.

And make no mistake about it; I do in fact disdain this sort of thing.

But sometimes, a story is too much fun not to dain…:

…while cautioning the gentle reader not to take it too, too, too seriously.

On the one hand, you support – or at least sympathize with – “Antifas”,  By Any Means Necessary, ACT UP, the Chavezistas, ALF and ELF, the people who pepper-sprayed and physically attacked a peaceful Trump rally at the MN State Capitol twice…

…but you’re mortified that Greg Gianforte pushed a reporter who’d grabbed him.

(With a nod to Walter Hudson)

SCENE: Mitch BERG is trying out a guitar at a local music shop. As he begins to fingerpick the intro to “1957 Vincent Black Lightning”, Avery LIBRELLE enters the store, sees BERG, and walks up behind him.

LIBRELLE:Merg!

BERG:  Er, hey, Avery.  What’s up?

LIBRELLE:  We know you crazy gun nuts don’t care how many children die for your so called “right to keep and bear arms” -= but why do you oppose funding for basic public health research? What are you afraid of?

BERG:  Afraid?  Nothing.    Absolutely certain of what the criminal-safetyi movement means by “science?”  Now you’re on to something.

LIBRELLE:  Why?  Afraid of science?

BERG:  Hardly.  More like “Pretty certain nothing resembling “science” will take place

Here’s a great example; this message went out yesterday:

LIBRELLE:  So?

BERG:  So?  A survey using a self-selected  group of particpants, recruited by an anti-gun group?  Real “public health”, or even sociological or demographic –  research uses random subjects from a representative population – not people cherry-picked by a constituent that’s looking for a specific result.  And a control group?  Forget about it.

That’s not “science”.  It’s not even demography.  It’s public relations and politics.   If you call it “science”, you’re misrepresenting yourself and, yes, science itself.

Oh yeah – and in the fine print of the message, it says the “researchers” will likely quote you unless the results of the “study” are under a confidentiality agreement.

This isn’t science. This barely qualifies as group slander.  Anyone putting this, or its results, out there as “science” should be charged, at least rhetorically, with malpractice.

LIBRELLE:  Check your privelege, racist.

BERG:  Naturally.

LIBRELLE:  And you need…

(BERG cranks the guitar to 11 and starts playing the intro to “Anarchy in the UK”)

(And SCENE)

In George Orwell’s “1984”, the “Ministry of Truth” had the job of keeping “what is true” updated – by erasing, and un-erasing, the past as “Ingsoc”, the party of Big Brother, needed.

It’s always good to see life imitate art, isn’t it?

Joe Doakes from Como Pak emails:

When Bill and Hillary Clinton were under investigation for their part in the Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate, Paula Jones, and Monica Lewinsky affairs, Hillary Clinton told Matt Laurer that there was nothing to the charges, they were the result of a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy working against her family.  She persisted in that lie for years, despite mounting evidence that the Clintons were not being wrongfully persecuted, but justly prosecuted.

When Islamic terrorists attacked the US Consulate in Benghazi, killing our ambassador and dragging his body through the streets, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed the killers were innocent Muslims outraged by an offensive internet video.  She persisted in that lie for years, lying to the faces of the victims’ families, despite all evidence to the contrary.

When embarrassing Democrat party e-mails were published by Wikileaks before the election, Hillary Clinton claimed Russian hackers were trying to help Trump get elected.  Democrats are still demanding an investigation into her claim and now they’ve gotten a Special Investigator appointed.

But what if the emails weren’t stolen by Russians?  What if they were given away by a disgruntled employee of the Democrat National Committee?  Specifically, what if a 27-year-old computer programmer sent 40,000 emails to Wikileaks and later was shot in the back while walking down the street in Washington, DC, a murder the police are no longer trying to solve?  There’d be nothing for the Special Investigator to investigate.

If that were true, then Hillary’s Russian hacking story would be another misdirection lie, the same pattern of misdirection lying as Hillary repeatedly has used in the past to avoid blame for the damage she’s caused.  It fits a decades-long pattern of conduct that she’s used to great success.  Why is it so hard for people to believe it’s happening again?

Because if they allow that thought into their heads, they will be forced to admit how stupidly they’ve acted for the last 30 years as they drank the Kool-aide.  Nobody wants to admit he was duped, repeatedly, and gladly. So they perish the thought and double-down on the lie.  The Russians!  The Russians!

As Hillary slinks away.  Again.

Joe Doakes

Eventually, lotically, some conspiracy theory is going to turn out not to be a theory at all.

So it was 20 years ago today that “Mmm-Bop” by “Hanson” reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

You remember it:

I was married and had three kids to take care of at the time, so I didn’t have much time to be the music snob I’d been ten years earlier.   I thought it was bubblegum – but bubblegum with enough of a groove that I couldn’t not like it, really.

