Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
I propose a new Berg’s Law.
“Socialists are frustrated people who believe that after the revolution, their worth will finally be recognized and they’ll triumphantly assume command, they won’t be purged with the rest of the kulaks, saboteurs and wreckers. About this, they are uniformly mistaken.”
Joe: Your proposal has been submitted to the Berg’s Law peer-review committee.
It has serious potentijal.
Karin Housley’s website. She’s running against Tina Smith for US Senate. She needs all the help she can get.
To describe St. Petersburg as in a state of chaos on the night of September 10th, 1917 would hardly differentiate the date from any other in the city’s post-Tsar existence. Already twice in 1917 had the capital appeared on the brink of revolution, successfully casting off Nicholas II in March and enduring a Bolshevik-inspired series of violent protests in July. In between, St. Petersburg/Petrograd had suffered from continued crippling deprivation and political dysfunction as the Provisional Government and elements of the various Soviets battled for control of the city and the country.
But for the first time in ages, St. Petersburg’s chaos came with a sense of political unity, however temporary it might be. The latest threat to the capital wasn’t monarchists or Communists, but something far more terrifyingly tangible – a massive Russian army marching to end the political battles of the Soviets and Provisional Government by removing them both and placing the empire under a military dictatorship.
Yet the narrative of the conservative and royalist Russian military attempting to crush the nation’s fledgling democracy would become only muddier as the days progressed. General Lavr Kornilov, the appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army, claimed he was acting on orders from the Provisional Government’s Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky. The Bolsheviks and some members of the Soviets claimed Kerensky was orchestrating the entire affair to bolster his position, or was trying to remove the Soviets by force. Kerensky believed it was an international conspiracy to remove him due to his leadership role within the Petrograd Soviet and leftist leanings.
It was a rorschach revolution – with all sides seeing what they wanted to believe – and a revolution Kerensky hoped to end on September 10th with a telegraph to Kornilov, dismissing him from his post with orders to return his army to their barracks. Kerensky believed he had put the issue to bed; Kornilov believed Kerensky had already been overthrown and that the telegraph had forged by revolutionaries. The stage appeared set for Russia’s third revolution in 1917.
Gen. Lavr Kornilov – the full extent of the motivations for his quasi-coup are shrouded in mystery
For an army that had experienced a near total collapse, Lavr Kornilov was a poor choice to lead it.
The debacle of the Kerensky Offensive the previous July had led to a breakdown of the Eastern Front, with Central Powers forces advancing with little to no opposition. Aleksei Brusilov, the reformist general who had been exceptionally popular with his men, had been dismissed by Kerensky following Brusilov’s insistence on the return of capital punishment for disobedient soldiers. “Only the application of capital punishment will stop the decomposition of army and will save freedom and our homeland,” Brusilov implored Kerensky. Brusilov was hardly eager to crush the Soviets – in fact, he held a number of left-leaning sympathies that further isolated him within the army, on top of his half-Polish lineage – but the old cavalry hand knew that sometimes the riding crop had be used. For his blunt assessment, Brusilov was sent into retirement and his deputy, Kornilov, was appointed in his place. (more…)
Ben Shapiro challenged prog flavor of the month Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez to a debate – something she’s never had in her “political career”.
Now, there’s no requirement that a pol debate anyone, ever – even their opponents for office, much less pundits. Of course, it can be used against you – not that it matters in a one-party town like Ocasio-Cortez’ district.
And there are so many ways to decline a debate request like this:
That’s not what Ocasio-Cortez did, though:
Asking for a debate is “like catcalling” – sexist, intrusive, unwanted, arrogant.
A response that is, itself, sexist and arrogant, and a sign of a mind that can think on no other plane than the politics of identity and outrage.
Congratuations, New York. You got another winner here. (Not that Minnesota has anything to brag about, since the equally risible Alondra Cano Alondra Cano, Ray Dehn and Keith Ellison remain in office).
SIDE NOTE: Remember when the same people who are raving about Ocasio-Cortez today were calling Sarah Palin an ignorant dumbass?
This is the sound of “the bar” in freefall.
When Democrats whinge about “right wing violence”…
…well, you know what comes next, don’t you?
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
is an imaginary conversation that could never happen in a Minnesota bureaucracy:
Colleague: Trump is an idiot. “Who knew health care could be so hard?” Moron. Single-payer is the answer and easily affordable. For example, if 3M didn’t have to pay employees’ health insurance premiums, 3M could afford to pay more taxes to buy everybody health insurance. Apply that principle across the board and Problem Solved. But Trump’s so stupid, he can’t understand simple math.
