I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it at least once a month until “Protect” MInnesota finally gets laughed out of polite company in this state: the local gun grab group and its arious leaders – the “Reverend” Nancy Nord Bence today, Rep. Heather Martens before her – have never, not once, made a single statement about guns, gun owners, gun laws, gun crime, gun history or the use of firearms that is simultaneously

• Original
• Substantial
• True.

You get plenty of statements where one might be the case, and a few with two out of three. But never, not once, have they made or will they hit all three.

Ever.

This meme from last week is different, in that it doesn’t even get one out of three completely correct.

They’re fantasizing:

So let’s make sure the stage is set: you’re in a mass shooting, and the shooting is underway.    “Several people have already been shot”, although the writer doesn’t see fit to mention that you could be one of them very, very shortly, here.

The writer doesn’t know much about exposition.

They know less, naturally, about gun laws: when they write “you pull out your gun and rush off to be a hero”, they apparently think Taken is a documentary. For better or worse, it’s bad legal (and, likely, tactical) form to go rushing to the sound of the guns.

Shooters know this.

The “Reverend” Nancy Nord Bence apparently does not.

Of the four resolutions they list?

The shooter sees you and shoots first: you mean, they do what the shooter will likely get around to doing, anyway, given that they’re a spree killer?

Do they really think the would-be “hero” is any worse off under this scenario?

Another good samaritan shoots you by mistake: That’s right – two good guys with guns, both seeing an active shooter, shoot the wrong person. It could happen, in the same sense that Nancy Nord Bence could make a coherent point. Again – given that one is likely going to get killed by the active shooter – which they seem to keep forgetting – I’m hard-pressed to see how the “heroes” are any worse off than if neither was armed.

Police see you “running around” and shoot you anyway: If the “hero” is “running around”, they’re doing it wrong.

You, the hero, shoot an innocent bystander: It could in theory happen. And if it does, the would-be hero would be in deep trouble, if the spree killer in the room doesn’t kill him first.

Thing is, you can look long and hard and never find an example of this happening, because good guys with guns tend overwhelmingly to do the right thing.  

Indeed, except for the cops shooting the “Hero” (it’s happened), neither I nor, let’s be honest, the “Reverend” Nord Bence can think of any examples of any of those happening – certainly nowhere near as many as the heroes who’ve ended mass shootings.

Apparently the “Reverend” Nord Bence thinks it’s better to die quietly.

Why does the “Reverend” hate innocent victims?

Democrat (what else?) California (where else?) state assembly committee chairbeing  bans the use of gender-specific pronouns:

[California State Senator and Senate Judiciary Committee chair Hannah-Beth Jackson] said that new committee rules recognize California’s designation of “non-binary” as a gender. The words “he and she” will now become “what my grammar teacher would have had a heart attack over,” the senator said. The committee will use the word “they” instead, because it is gender-neutral, Jackson said.
“Basically, that’s the primary reforms and revisions to the committee rules,” she said.

Jackson also said that as the chair, she will now be known as “they,” to keep in line with “the spirit of gender neutrality for the rules of this committee.”
“So, the world is a different place. My grammar teacher’s long gone and we won’t be hearing from her,” Jackson said.

Wait.

Back up.

What was that?

She then corrected her use of the word “her.”

Of course she did.

Arizona man saves a state trooper’s life after an ambush on I-10 following a “shots fired’ radio call that led the officer to a crashed car and a mortally-injured woman:

[Arizona Department of Public Safety director Col. Frank Milstead] said as the trooper began blocking off lanes of traffic and laying out flares, he was ambushed by the suspect.
The suspect shot the trooper in the right shoulder, and was “getting the better of the trooper” in a fight that immediately followed.
Milstead said the suspect was on top of the trooper striking his head on the pavement.
According to Milstead, a man traveling westbound on I-10 with his wife in the car, pulled over to help the trooper.
The man retrieved a gun from his car and fired at the suspect after the suspect refused to stop attacking the trooper, Milstead said.
The suspect died as a result of the shooting and the man called for help using the trooper’s radio, according to Milstead.
In a news conference from the hospital where the trooper is being cared for, Milstead thanked the man who stopped to help.

If Nancy Nord Bence had her way, they’d still be scraping the trooper’s brains off the pavement.

