You don’t find many things that unite nearly all Americans – but the death of Charles Manson is one of them.   Other than high school kids trying to get a rise ouf of their elders, not many people – especially those that remember the utterly legitimate fear his “familiy” inflicted for a time in the late sixties – aren’t happy to see this vile chapter in history fade to a halt.

Manson predated me and my consciousness – to me, there’s always been a Charles Manson – but the attempt by “familiy” member “Squeaky” Fromme on President Ford forty-odd years ago was certainly a punctuation mark in my early understanding of the weirdness of the world (and of the US in the seventies, which was a whole ‘nother level of weird).

I did read Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi’s masterpiece on the era, including his prosecution of Manson and his family.  If you’ve never read it, do; it’s not only the best explanation of the era, but one of the best lessons on the anatomy of a prosecution you will ever find.

Of ocurse, for a brief stretch of my life, Manson wasn’t just background; he was an assignment.

Back in 1987, after Don Vogel went to Chicago, I spent some time producing the Geoff Charles show at KSTP-AM.  And Geoff was obsessed with Manson.  One of my ongoing standing assignments; land an interview with Manson.  Didn’t matter how; by phone, in person, on tape; Charles would have flown himself out to San Quentin to put the interview on tape at his own expense, IIRC.

And so I spent the next three months making at least a couple calls a month to the California Department of Corrections.  Me and everyone else, of course; “an interview with Manson” was on pretty much every media person’s wish list at the time, and we may have been one of the smaller potatoes in the bag.  But we were a persistent small potato, at least.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Canada has national health care, guaranteed free to all citizens.  Free that is, if you can get any.

Canada has so few MRI machines that patients go on a waiting list.  90% of patients get their scans within 9 months, the rest take longer.  If you only had six months to live, you wouldn’t find out in time to worry about it – you’d die waiting for a diagnosis.

But if you could get treatment, it would be free.  So that’s way better than our system in the US, right?  We should change to their system at once, right?

Joe Doakes

I’ve noticed – and I’ll put this in the form of a progressive blog comments – that “proponents of single payer healthcare conveniently omit the terrible outcomes that people get in the UK and Canada”.

Chris Coleman – Saint Paul’s utterly undistinguished three-term DFL placeholder mayor for the past 12 years, and yet again a DFL candidate for Governor – released his gun control agenda.

That it’s a monument to DFL Metrocrat entitled ignorance should come as no surprise.

But there’s a dose of the kind of hypocrisy you only find in a one-party city thrown in as well.

Ignorance Is Chris:  The first point makes sense – if you know nothing about the issue.

Requiring background checks on every gun purchased or transferred in Minnesota. There should not be different safety rules for online gun purchases vs. in-store gun purchases.

You already need to get a background check – in stores, or at a federally license dealer if you buy online.

Either Coleman is aiming for the hysteric vote, or he’s being advised by the terminally ignorant, or – and my money’s on this – both.

They Blinded Him With Pseudo-Science:  Next, a bow to the DFLers who think they love them some science because Neil DeGrasse Tyson:

Allowing scientists to do their jobs by rolling back gun lobby restrictions on studying gun violence as a public health issue. We must invest in the Minnesota Department of Health and give researchers the tools they need to help address the epidemic of gun violence.

The notion that crime is a public health issue is balderdash, postulated by that rare breed of “scientists” who start with their conclusion before the actual experiment.  Government is right to withhold funding from this non-scientific “science”.

Guilty Until Proven Guilty:  This next one almost sounds like it makes sense:

Implementing a Gun Violence Protective Order (GVPO) law to create a legal path for family and household members, and law enforcement, to temporarily remove guns and prevent new gun purchases by those who pose a risk to themselves or others.

Sounds like a good idea, especially in the wake of last week’s shooting in California.

But be careful; if this proposal skirts judicial due process, then it’s a camel’s nose under the tent.  Before long, it’ll turn into the terror watch list – any government bureaucrat will be able to put your name into the database over some of the most abstract possible definitions of “risk”.

Among Friends:  But number four?  That’s the funny one:

Requiring mandatory reporting of all lost or stolen guns because we know the sooner law enforcement can identify and recover missing firearms, the more likely we are to keep dangerous people and criminals from perpetrating gun-related crimes. States with mandatory reporting laws report 33% fewer gun-related crimes than states without these regulations.

Does that include buddies of the Mayor?

Like Melvin Carter, who had two guns stolen from his house, but never bothered to report them?  And then went on to become the next mayor of Saint Paul, in part with Mayor Coleman’s endorsement?

Then…don’t make him.