Me: Well, yes, 3M would save money on premiums. But instead of buying health insurance for its present workforce of 90,000 people, 3M would be footing the bill for all of them PLUS a bunch of presently-uninsured people. If each person’s health insurance cost the same under single-payer as it does under the present system, 3M would pay MORE in taxes than it now pays in premiums. That’s bad for profits which means bad for shareholders who buy stock in big, safe, blue-chip companies, shareholders such as pension funds. Why hammer retirees? What have you got against them?
Colleague: Unless the individual cost of health insurance under single-payer is cheaper, then it would work.
Me: Seriously? Do you also believe we’ll save $2,500 per year and be able to keep our own doctors? You’re an adult. You have a college degree. Do you really believe health care is unlike any other commodity and therefore is exempt from the laws of supply and demand? Obamacare is collapsing because it was unsustainable from the day it was enacted and everybody knew it, which is why they bragged about lying to get it passed. The costs have skyrocketed exactly as predicted. Nothing about single-payer will change that.
Colleague: It’s the Republicans’ fault that Obamacare isn’t working better, they should have fixed it when they had the chance.
Me: [Interior monologue: The guy seriously lives in fantasy land. If I push him too hard to confront the disconnect between his fantasy and the real world, he might snap. I’d better back off, give him his safe space.] Okay, dude, whatever, see you around.
Of course, this is an imaginary conversation. Could never happen in real life.
Right?
Joe Doakes
In Ramsey County?
Maybe a time or 200,000…
But only barely.
New York Governor Cuomo is popping off shots at the Bill of Rights no less than Gen. Beauregard at Fort Sumter:
The NRA accuses Cuomo of running a campaign of “selective prosecution, backroom exhortations and public threats.” It claims the government seeks to halt its defense of the Second Amendment.
“Simply put,” the NRA alleges, Cuomo and New York regulators “made it clear to banks and insurers that it is bad business in New York to do business with the NRA.
The Government of the state of New York; like the Medellin Cartel, only in cheaper suits.
Longtime friend of the Northern Alliance and this blog (and backup singer on my album) Julia Coleman has thrown her hat in the ring to run for City Council in Chanhassen.
She could use a few bucks – here’s her website.
And if you’re in Chanhassen, or anywhere in the area, she could use any other support you have to offer.
Let’s help get her into office!
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
It’s well documented that early gun control laws were enacted expressly to keep guns out of the hands of Negros, who were thought to lack either the ability or the willingness to conform their behavior to the dictates of civilized society.
Nowadays, Americans are much more enlightened. We are told Blacks are not merely equal to Whites, they are morally superior. But then how to account for this weekend’s spasm of gun violence in Chicago, which seems to have involved mostly Black youth?
Current empirical evidence appears to support the historical justification for racial restrictions on firearms ownership – Blacks are unwilling or unable to behave. Liberals take it a step farther, saying the nation’s history of slavery means Blacks should not be obligated to behave, they should get a pass for breaking the law: not arrested, not imprisoned, certainly not shot, no matter how egregious the bad behavior.
Former President George Bush labeled that attitude “the soft bigotry of low expectations” because modern Liberals and old-time Klansmen held the same view of Black behavior, differing only in whether it is justified.
And obviously, not all Blacks act badly but the numbers show they’re likely to, out of all proportion to their representation in population. That’s not proof every Black person should be denied firearms. Race isn’t conclusive. We can’t act on likelihood.
Similarly, young men aged 15-29 are most likely to develop mental illness, fail to take their meds, and listen to the voices telling them to kill. Not all young men, but disproportionately so. That’s not proof they should be denied firearms. We can’t act on likelihood.
What if we could?
Imagine a scientist could devise a fool-proof and absolutely reliable test to predict which people have a propensity toward violence. Might society desire a law to ban those people from owning weapons, similar to the way felons are barred from owning weapons? And if two identifiable groups happened to dominate the pool – say, for example Scots and Blacks – would the ban pass muster under the theory that the Constitution is not a suicide pact? Or would society lack the courage to admit the obvious – that some people are simply not capable of conforming their behavior to the dictates of civilized society and therefore for its own protection, civilized society must exclude those people from certain fundamental freedoms enjoyed by the rest?
Still don’t like it?