I collect great speeches. I’ve got a whole slew of big ones; Churchill’s “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat” and the “Dunkirk” speech, Reagan’s “Shining City” and “A Time for Choosing” and the Brandenburg Gate speech, Kennedy’s “To The Moon!” and his Little Rock speech, “I Have A Dream”…

…and about a year ago, I finally got a copy of Martin Luther King’s “I’ve Been To The Mountain“, made the day before he was assassinated. And while I’ve been hearing about the speech for decades, it’s amazing to listen to. Some speeches inspire you; some make you angry; “I’ve Been To The Mountain” is a little of everything, but also draining. It is almost emotionally exhausting to listen to.

But it’s worth a listen; it’s one of the greatest speeches in American history.

It ends with an account of a near-death experience when a woman tried to stab him, years ago in New York.   

It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states, and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I’ve forgotten what those telegrams said. I’d received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I’ve forgotten what the letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I’ll never forget it. It said simply, “Dear Dr. King: I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School.” She said, “While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I am a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I’m simply writing you to say that I’m so happy that you didn’t sneeze.”
And I want to say tonight, I want to say that I am happy that I didn’t sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream. And taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. If I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been around in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can’t ride your back unless it is bent. If I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been here in 1963, when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of this nation, and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill. If I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had. If I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been down in Selma, Alabama, been in Memphis to see the community rally around those brothers and sisters who are suffering. I’m so happy that I didn’t sneeze.
And they were telling me, now it doesn’t matter now. It really doesn’t matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us, the pilot said over the public address system, “We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with the plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we’ve had the plane protected and guarded all night.”
And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord”

The whole thing is very much worth a listen.

This post originally published on MLK Day 2010.

I’m not the only one that figures that Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is setting back feminism half a decade or more:

In mere minutes, Ocasio-Cortez managed to affirm nearly every negative stereotype about the female sex, from the trope that we’re no good at math to the notion that you shouldn’t trust us with a credit card. If all you saw was her example, you’d think we’re all just emotional dreamers who need to be reined in by reality

Ocasio-Cortez is not the feminist hero most media coverage has made her out to be. If anything, her time in the spotlight has set women in politics back.

Not just women. I have a hunch after a few years of her (and Reps. Omar and Tlaib), millennials outside the safest of coastal loonie bins are going to have a harder sell to get into office as well.

…what Ashley Simpson was to “live performance”.

Last year, we talked about Minneapolis “it” restaurant Hell’s Kitchen which, after years of virtue-signaling its approval for things like mandatory #FightFor15 minimum wage hikes and compulsory sick time, had had to eliminate the equivalent of five full-time, $15/hour jobs – partly due to bad management, partly due to hikes in bottom-line expenses, and partly due to bad management encouraging the hikes to bottom line expenses.

It’s not just Minneapolis. New York City restaurants are taking it right in the blintz:

A New York City Hospitality Alliance survey of 574 restaurants showed that 75 percent of full-service restaurants reported plans to reduce employee hours this year in response to the latest mandated wage increase. Another 47 percent said they would eliminate jobs in 2019. Eighty-seven percent of respondents also said they would increase menu prices this year.
These types of cost-cutting moves coincide with a U.S. Labor Department report released last Friday showing full-service restaurants in December raised prices the most since 2011, to cover soaring labor and food costs.
“The money has to come from somewhere, and we found that unfortunately, as a result, businesses are making some really tough decisions which don’t only impact them, but have a negative impact on their workers as well as their diners, too,” said Andrew Rigie, executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, which represents restaurants and nightlife venues throughout the five boroughs.
But shaving workers’ hours and killing jobs limits restaurateurs’ ability to offer employees opportunities for growth and development. It also can kill owners hopes of offering a fine-dining experience that delivers both good food and good service.  

Let them eat platitudes!

Join Minnesota Citizen Lobbyist right here.

Soccer won.

…that if Ilhan Omar were a white, Presbyterian, Christian, humble, quiet-spoken conservative with an actual record of public service who said crap like this, I’d be mocking, taunting and condemning him – er, her, or whatever – with just as much schadenfreudy glee as I am today.

Because they’d both have it coming.