And apparently I”m not the only one.

Because the Hanson brothers are doing a 25th anniversary show.

At the First Avenue.

And it’s sold out.

Q: How can you tell a gun grabber is lying?

A: They are attempting to communicate via any way, shape or form.  Verbally or non-verbally.  In any language.

John Lott on how the media – knowingly or not – inflates the gun grabbers’ numbers.  And as national carry permit reciprocity gains speed in Congress, it’s going to get worse.

And it touches on something readers of this blog knew almost a decade ago; the pro-criominal-safety lobby’s pet “think” tank is a room full of lying sacks:

The Violence Policy Center (VPC), the source of these claims, asserts that in the 10 years from May 2007 to April 2017, U.S. concealed handgun permit holders were responsible for 969 nonself-defense gun deaths (with any type of weapon, not just handguns).

We’ve dealt with the VPC and their “statistics” on this blog before, and found them to be pure garbage.  Nohitng’s changed since then:

Looking at the VPC numbers for 2016, they claim that 26 permit holders supposedly committed 29 homicides. With over 15 million permit holders nationwide last year, those deaths amount to 0.2 homicides per 100,000 permit holders.

However, there is an arrest and investigation virtually anytime a permit holder uses a handgun in a public place. Almost all of the 2016 cases are listed as pending, and most of the defendants will be acquitted on account of self-defense.

So as I noted in my 2009 piece on the swine at the VPC, they treated all ambiguous cases as cut and dried murder.  And it gets worse:

The tally of 969 deaths is the result of triple and even quadruple counting. Michigan — by far the worst state according to VPC numbers — supposedly suffered 78 homicides and 390 suicides. Supposedly, Michigan was the site of over 40 percent of all deaths attributed to permit holders.

The main problem is that pending cases are counted in the same way as convictions. The Michigan State Police report the number of pending cases and convictions each year.

But since most cases never result in a conviction and many cases can be listed as pending for two or three calendar years, this results in massive over counting.

An additional 30 cases are added in, as a result of news stories. Apparently, no effort was made to check if these cases were already accounted for in the state police reports.

A case that ends in acquittal will, therefore, be counted four times if it is covered in a news story and is pending for three years. Over the past 10 years, 17 Michigan permit holders were convicted of homicide, not 78.

That comes to 1.7 cases per year, out of 560,000 permit holders in June 2016.

Which gives permittees a homicide rate about one quarter that of the state of Minnesota, and about 1/120th the rate for Michiganders as a whole.

That’s over two orders of magnitude safer than the general public.

And yet what do  you suppose the media reports, with airtight incuriosity?

The VPC’s only “violence policy” is their policy of genocide toward the truth.

Joe Doakes from Como Pak emails:

“They couldn’t even manage a park….”

Love that

Joe Doakes

Heh.

…the DFL and its PR firm, “The Minnesota Media”, blame the upcoming government shutdown on the GOP, keep this in mind:

It’s Javier Morillo, and if you’re not constantly marinading in Minnesota politics, a) you’re lucky, and b) you may not know that Morillo is up there with Alida Messinger as the most powerful person you haven’t heard of.

He’s the “Protressive-to-a-fault” majordomo of…the SEIU?  AFSCME?  MAPE?  Oh, who cares – all government workers’ unions are pretty much the same.

Anyway – mark my words:

1. Morillo calls for “progressives” to shut down the Legislature
2.  “Progressives”, being herd animals, will do it
3. The media, being obedient servants of the class led by none other than Morillo, will do as told and bury that fact; on Almanac after the shutdown, Morillo (or the other Mini-Javis that appear in his stead) will be able to skate away from their complicity.

Just watch.

UPDATE:  MN Representative Scott Dibble is in on the act:

As is Rep Dehn, who is also running for mayor of Minneapolis, and bringing enough grandstanding to the ‘struggle” (bwahahaha) to make Betsy Hodges go “um, Ray?  Bubbie?  Dial it back a skosh?”

Five’ll get you ten this is all forgotten when the government does shut down; the GOP will be to blame as far as the media knows.

Minnesota’s anti-gun orcs – “Protect” MN, Moms Want Action, and the ELCA – are claiming victory today; the legislative session has ended without two very useful Second Amendment bills even getting to the floor.

The claims is both a lie and, sadly, disapointingly, depressingly true.

Delusions Of Vigor:  Moms Want Action came out bright and early, claiming credit, a mandate, and a groundswell of support for its “keep the cirminals safe” agenda.

It’s false of course; remember, Berg’s 19th Law states things very clearly:

“No Minnesota gun control group has ever made, nor will they ever make, a statement of fact that is simultaneously

• Substantial
• Original, and
• True

And do you think that is still the case?

Well, duh.  It’s called “Berg’s Law”, and not “Berg’s Chanting Point”, for a reason.