Now let’s talk about the Jake Laird Act. Congress is asked to give grants to reward local law enforcement who can seize personal firearms on “probable cause” which the owner can only get back after six months have passed, and after the owner proves to the court that the owner is not dangerous. It’s based on individuals, not groups, but it lets gun-hating-cops seize innocent citizens’ guns based on the slimmest rumor, gossip, undisclosed informants, and speculation, same as any search warrant application. We don’t have to imagine the government could disarm the citizenry. We’re already there.
Joe Doakes
They’re pretty sneaky.
You will practice your so-called “freedom” the way your betters decree you shall, peasant:
“Sure – indulge in your so-called freedom of speech. The authorities will have you on record”.
Hennepin County doesn’t recognize the authority of the First Amendment, much less the ‘Supreme Court”.
A new ‘Study” by Salon paints Trump, and Trump voters, as “giving up on democracy“.
And it’s all part of an ongoing effort by Blue America to tell Red America what it really thinks; “gaslighting” is the term in vogue for this phenomenon.
Which, if you look on this list of behaviors of toxic narcissist and sociopathic personalities, is a technique used by psychological abusers to dominate their abusees.
Much more later this week.
Deaths from heroin have passed deaths from firearms for the first time ever:
Opioid deaths continued to surge in 2015, surpassing 30,000 for the first time in recent history, according to CDC data released Thursday.
That marks an increase of nearly 5,000 deaths from 2014. Deaths involving powerful synthetic opiates, like fentanyl, rose by nearly 75 percent from 2014 to 2015.
Perhaps what we need are…
…wait for it…
…commonsense heroin control laws?
A friend of the blog writes:
Marxist collectivism mixed with the egalitarian charm of Rousseau.
The MN Fringe Festival is the most natural child of The Blue Blouse (Синяя блуза) theatre troupes of early USSR.
Here you will find every SJW/Artiste that suckles at the teats of state government and the Foundation Hive.
The big buzzword in this year’s prospectus is the delivery of a limited number of Juried, Curated (read pre-censored) productions
I think that’s all true – at least in directly. Because the writer is correct – it’s impossible to calculate the damage that government subsidy of art has done to, well, Art. And the Fringe Festival is often a great place to see what happens when society pays for way too many mediocre terrible artist to create too much “art”.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
While watching Family Feud with Steve Harvey, I saw commercials for the new Magnum, PI and Murphy Brown. Magnum is updated with new people but Murphy Brown drags Candace Bergin out of the nursing home, just as Roseanne is shuffling back again. What is it with 30-year-old programs?
***
So . . . are we winning?
http://abc7chicago.com/8-wounded-in-gresham-shooting;-at-least-30-shot-in-chicago-sunday/3886976/
***
This will end well.
***
A gender-neutral sorority is literally a contradiction-in-terms. The fact Harvard University can’t understand that is bewildering.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/8/5/harvard-delta-gamma-closes/
***
Why remember the number of the amendment? The number comes from a dead-letter document written by white male slave owner haters icky icky. Asking this question is like the professional responsibility exam asking whether certain conduct is a conflict under Rule 1.8 or does it fall under 1.9. Who cares? We know we have rights, that’s enough.
https://ijr.com/2018/08/1114019-percentage-americans-first-amendment/
***
The City calls it the “Summit-University” avenue but that’s just the boundary streets, those two areas have nothing in common. And this incident happened when police were called to multiple gunshots at 2:30 AM at 900 St. Anthony, which is the I-94 frontage road at about Lexington. I think we can assume the dead guy was completely innocent, just turning his life around, the usual . . . and kudos to Mayor Melvin Carter for taking a neutral approach. Nice for a change, unlike the ACLU, which jumped right in with accusations and demands.
https://www.twincities.com/2018/08/05/police-fatally-shoot-male-in-st-pauls-summit-university-area/
***
Wonderful news. The state is laundering money to the school districts for security improvements, which will free up school district money to pay for more diversity coordinators.
***
Why is it any of Congress’ business what a retailer sells? Why is Ellison involved? And if they’re serious about banning products that “glorify hatred, violence or intolerance,” then Che Guevara t-shirts should go, too. And nobody is more intolerant than Muslims, so stop selling Korans?
https://www.twincities.com/2018/08/05/amazon-removes-nazi-themed-items-after-complaints/
***
The differences between Minnesota Democrats running for Governor range from lefty to leftist to bat-shit crazy. Hard to decide, with choices like that.
Ban guns, free health care for everybody, raise taxes to spend more, what’s not to love?
There’s something for everyone.