First – the rumor mill:

Rep. Omar: "Lots of Americans" agree with me that Trump is blackmailing Sen. Graham over his homosexuality pic.twitter.com/xPMAUHSLYE

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 17, 2019

I’m starting to get the feeling that whole “accepting gays” thing Democrats jabber about is just a ploy…

And, yes, there’s the whole “antisemitic” bit:

Another Omar tweet from 2012 has drawn accusations of anti-Semitism against the congresswoman, who was appointed to a seat on the House Foreign Relations Committee by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Wednesday. 
“Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel,” Omar tweeted during an Israeli military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. 

Given that the DFL is the party of intersectionality, it’s nothing she can’t fix among Democrats by declaring herself a lesbian and using it to shame any (white, Jewish, Democrat) critics that might pop up.

Which they won’t.

The only response to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

It helps when the good guy is a long-serving member of one of the world’ premiere special forces units.

A British Special Air Service (the original model for US Army’s Delta) trooper in town to train Kenyan special forces apparently intervened personally in the Nairobi hotel shooting:

Amid the carnage – orchestrated by terror group al-Shabaab – a lone SAS soldier got tooled up and went in after a request for help from Kenyan security forces, sources said.
Incredible images showed the operator in jeans, trainers and body armour storming through doors and aiding injured, his face covered by a balaclava.
He was pictured operating at the hotel alone. But he was joined in the mission by US Navy Seals, sources said.
An insider said: “UK Special Forces always run towards the sound of gunfire. He was there training and mentoring Kenyan forces when the shout went up, so they went in.
“During the operation he fired off some rounds – it’s a safe bet he hit his target – the SAS don’t miss.
“He is a long serving member of the Regiment, there is no doubt his actions saved lives.”
The incident was today declared over by Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and all the attackers “eliminated”.

It’s kind of amazing how often good guys with guns – who as luck would have it happen to be elite British soldiers – wind up involved in these sorts of stories.

It’s close to becoming a Berg’s Law: terms like “White Privilege”, “Misogyny”, “Bigotry”, “Hate” and “Mansplaining” are rarely anything more than ad homina that one can use without being accused of trafficking in a logical fallacy.

Yet.

Maybe after CNN “Legal Analyst” Areva Martin’s performance yesterday on Sirius XM’s David Webb show, we could start talking about changing that:

The embarrassing moment occurred during a discussion about experience being more important than race when determining whether or not someone is qualified for a particular job.
“I’ve chosen to cross different parts of the media world, done the work so that I’m qualified to be in each one. I never considered my color the issue, I considered my qualifications the issue,” Webb said.
“That’s a whole, another long conversation about white privilege, the things that you have the privilege of doing, that people of color don’t have the privilege of,” said Martin – who also hosts CBS’ “Face the Truth.”
A dumbfounded Webb asked, “How do I have the privilege of white privilege?”
Martin responded, “David, by virtue of being a white male you have white privilege.”
The Fox Nation host then explained that he was actually black.
“I stand corrected,” Martin said.

Of course, if Webb had been white, the proper response would have been “Ms. Martin, you’re not just illogical, you’re a bigot and get the hell off my show”.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I gave up my landline years ago. The only people who called me were telemarketers. It was nice having a cell phone, because nobody bothered me. But lately, I’ve been deluged with telemarketers robocalling recorded announcements about health insurance. This would be illegal on landlines, but for cell phones, there seem to be no rules

I’d pay extra for a cell/data service and media apps that actually kept my data private.

But I don’t suspect that’s the point…

Beto O’Rouke – flirting with the idea of running for president with all the grace of an elementary school choir singing a medley from Les Miserables – discusses his take on the Constitution.

Caveat: I did not make this up. Emphasis added by me.

“I’m hesitant to answer it because I really feel like it deserves its due, and I don’t want to give you a — actually, just selfishly, I don’t want a sound bite of it reported, but, yeah, I think that’s the question of the moment: Does this still work?” O’Rourke said. “Can an empire like ours with military presence in over 170 countries around the globe, with trading relationships . . . and security agreements in every continent, can it still be managed by the same principles that were set down 230-plus years ago?”

More and more, I’m starting to believe those who do believe we can, and must, govern ourselves by those principles should seek an amicable divorce from those who can’t.