The “state” didn’t reject self-defense reform (AKA “Stand your Ground”) or Constitutional Carry.  Indeed, the State as a whole elected a bipartisan majority that would likely have passed Self-Defense Reform; Constitutional Carry might have needed a few more years, but then that’s how reforms happen; sometimes they take sustained effort and patience.

So “the state” rejected nothing.  Either did the Legislature.

And while Minnesota’s Real American groups fully expected Governor Dayton Flint-Smith  to veto both bills – setting up an epic talking point for the 2018 gubernatorial election – it never came to that.

Cave-In, Collapse, Abdication, Capitulation:  Minnesota’s GOP leadership – which controls both chambers of the Legislature, albeit by a razor-thin one-vote majority in the Senate – opted not to let either of the bills out of committee.

They did the governor’s job for her.  They – especially Gazelka and Limmer – gundecked both bills at the beginning of the session.

Limmer’s stated reason?  He wanted to protect his freshmen (from an election that is three and a half years away, no less).

Which makes sense, except he went full steam ahead on a bunch of abortion bills that will bring down the wrath of the leftist goddesses on them anyway!

Nobody was “protected” from anything!

So no.  Moms Want Action and “Protect” MN didn’t “win” anything (although claiming credit for other peoples’ flubs is Politics On The Cheap 101).

This is Green on Green.  An “own goal”.  A shot on our own basket.  Fratricide.

A stab in the back.

Time To Get Serious:  The MN GOP House Leadership apparently thinks that Minnesota’s shooters are toothless.   And let’s be honest; when we don’t see a direct threat to our rights right in front of us, we kind of are.  We get complacent.   We figure we’re good.

We’re not.

Michael Bloomberg is pumping seven figures into criminal-protection efforts in Minnesota alone.  The criminal-protection groups look comical, with their sanctimonious babble and their ELCA hair and their legions of constipated Crocus Hill biddies parading around their tony neighborhoods in their orange shirts pretending to care about the lives of people in The Neighborhood – and they are.  But they are building numbers, and have gotten their big-money masters to yank the Strib’s leash back into line, and as dim and iill-informed and comical as they are, they’ve got money and the biggest megaphone in the state.

All we, the little guys, have is passion, numbers and the truth.  Which isn’t enough unless we used all three, every bloody day.  Because if we’re not advancing, they are.

So call the Big Three.

And if Kurt Daudt tries to fob the blame off on the Senate, please ask  him – why does the Senate control the House’s agenda?

Two decades ago, I left the GOP in part because the GOP on the national level took Real Americans’ votes for granted.

They’re doing it again.

And I’m not going anywhere this time.

Joe Doakes from Como Pak emails:

“Many people want to be authors. They crave the adulation of fans, going to cons, signing books, being able to work in their bathrobe and getting checks in the mail. Few people really want to be writers. Writers are miserable people who spend most of their time alone, have poor relations with their families and live in other worlds because this one doesn’t work for them. But to be an author you have to be a writer first.” (Paraphrase of Lois Bujold.)

There definitely are days when I feel that way.

Joe Doakes

I’m suddenly longing for the dignified grace of Jimmy Carter.

Donald Trump called ISIS “Evil Losers” in the wake of the Arianna Grande bombing last night.

Some on the left called the appelation the illiterate interjection of a trained chimp.

Not so much, says Scott Adams, who has over the past two years proven to be the only pundit in American who actually gets Trump.  It’s part of Trump being, as Adams calls him, the Master Persuader.

He’s “branded” ISIS.  And – says Adams – it’s genius:

If you call them monsters, they like it. If you call them ISIS or ISIL they put it on a flag and wave it around. If you call them non-Muslim, it just rolls off their backs because they have Korans and stuff. Almost any other “brand” you can imagine is either inert or beneficial to Loser recruitment.

Loser is different. No one joins the Loser movement. Try at home, with your family or friends, to concoct a more effective brand poisoning than Loser. You probably can’t. Remember, your brand has to fit with future confirmation evidence. The Losers on the battlefield will continue to be losing, so the brand is engineered to get stickier over time. Your alternative idea for a brand solution has to have that quality of future confirmation too. Good luck finding a better persuasion brand.

This is not accidental. President Trump does (laugh if you will) have the best words, at least for this sort of thing. He’s proven it over and over. Just ask Jeb, Ted, and HIllary.

The whole thing is worth a read.

Be advised that there is only one acceptable DFL candidate for Governor in the upcoming race:  Minority Leader Thissen:

Speaker of the House Paul Thissen, in this AP file photo, receives a packet of orders – legislative and food delivery – from AFSCME, back when he was Speaker. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

To settle for anyone less would be a betrayal of progressive principle.

Unless Sandy Pappas runs. Then vote for her.