Franken might be able to shake this off if he could depend on conflicting memories. But he can’t. Because of that photo. The sex-abuse scandal is becoming, to cultural history, what Watergate was to political history. It is gigantic. It is era-defining. And among the dozens of famous people implicated in it, the Franken photo is the most damning and irrefutable evidence yet to emerge. It’s a tableau of our time. It is the photo of our moment. It’s the kind of smoking gun you couldn’t use in a Law & Order episode because it would be too blatant. It will never disappear from the national consciousness. Powered by Consider the breathtaking way each detail reinforces the horror of the others: A Hollywood celebrity who will soon be a Democratic senator is molesting a woman. While she’s asleep. And in military gear, because she’s traveling to support our troops. In a war zone. And Franken is smiling. While shamelessly posing for the photographer. How can we ever cease to be amazed and appalled by this photo? It is to the sex war what the picture of the summary execution of that Viet Cong prisoner was to the Vietnam War.

And for the future?

Democrats who just this week were saying they would no longer tolerate Bill Clinton–type behavior can prove it.

 

We are getting plenty of Clinton-era behavior.  But that’s not the same thing.

Saturation coverage of spree killings yields more spree killings:

Though we seem to be plunging ever deeper into a dark night, researchers now have a far clearer view of a key factor in the violence. A long-standing theory has matured into a body of evidence that can no longer be dismissed: The level of attention paid to mass shootings is central to why they keep happening.

The idea that some crimes might be self-spreading, like a disease, was proposed as early as 1890, when the French sociologist Gabriel Tarde labeled murders copying Jack the Ripper “suggesto-imitative assaults.” For mass shootings, the effect was well known among researchers by the early 2000s, when a wealth of information allowed forensic psychiatrist Paul E. Mullen to conclude, “These massacres are acts of mimesis, and their perpetrators are imitators.”

After Columbine, researchers discovered that spree killers (as distinct from terrorists) were seeking immortality.

Who grants immortality in our society?

How many 35 year olds today, outside of entertainment and professional sports, are more famous than Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris?

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

It doesn’t matter how hard they worked, or how much they know.  The authors of the report are not morally qualified to express an opinion: they are the wrong caste. 

Can’t wait until the sewer line stops up and they can’t find anybody to unplug it because none of the plumbers have politically correct qualifications.

Joe Doakes

When all signaling is virtue-signaling, then the signal-to-noise ratio is infinitesimal.

Join me from 1-3PM today on the NARN!

Today on the show:

• What do do about Al Feranken – and his supporters.
• Greg Joseph, on the appeals court case against Bloomington’s North Korean trash collection system.

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!

What was it, yesterday?  When I said the whole “Always believe the accuser” thing was going to go by the boards how that Al Franken (aka “The John Oliver of 2005) is in whatever “crosshairs” the media spares for liberal icons?

I’d like to say it was a parody – something too clumsy yet fiendish for The Onion.  It’s not, of course.

And I’d like to say it’s just another Metrocrat crank – but as MSNBC showed us yesterday, it’s not.

So the takeaway is “Slut-Shaming is bad” – unless you’re defending a Democrat.

Anyway – Franken apologized yesterday, in a very well-crafted statement.  But when I read this bit here…:

“But I want to say something else, too. Over the last few months, all of us—including and especially men who respect women—have been forced to take a good, hard look at our own actions and think (perhaps, shamefully, for the first time) about how those actions have affected women.

Did he just name all men as co-defendants?

That’d be quite the trick.

Joe Doakes emails from Como Park:

I had an appointment at Health Partners yesterday.  First question the receptionist asked: “Have you traveled outside the country in the last two weeks?”

Why does it matter if I went anywhere?  I live in Minnesota, home to the largest tuberculosis outbreak in the nation, centered in the Hmong population, and the largest measles outbreak in the nation, centered in the Somali population.  There’s nothing to stop somebody from Madagascar, home to the largest outbreak of antibiotic resistant plague in the world, from coming here and bringing the disease along.

I don’t need to travel outside the country to encounter deadly infectious disease.  I have free delivery, all over town.  And if I don’t like it, the Governor said I can leave.

Joe Doakes

Ayep.

News broke earlier this week that mere Minnesotans without Super Bowl tickets will be barred from the Met Council’s train lines on Super Bowl Sunday:

Metro Transit is the best way to reach downtown Minneapolis with expanded schedules on key routes for local commuters and additional schedules for Super Bowl related events. That includes unlimited fan passes ($40 for unlimited rides on all buses, light rail and North Star from January 26-Feb 4), Gameday Passes ($30 – only those holding a Gameday Pass and an official Super Bowl ticket will be able to ride the light rail on game day) and All-Day Passes ($1-5, varies by time of day and day of the week.)

Right after this, the unions representing Metro Transit staffers voted to strike…curing Super Bowl week.

