Joe Doakes from Coko Lark emails:
I’m informed race is not genetic, it is a social construct. The Obama’s lived in America when their daughters were born, hence, they look like this:
If the Obama’s had lived in Sweden when their daughters were born, they’d have looked like this.
Okay, I get it now. Makes perfect sense to me.
Joe Doakes
And, let’s be honest, if Sasha and Malia identified as Swedish, the same thing would happen.
Congratulations.
Clearly, you’ve solved all the real problems:
A group of Minnesota House Democrats introduced a bill this week that would require restaurants to serve certain drinks as the “default beverage” for children’s meals.
The bill was introduced Tuesday by Reps. Jeff Brand (DFL-St. Peter), Samantha Vang (DFL-Brooklyn Center), and Rob Ecklund (DFL-International Falls).
Under the bill, all Minnesota restaurants would be required to make the “default beverage” included with children’s meals either water or sparkling water, unflavored milk, or a nondairy milk alternative that contains “no more than 130 calories” per serving.
Look – as I’ve noted, I’m all for cutting. It’s cut my obesity rate pretty sharply.
But it’s not like Minnesota DFLersl aren’t making it hard enough to run a business of any kind, much less a restaurant.
The real question: when do we find out about the kickbacks from Big Water and Big MilK?
President Trump is going to Daytona. Oh, he has GOT to do the burn-out at the end of the lap, like the race drivers do. You know his car can do it. And the Secret Service driver would love it.
And while it’s happening, play Trump’s voice over the loudspeaker, “Hey folks, THIS is how Daytona feels the burn!”
The man is running like he means it. Why not have some fun while you take a shot at the opposition?
Joe Doakes
It sounds like it was time well spent for the President.
It souIt It
A dozen masked, hooded, armed “Anti”-Fa thugs attack a citizen journalist in Olympia, Washington.
This is graphic and very upsetting:
Video recorded by antifa writer Shane Burley shows the mob harassing, assaulting & pepper spraying local citizen journalist Brandon Brown. Brown was attacked & robbed by antifa militants for recording them in Olympia, Wash. in December. https://t.co/jC6I7aRcVs pic.twitter.com/flERgVLfKm
— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) February 8, 2020
Hard to tell what’s gonna make ’em crazier – Bernie losing the nomination, or Bernie losing the presidency.
Or, for that matter, winning.
As we noted earlier this week, Roseau County became Minnesota’s first Second Amendment Sanctuary county.
And you just knew the “Reverend” Nancy Nord Bence wouldn’t take long for an…
…er…
…er, “interesting” take on the situation.
But she pretty much outdid herself on Twitter:
Local anti-gun group Protect Minnesota claims that the Rouseau County Commissioners were “bullied by the gun lobby” into establishing “basically organized lawlessness” when they voted to become Minnesota’s first Second Amendment Sanctuary County earlier this week.
— MN Gun Owners Caucus (@mnguncaucus) February 13, 2020
The reality? pic.twitter.com/Ao1U56OpA2
The county commission was “bullied”? Huh. Sounds serious. Was there anything to “Protect” MN’s claim?
Sheesh. It’s the “Reverend” Nancy Nord Bence. We’ve been through this before, right?
A Roseau County Commissioner left a comment on “Protect” MN’s Facebook page:
Roseau County Commissioner John Horner replies in a comment to Protect Minnesota about their completely made-up, misinformed post that the “gun lobby” somehow “bullied” the Roseau County Commissioners into passing a Second Amendment “Sanctuary” declaration. pic.twitter.com/cj2vp9Qcc5
— MN Gun Owners Caucus (@mnguncaucus) February 13, 2020
“Completely made-up”.
What concerns me here is this: leftists pretty much up and down the food chain, from Nancy Pelosi down to “Reverend” Nord Bence, have learned that their constituency just doesn’t do critical thinking. If they say something, they know there’s not going to be anyone catching them after the rally trying to check them on any of it.
BIg Left is building a legion of the invincibly ignorant.
And while it’s not working in Roseau County, the post about Roseau County wasn’t aimed at rural Minnesota. It’s aimed at trying to keep the hordes of people in the third ring suburbs who voted DFL terrified.
Will it work?
Roseau County becomes Minnesota’s first Second Amendment Sanctuary County:
The resolution, passed unanimously to applause from the dozen residents in attendance, reads that the board “wishes to express opposition to any law in the future, beyond existing laws to date, that would unconstitutionally restrict the rights of the citizens of Roseau County to keep and bear arms.”
The motion goes on to resolve that “public funds of the county not be used to restrict the Second Amendment rights of the citizens of Roseau County, or to aid federal or state agencies in the restriction of said rights.”
Roseau County Sheriff Steve Gust said the resolution won’t change local law enforcement’s operations, since one of the resolution’s main intents is to oppose “red flag” gun laws, which allow courts to temporarily remove guns from people who are found to be a risk to themselves or others. Red flag laws have been proposed in Minnesota but not passed.