For every major combatant in the Great War by the mid-summer of 1917, the strategy seemed obvious – wait.
The Germans had reached such a conclusion months earlier, retreating behind the Hindenberg Line while waiting for their unrestricted submarine warfare and Russian collapse to change the dynamics of the conflict. The French had just recently embraced a similar change – as the mutiny of their armies following the Nivelle Offensive brought Paris to the brink of defeat. Even Russia, now reeling from their own failed Kerensky Offensive saw the relative wisdom of simply trying to hold on and wait for the American armies in France to save the war.
In London, the strategy of patience appeared to be favored as well. The War Cabinet and David Lloyd George were ready to wait until enough tanks could be produced – and enough American “doughboys” had arrived – to restart serious offensive actions on the Western Front. But the view was far from unanimous. Field Marshal Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) continued to believe in the increasingly discredited belief that the German army was on the verge of collapse. Another offensive, Haig believed, and the Germans could potentially surrender miles of territory as they had earlier in the year. A well-timed strike in Flanders, Haig theorized, would also captured German naval bases on the Belgian coast, ending the damage Berlin’s U-boat campaign had done to British shipping.
Seemingly no one supported the concept. Flanders was notorious for fall flooding, which would be occurring within weeks of the proposed campaign. French soldiers were unreliable allies and the terrain was far from suitable for the tanks the British were willing to commit. Yet seemingly no one was willing to say no to Haig.
On July 31st, 1917, one of the grisliest campaigns of the First World War would begin in Flanders. David Lloyd George would later say that what would be known as the Third Battle of Ypres, or the Battle of Passchendaele, was a “senseless campaign” and “one of the greatest disasters of the war.”
Quagmire – Passchendaele would be defined by the endless mud
It was somewhat fitting that the Ypres would ultimately represent a turning point for the British strategy in France, for it had represented the beginnings of the static, trench warfare that defined the Great War.
The First Battle of Ypres in Flanders in October of 1914 had marked the end of the warfare of maneuvers, as both the Entente and Germany found themselves locked into battles of attrition – each side charging the other’s trench in desperate bids to break the newfound deadlock. For the cost of over 100,000 men, the combatants discovered that the hope of a war colluded by Christmas was a fantasy. (more…)
I noticed it a couple of years ago – whenever anti-gun groups trot out victim stories, one thing that never gets mentioned is the perpetrator – the person pulling trigger. You can listen to “survivors” (they almost never survived violence themselves; they’ve almost invariably hijacked the legacy of a dead relative) for hours without ever knowing that the firearms involved hadn’t levitated themselves.
There’s a reason for that; talking about perps would confirm everything the good guys have been saying about the issue, forever:
Lawful gun owners accounted for just 18 percent of gun violence, according to a recent studyconducted by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh.
Researchers analyzed 762 cases in which a gun was recovered by the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police Firearm Tracking Unit (FTU).
“Most perpetrators (79%) were carrying a gun that did not belong to them,” researchers concluded.
By the way, gun grabbers – how does that bode for “Universal background checks?”
Walter Hudson calls this the editorial cartoon of the year:
Walter’s a sharp guy.
I’ve been known to mock and taunt the likes of Sarah Jeong, Alondra Cano and Nekima Levy-Pounds for their comical take on “privilege” – including the implication that a guy driving a truck 70 hours a week out in Oil Country has “privilege” over people with elite educations and lifetime political / media sinecures.
Some might think I’m being hyperbolic, or exaggerating the moral dementia of this class of “Progressives”.
Oh, silly pollyannas. I dion’t have to exaggerate anything:
A feminist professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada recently published a book chapter documenting the myriad ways homeless men allegedly perpetuate “hegemonic masculinity” while discussing their hardships.
The book chapter, “When a Man’s Home is Not a Castle: Hegemonic Masculinity Among Men Experiencing Homelessness,” was published last Wednesday by Professor Erin Dej, in a book she co-edited on patriarchy in psychiatric wards and homeless shelters.
The goal of her research, she explains, was to “assess the ways hypermasculinity is performed among men experiencing homelessness.” And to do this, Dej interviewed 27 homeless men and spent and additional 296 hours spying on them in homeless shelters.
Up next – how lab rats are part of the patriarchy.
A couple of gun-grabber groups scheduled a protest over the weekend.
The plan was to picket the Minnesota “NRA Office”. 
On the one hand, I say “protest away”. Especially the groups involved in Saturdays plans – the David Hogg-affiliated student group, and “Survivors Lead”, a new-ish gun grabber group made up of people who found “Protect” MN too sober and rational.