So – after building a train line ostensibly to get working people to and from work (and not to serve as a monument to the perspicacity of the sitting Met Council, nosirreebob), they’re basically turning the whole shebang over to the high rollers who can get tickets (but presumably can’t afford the much preferable car rentals, cabs, Ubers, or everything else that’s preferable to riding the train if you have any options, which is pretty much everything above “camel caravan”) – just in time for another part of the racket to seize control of the toy for its’ own shakedown.

Clearly they all learned well from Zygi Wilf.

There’s a bit of a humanitarian crisis in Burma (the wonk class now call it “Myanmar”, but nobody cares, because it’s freaking Burma); the majority Buddhist population is carrying out ethnic cleansing against a small Muslim minority, with the blessing of the military (who worry about a Muslim population on the border with majority-Islamic Bangladesh).

And it’s ugly:

(Human rights activist Maung Zarni): Simply put, the military in Burma today uses what the Nazis used in the 1930s – that they have misframed the Rohingyas the way the Nazis blamed the Jewish people for everything that was wrong with the society, all the frustration and anger. So I think the military has cleverly diverted public frustration towards the Rohingya, who are completely unarmed and helpless. And they’ve been sitting ducks for the last 40 years.

More disarmed people at the mercy of their masters.   But I digress.

There are a couple of “unlikely” suspects in this crime against humanity, too.  Keep this one in mind when your dippy nephew says he’s experimenting with Buddhism because of its’ universal love for humanity:

ZARNI: Well, there is no someone else inside the country. Even Buddhist monks justify openly to the military, to the public that killing the nonbelievers, non-Buddhists, the Rohingyas does not amount to bad karma. It is not a crime.

And – “Surprisingly”, if you have not completely given into cynicism about the Mainstream Media’s take on the world – this suspect:

(NPR talking voice Kelly McEvers): And human rights groups have said that Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar, is part of the problem here. This is a woman who of course won the Nobel Peace Prize. She’s considered a champion of human rights. Yet she will not say that what’s happening to the Rohingya is ethnic cleansing. Why? Why is she not getting more involved in their case?

ZARNI: Well, you know, I’ve known her personally, and I’ve supported her for the first 15 years of my activism. And simply put, she is anti-Muslim races. She is Islamophobe. I mean, she is a big part of the problem.

Why, it’s almost as if the Nobel Peace Prize is of no value…

The whole thing is worth a read.

Any…day…now:

That’ be Al Franken  – then an Air America host – and Leanne Tweeden, a radio newswoman from Los Angeles.

Expect to see breaking news that Arne Carlson called a page “toots”, combined with demands that he resign, any moment here…

QUESTION:  Any bets on whether all the DFLers who were saying “Always trust accusers!” last month will be humming a different tune this week?

UPDATE:  Oh.

We must address sexual harassment. Reforming arbitration laws will ensure survivors can seek justice in court. https://t.co/Rmuz4gnie7

— Sen. Al Franken (@SenFranken) October 11, 2017

Indeed.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Movie weddings have a scene where the minister says “If anyone knows a reason why these people should not be married, speak now or forever hold your peace.”  Everybody gasps as a pregnant blonde stands up saying “Wait . . . you’re marrying him?  I’m carrying his baby!”  The bride bursts into tears and the father of the bride demands: “Where’s my shotgun?”

I always thought it was a dumb scene.  What if the blonde is mistaken?  Or lying?  Or a paid actress hired by a groomsman as a practical joke?  Too bad – the wedding is off, the groom is dead and Dad is going to prison.  If there was a good reason to cancel the wedding, it should have been brought up long before we were watching them stand at the altar.

The real point?:

That’s the main reason I dislike what’s happening to Roy Moore.  He might be a perv but the timing is so obviously a political dirty trick that I don’t even care if he is.  Democrats and Establishment RINOs should have brought it up long ago.  By lying in wait to ambush him, they’ve forfeit the right to demand my moral indignation.

Joe Doakes

Same with the DFL’s charges against Tony Cornish.  They may or may not have been real – quite a number of women at the Capitol

…of this interminable excrescence of self indulgence is participating in exercise to see how badly he can make me loathe him, I will say he did a spectacular job.

As we head towards another round of off year elections – including an awful lot of Democrat-controlled cities – a piece of re-usable narrative that is rapidly becoming a hallmark of the Trump age is starting to break out again; the notion that voting – or more precisely, “expecting your vote to affect anything”-  is “irrational”.– where “irrational” is defined as “your vote may not be the single vote that decides the election.

An expectation that seems, itself, a tad irrational.

Bear with me, here.

It popped up over the weekend before last on Minnesota public radio, on NPR’s syndicated “New Yorker Radio Hour”

Big Left has thrown out that particular notion in a couple of election cycles now – the idea of that voting is irrational and to the point of bizarre because one single, solitary vote it’s not the one that will determine the election. Which, if you follow it to its logical conclusion, leads to the supremely undemocratic idea that the only vote that doesn’t matter it’s the one that negates all other folks – the “vote” to overthrow democracy, consent and elections, and seize power for its oneself. Which, if you’re cynical – also supremely realistic – about Big Left, which seem to be their goal..