Look for more of this in Greater Minnesota in coming months.
While the measures are mostly symbolic – for now – they do show gun voters statewide the seriousness of the choices in this upcoming election. In 2020, if the DFL takes the Senate, this state will make Virginia look like Wyoming.
“This meeting of the State Committee for National Security will come to order. First item of business, a report on biological warfare research. Minister? Minister? Uh, does anybody know where the Minister is?”
“Excuse me, sir. I’m from that department.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m the Assistant to the Junior Deputy’s Secretary.”
“Where’s everybody else?”
“Dead, sir. Or missing.”
“WHAT? What’s going on in your department?”
“Well, sir, we used gene splicing to engineer a virus targeted at a specific racial group and the lab tests went so well that we needed a larger scale test. The plan was to release the virus in an enemy city but the scientist carrying the vial got car-jacked and the vial shattered.”
“Has the population been quarantined so they don’t spread it?”
“Too late for that, sir. Most of the infected fled the city before the quarantine was announced. They’re currently spreading the virus around the globe.”
“How bad is it?”
“Well, sir, that depends on who you ask. Our official press releases claim the virus is less deadly than influenza, hardly anybody is infected and practically nobody has died.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“Yes, sir, that’s why we said it. The truth is we have no idea how many people are infected and no treatment for those who are. Millions could die.”
“Excuse me, I’m sorry to interrupt, Mr. Chairman, I just have to ask this young man: Are You Insane? Did you actually attempt to genetically engineer a virus to target a race?”
“Yes, we did. Why?”
“Because race is merely a social construct. There’s no such thing as race. We’re All Going to Die!”
“In that case, sir, motion to adjourn.”
Joe Doakes
And SCENE
Senator Klobuchar, fresh off having a third-place finish in a decreasingly important primary hailed like the victory march in Paris by a local who has acted like her personal PR firm ever since they were all getting pass-out drunk with her father, has this to say about gun control:
During the first 2020 Democratic primary debate, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar said if there is a mandatory buyback, it would not involve gun confiscation.
“Gun confiscation, right, if the government is buying back, how do you not have that conversation?” moderator Chuck Todd asked.
“Well, that’s not gun confiscation because you give them the offer to buy back their gun,” Klobuchar said
Oh. It’s just a buyback.
OK. Not selling.
Now what?
They never answer this one directly, do they?
I may have to go to one of her “town halls” and ask her directly.
Oh, yeah – she said this:
“I look at these proposals and I say, ‘Does this hurt my uncle Dick and his deer stand?’ coming from a proud hunting and fishing state? These ideas don’t do that,” she added.
If her “Uncle Dick” is stupid enough to believe they won’t be coming for his precious dear rifle when, not if their current round of “gun safety” laws fail to make anyone safer, then Dick might just be a lifelong DFLer anyway.
Modern Democrats, told “dial back some of the Gulag-y, Stalin-y, Black Maria-y talk”, respond…
After the New Hampshire Democratic debate on Friday night, MSNBC host Chris Matthews uttered high heresy against the Bernie Sanders movement by remembering the Cold War and the threat of socialist and communist executions. He warned that if Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and the Reds had won the Cold War, “there would have been executions in Central Park, and I might have been one of the ones getting executed.” As if to demonstrate the truth of this statement, Bernie Bros got #FireChrisMatthews trending on Twitter…”A lot of this will be sorting this out if the Democratic Party runs a socialist candidate. That’s a change to the Democratic Party,” Matthews continued. He did not condemn the expansion of social programs, which he firmly distinguished from socialism. “The Democratic Party’s been to the left of the Republican Party on the issue of mixed capitalism, more social programs. They push Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, enormously popular programs. I think ACA/Obamacare, I wish they’d follow through with it, make it work. I think most Americans would be happy with … a public option” in health care.
Watch for burnings of The Gulag Archipelago and 1984 before too terribly long.
I got caught up in one of KSTP-AM’s constant rounds of staff reductions on April 4, 1987. I was 24, and very much in love with the idea of finding a career in a medium I’d discovered less than two years before, talk radio. Especially the conservative wing of it – as a newly-minted Reagan voter as of age 21, I had that newbie zeal that tries so, so very hard to make up for lack of experience and information. Speaking of inexperience and naivete, I was pretty new to and green in the world of big-market radio – especially to the process of trying to find a job in the field, without moving to Saint Cloud to play country western radio.
I thought I had a couple of leads, though; a station in Raleigh was interested in me even as I left the station. Others in Orlando, Waukegan, Fall River Massachusetts, Hammond Indiana, Cleveland and Santa Rosa California would come up in the next few months.
But one by miserable, painful one they all dried up, one after the other. A few changed formats. A few changed management.
But most of them, given a choice between paying a 24 year old kid $20-30K a year to work afternoons or evenings, or getting national-level talent for free via satellite, went with the new, cheap, national offering…
…by a fellow named Rush Limbaugh.