But whatever side of the issue you’re on, whatever your sympathies, there was one…er, flaw with the protest plan:
Oh, not to say that one of the event’s “organizers” didn’t try to defend the plan:
And let’s be honest – when you’re in the echo chamber, all that echoing sounds pretty cool:
Thing is, what the “students” and their adult advisors wranglers had done was go out to the NRA website, and apparently find “Locations”.
And saw that Suite 200 at Spruce Tree Square was listed.
Without bothering to read the link that the office was actually the Minnesota Peace Officers Standards and Training office – specifically, an office that administers a federal program allowing retired law enforcement officers – the ones that most of your gun grabbers think should be the only ones with guns – to get carry permits. The instructors for the permits are certified by…well, the NRA.
So – is it a wonder they can’t research the law, history, statistics or current events, when they can’t even click a link to find out what’s in an office?
Thug opens fire at a “Peace” event in Titusville, Florida.
Armed citizen with a carry permit returns fire:
The shooting occurred at Isaac Campbell Park on South Street shortly after 5:20 p.m. when the shooter, whom police have not identified, returned to the park after a fistfight and began firing.
A bystander licensed to a carry a firearm then shot the shooter, who was flown to a nearby hospital with life-threatening injuries, police said.
All signs so far point toward “he did the right thing”:
After consulting with the State Attorney’s office, detectives do not expect to file charges against the bystander since his actions were within the law, according to the preliminary investigation, police said.
More, please.
Wonder why Big Left is bashing so hard on race?
Because if the Democrat party ever drops below 90% of the African American vote, they can never win another national race.
Ever.
With that in mind – Trump is making noises about sentencing reform:
Attendees described Trump’s support for the initiative as a positive development for the effort to reduce mandatory-minimum prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.
While getting a final bill to Trump would require a Senate vote and then winning House approval for the new package, a second source familiar with the meeting described it as “very successful.”
“It’s not done until it’s done, but we made a lot of progress,” the source said.
Grassley said afterward that he believes prison reform and sentencing reform can be moved in tandem.
And – unexpectedly, and I’m sure utterly unrelatedliy – we’ve got this news:
I’ve never been a Trump fan. But more and more, I get the impression that while the Democrats are playing checkers, Trump is playing crude, crass-sounding chess.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
I wonder if I can bring these to work, or if they violate the Zero Tolerance No Guns policy?
I’ll give you one guess on that…
Joe Doakes
Here’s the piece I was talking about during the show today – Shahida Arabi’s “20 Diversion Tactics Highly Manipulative Narcissists, Sociopaths And Psychopaths Use To Silence You“. Read through them and think if they apply to any major left-leaning news media you know…
It’s a pet peeve of mine; whenever someone – usually a smug little twerp who’s beein trained to think of themselves as smarter than everyone else, regardless of actual merit – starts out a soliloquy with “Actually…”, I usually want to smack them.
Hard.
So with a piece from earlier in the week from the Washington Post, by Christopher Ingraham – who is, more or less, the person I described in the first paragraph. But he’s at the WaPo, so I repeat myself.
And, er, “actually”,the article actually takes a radical departure – revealing a bit of the truth:
The study analyzed data on 221 gun homicides and 1,012 nonfatal shootings that happened in Boston between 2010 and 2014. On first glance, the numbers provided a confirmation of the depressing demographics of shooting cases: “Most gunshot victims and survivors were young minority men with prior court arraignments,” Braga and Cook found. “Most attacks occurred in circumstances where gangs or drugs played an important role.” Most occurred outdoors in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
This? In the WaPo?
It seems too good to be true. And it is exactly that, eventually.
But Ingraham thinks he’s onto something:
The results undercut the idea that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” That catchy turn of phrase is often used by gun rights supporters to emphasize the human role in gun violence rather than the gun itself.
And this revelation that “undercuts” the absolute truism – the notion that perpetrators, not hardware, is responsible for crime (emphasis added)?
Analyzing data on hundreds of shootings in Boston from 2010 to 2014, Anthony Braga of Northeastern University and Philip J. Cook of Duke University found that on a bullet-per-bullet basis, shootings committed with a large-caliber firearm are much more likely to result in a fatality than those with a smaller-caliber gun.
In other words – bigger guns are more lethal.
This is what you get from America’s most respected journalistic outlet.
No word on whether large calibers make a firearm self-animating.
Maybe that’ll be on NPR…
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