So far, the narrative seems to be about trying to deflect away from the idea of illegal voting. Especially if it illegal immigrants voting.

The narrative goes like this; given the irrationality of a voting, why would one risk capture, prosecution, conviction and deportation over a vote that, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t matter at all.

(Of course, it’s nearly impossible to convict anyone of illegal voting – and in the cities where illegal voting is most likely, illegal immigration is a pretty safe bet as well.

Which speaks to my theory – which is almost a Berg Law, I’ll have you know – that Big Left doesn’t even bother trying to tell the truth to its own people; the gobble up any crap that I slept in front of them. Because we all know it’s almost impossible to get arrested for voter fraud; it’s almost an unprosecutable crime, especially in any “progressive” – run jurisdiction – like Minnesota.

So there’s no need to tell all of those lavishly funded nonprofits that are busy getting out the vote, pushing to allow eagle illegal immigrants the right to vote, and to clear allA chance to win for us election integrity as “racist”. The people who run Big Left don’t believe it either.

It’s just aimed at people who take democracy, the franchise, and the notion of “government by the consent of the governed” seriously.

Glad we were able to settle that..

If you say “we don’t *dare* judge all Muslims by the activities of a few terrorists” [1], but you consider the NRA a “terrorist organization” due to the activities of “people” whose acts the NRA has done more than most to combat? I’m not going to call you irrational and illogical.
I don’t have to.
It’s a self-evident fact that doesn’t need me to state it.

(more…)

Ever wondered if the left is going to spin itself into insensibility with its recursive virtue-parsing?

The answer is very very yes.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Northam beat Gillespie for governor of Virginia.  The New York Times notes it was a racially charged campaign and that Gillespie dragged in the Confederacy.  Not one single word about the Confederate pick-up ad run for Northam.  Masterful job of projection – accusing Republicans of doing something they’re not doing, while completely ignoring  Democrats who actually are doing it.
Joe Doakes

Almost worth a new corollary to Berg’s Seventh Law.

Inflation on some key commodities over the past two decades:

Things with fairly inelastic demand that have been around forever – food and cars and the like – held fairly steady.

Technology in unregulated areas, driven by the free market’s desire to help people keep up with the technological joneses? In free fall (and that’s not even counting price per unit of performance).

Prices in areas heavily regulated by and/or dependent on government? Skyrocketing.

Questions?

“The sexual revolution morphed into the French revolution so slowly, I hardly even noticed.”

— Ed Driscoll (on Hollywood in the Weinstein era)

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Venezuela has national health care, guaranteed free to all citizens.  Free that is, if you can get any.  The hospitals have no medicine, no money, no beds available.

But if you could get treatment, it would be free.  So that’s way better than our system in the US, right?  We should change to their system at once, right?

Joe Doakes

Give ’em time.

When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

Now. [2]

(more…)

I can not be the only one to have noted the jarring irony of the LA Times’ piece, almost two weeks ago, warning against gutting freedom over ugly, but rare, outrages – can I?

The gruesome terror attack that left eight people dead on a New York City bicycle path Tuesday afternoon spotlighted a troubling reality: Society cannot safeguard itself against every dangerous eventuality.
Nevertheless, there are plenty of people who will pretend that it can — and who will tell you they know how to do it. Already, those who oppose immigration are making hay out of the fact that the attack’s perpetrator entered the country seven years ago through what’s known as the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. And President Trump pushed the discussion further into dangerous ground Wednesday when he seemed to urge that safeguards in the legal system be undercut in the name of swift vengeance. “We need quick justice and we need strong justice — much quicker and much stronger than we have right now,” Trump said.

The president’s insistence that the justice system in this country is a “joke” and a “laughingstock” built on political correctness is worrisome, given his authoritarian tendencies. The idea that constitutional protections should be gutted because Trump is upset is both legally and morally absurd.

That’s when the weapon is a car.

I’m wondering if there isn’t something about leftism that makes it impossible for people to detect logical inconsistency or irony.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Every day, new claims of sexual harassment against powerful men. Some are admitted and therefore true. Some are denied and may be true, may not be. All are possible only because powerful men spent time alone with women not their wives. Which brings us back to Vice President Mike Pence, who got a ton of grief for practicing the defensive policies necessary to avoid false claims of sexual harassment and avoid the temptation to engage in it. I assume an apology will shortly be forthcoming.

Joe Doakes

Of course it will be…

Join me from 1-3PM today on the NARN!

Today on the show:

• Sexual Harassment and Politics
• Gun control’s latest:  “Shut up”, they explained.

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!