…is that you can be a corrosive, giggly bigot, and nobody will ever, ever call you on it.

I add the emphasis:

MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle implied without evidence Tuesday that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) has something to hide and the president is blackmailing him over it.
Graham has become one of the President Donald Trump’s staunchest allies in the Senate, although he has criticized him for some key decisions, such as the military pullout from Syria. Ruhle seemed to imply there’s more to their relationship than politics, however, during a discussion about Graham with former Rep. David Jolly and professor Eddie Glaude.
“Before Don got elected, Lindsey Graham called Donald Trump a racist, xenophobic bigot. Those are Lindsey Graham’s words,” Jolly said. “I doubt Lindsey Graham could tell you Donald Trump has had a change of heart in the last 24 months, I bet the change of heart has been with Lindsey Graham, not the president.”
“Or it could be that Donald Trump or somebody knows something pretty extreme about Lindsey Graham,” Ruhle replied. “We’re gonna have to leave it there.”
The smirk Ruhle produced when she spoke suggests she was referring to rumors about Graham’s sexuality, which some Democrats have been trumpeting anew recently. Jon Cooper, chairman of the Democratic Coalition super PAC, explicitly accused Graham on Saturday of letting himself be blackmailed for “some pretty serious kink.”

Did I say “Nice thing?”

I meant “horrible, Orwellian, evil” thing.

Let’s talk social fashion in the mainstream media.

Out: “Violent Home Invader”

In: “Unwanted house visitor”.

No, I’m not making this up:

Rape is “a bad first impression”, too.

The Metrocrats dropped “House File 8” (HF8) this past week. The bill will institute “Universal Background Checks” for all firearms transfers in Minnesota.

The bill:

• Expands background checks to all firearms. Current law requires the for pistols and “assaault weapons”.
• Raises the age to purchase a firearm to 21.
• A permit to purchase is good for one firearm, and expires immediately. They are currently valid for a year. And you’d need to get one to possess or receive any firearm at all, and it includes transfers between private parties. We’ll come back to this part.
• A permit to carry is no longer usable as a permit to purchase or transfer.
• Chiefs of police will no longer be able to process transfers.
• All private party transfers are covered; you’ll need to get a background check. Even/especially if you’re a straw buyer!
• Getting rid of all exemptions in current law.

Anyone notice what that third bullet does?

Every legal transfer includes a background check.

For making those checks useful in tracing crime weapons, they need to keep those on record.

And in IT, we have a term for “pieces of data that contain pointers to new pieces of data”. That term is “database”. HF8 would create a registry of guns in Minnesota – or at least of the guns owned by law-abiding citizens.

This is today’s DFL.

If you’re not a member of the MN Gun Owners Caucus, you need to be.

It was thirty years ago today Ronald Reagan gave his farewell address after two of the most defining terms in 20th Century politics.

And while he was his usual upbeat self, he had a question and challenge for Americans – one that may have seemed abstract-ish back then…:

But for all of his optimism, Reagan did leave his audience with one clear warning for the future. He said the country needed “an informed patriotism.” He greatly feared that we were not doing enough to foster it.
“Are we doing a good-enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world?” Reagan bluntly asked.
When he was young, the nation’s youth “were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American,” he noted. “And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions.” Young people learned those lessons from family, in classrooms, and through popular culture.

…in a way that seems definitely concrete as hell today.

And I don’t think that’s been remotely accidental. If mainstream America doesn’t know what it’s got, how will it know how / whether to defend it? What, indeed, to defend it from?

A generation of our “best and brightest” are being raised in an academy that actively disparages the values Reagan espoused. The lowest form of life on the intersectional pecking order is “the conservative supporter of the American tradition”.

Is there any hope?

This’ll be a big topic this weekend on the show.

But Minneapolis is building one around the Cedar Riverside Apartments anyway.

Weird.

(H/T – a friend of the blog)

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, self-described champion of the working person, fudged her workman’s comp for her own campaign employees.

That’s OK, there really are two different sets of rules out there, and nobody is going to make modern Progressivism’s “It Girl” accountable for anything of the sort.

But the rest of the world? That’s another story.

The restaurant at which the Congresswoman tended bar closed last August. And there, the story deepens – if you work for a living in the Bronx:

Interestingly, the progressive congresswoman bemoaned in August the closing of a restaurant where she was previously employed — however, the restaurant cited an Ocasio Cortez-endorsed policy as a partial reason for its closure.
“The times have changed in our industry. The rents are very high and now the minimum wage is going up and we have a huge number of employees,” one of restaurant’s co-founders said at the time.
“Ocasio-Cortez’s desired ‘living wage’ of $15 an hour has been a living hell for many small business owners in New York, who’ve been unable to offset the cost through higher prices,” Employment Policies Institute Managing Director Michael Saltsman said in response to the closure. “It’s fine to mourn the impending closure of your former employer — it’s better to understand the misguided minimum-wage mandates that contributed to that closure.”

That would require actual critical analysis on Ocasio Cortez’ part…

…heh. I slay me.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

You are the supervisor hiring a new employee.  HR tells you that if the group of eligible candidates contains a woman, you must give her preference over the other candidates.  They send you five candidates, one of which is a woman.  You hire the woman.
Next job opening, same thing. You hire the woman.  And the next.  And the next.  And the next.  There’s always a woman in the candidate pool, and you’re always required to give her preference.  Eventually, your entire workforce will be women.  It’s a mathematical certainty.
Now see Minn. Stat. 480B.01, the balance of sexes in law school enrollment and in the ranks of County Attorney and Public Defender from which many judicial appointments are made, and the history of actual judicial appointments during the Dayton administration.  Now project the trend line to see where we’re headed.  Eventually, all of Minnesota’s judges will be women.  It’s a mathematical certainty.
Here’s the big question: is that wise?

Given that before long 2/3 of college students will be female, that’s pretty much the mathematical certainty for all non-blue-collar jobs.

Stop on out to The Outpost in Ramsey. My band “Elephant in the Room” is playing from 9PM-1AM.

And it should be a fun night!

The Outpost is on Highway 10, about 100 yards west of Anoka, juuuuust inside the city of Ramsey.

Come on out!

Black transgender Minneapolis City Councilor was chastised by a barista at a southside coffee shop. The barista, who apparently didn’t know his place on the intersectional plantation, was sacked.

A friend of the blog writes, quoting the Strib  article:

“My intent is to help them and the broader community understand each other’s roles and how to be better community members.”
But, don’t take time to understand the new barista and what he might have thought. Don’t take any moment at all. Just fire him. That’ll make him understand his role..

Intersectional gobbledigook and virtue-defense follows in the Strib article.

I get the intended sarcasm – but yes. It did convey the role, if not of the barista, then of every other person living and working in Minneapolis. “For the encouragement of the others”.

To: Senator Scott Jensen
From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous Peasant
Re: Quitcherbeefin’.

Senator Jensen,

Back in 2016, you ran as a gun-friendly candidate. You gladly accepted the endorsement of the MN Gun Owners PAC.

And then you turned around in the 2018 session, when Everytown for Gun “Safety” started pumping money into the state, and stabbed you pro-human-rights supporters in the back.

And judging by this Facebook post, you don’t seem to get why what’s left of your “base” is upset with you today:

For the benefit of those not following along at home, the Senator is talking about this photo:

It was taken the opening day of the MN State Legislature, on Tuesday. It’s Jensen, spooning with a couple of suburban gun-grabber soccer moms from Moms Want Action.

And now, Senator Jensen, you’re upset that your real supporters – well, former supporters – are taking umbrage at you for cuddling up with the Criminal Safety movement.

No, it’s not you. It’s us, naturally…: “Mean spirited pushiness has halted discussion of important issues” you say. No – the illiteracy, cowardice and inherent bullying nature of the gun grabber movement has halted discussion, Senator Jensen.

You picked the wrong side.

No, seriously – remember Dario Anselmo? The Republican who spoke at the Moms Want Action rally last fall, trying to ingratiate himself with the gun grabbers? Who went and endorsed an actual  Democrat who wound up riding into office on a wave of out-of-state money that Anselmo never had the faintest shot at, anyway?

Ringing any bells, Senator?

Repent.

That is all.

#1: Watching Doctor Who. Never had the faintest interest. Not sure why.

And that seems less likely to change now than ever . before.