Gradually yet blazingly quickly, Limbaugh’s mid-day show ate up hundreds of jobs that might have gone to a kid like me – and prompted hundreds more struggling AM stations to flip formats, ditching country-western or polka or oldies for the new, newly deregulated field of conservative political talk.
And it brought an audience. And sponsors. And, almost against many stations’ wills, ratings and money.
I remember management at a couple of stations fairly visibly holding their noses and solemnly declaring “Limbaugh doesn’t reprsent this station’s entire point of view” out one side of their mouths, while eagerly cashing the bonus checks that his ratings, and those of his format-mates, brought them.
For twenty years, until the 2007 recession cut the guts out of the radio ad market, it was like a license to print money. I remember meeting an old friend from our time at KDWB who’d landed at KSTP. He was figuring out what he was going to spend a five-digit bonus check, over double what I’d ever earned in a year at that station even after adjusting for inflation, on. Even after the meltdown in rates, Limbaugh’s dominance and prosperity, and that of conservative talk, endured – or at least better than any other segment of entertainment radio other than sports and Spanish.
Rush Limbaugh didn’t dominate an industry. He created it – and saved the AM Radio band while he was at it. Matt Continetti points out that he was the right guy in the right place at the right technological, ideological and regulatory time:
It’s one thing to excel in your field. It’s another to create the field in which you excel. Conservative talk radio was local and niche before Limbaugh. He was the first to capitalize on regulatory and technological changes that allowed for national scale. The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 freed affiliates to air controversial political opinions without inviting government scrutiny. As music programming migrated to the FM spectrum, AM bandwidth welcomed talk. Listener participation was also critical. “It was not until 1982,” writes Nicole Hemmer in Messengers of the Right, “that AT&T introduced the modern direct-dial toll-free calling system that national call-in shows use.”
Limbaugh made the most of these opportunities. And he contributed stylistic innovations of his own. He treated politics not only as a competition of ideas but also as a contest between liberal elites and the American public. He also added the irreverent and sometimes scandalous humor and cultural commentary of the great DJs. He introduced catchphrases still in circulation: “dittohead,” “Drive-By media,” “feminazi,” “talent on loan from God.”
The template he created has been so successful that the list of his imitators on both the left and right is endless. Even Al Franken wanted in on the act. Dostoyevsky is attributed with the saying that the great Russian writers “all came out of Gogol’s ‘Overcoat.’” Political talk show hosts came out of Limbaugh’s microphone.
And for those who weren’t around back then, he was, and remains, a connection to an era where real, Buckley-style conservatism changed the world – with the hope it could change it again:
[Limbaugh] took from Reagan the sense that America’s future is bright, that America isn’t broken, just its liberal political, media, and cultural elites. “He rejected Washington elitism and connected directly with the American people who adored him,” Limbaugh said after Reagan’s death. “He didn’t need the press. He didn’t need the press to spin what he was or what he said. He had the ability to connect individually with each American who saw him.” The two men never met.
Limbaugh assumed Reagan’s position as leader of the conservative movement. In a letter sent to Limbaugh after the 1992 election, Reagan wrote, “Now that I’ve retired from active politics, I don’t mind that you have become the Number One voice for conservatism in our Country. I know the liberals call you the most dangerous man in America, but don’t worry about it, they used to say the same thing about me. Keep up the good work. America needs to hear ‘the way things ought to be.’”
Limbaugh gave a voice to a half of the country that’d always been expect to shut up and listen.
And for me? He supplied my life a major, inconvenient, and ultimately life-changing detour – and built an industry for me to come home to when the time was right.
All the best, Rush. I’m rooting for you.
Shouldn’t the torn-up pieces of Trump’s speech be in the Smithsonian? First State of the Union Address Ripped Up by the Opposition Live and On Camera?
If Trump was black they would have done it. Just because he’s orange is no reason to discriminate against him. This is racism, straight up.
Joe Doakes
I have to wonder what Trump is doing to the chemical tan business…
Florida Man (C) drives through tent full of Republicans, drives off.
Hours after a van plowed through a Republican Party tent where volunteers were registering voters, Jacksonville police arrested a 27-year-old man on two counts of aggravated assault on a person over 65 years old, criminal mischief and driving without a license.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office identified Gregory William Loel Timm as the person behind the wheel of the van that struck the tent set up the parking lot of a Walmart Superstore at the corner of Atlantic and Kernan boulevards about 3:50 p.m. Saturday.
Timm is accused of pulling up, driving through the tent and striking their tables.
“It happened so quickly,” said Nina Williams, a volunteer. “I just barely got out of the way.”
But remember – conservatives are the violent ones.
Law enforcement aren’t saying whether it’s political, or what the motives are – which means it was political, and he’s a Democrat.
The situation in China seems to be much, much worse than the all-powerful Communist Party is willing to let on.
From an American doctor with a Chinese wife:
My mother-in-law lives in a smaller city – far on the western fringe of China – If Wuhan were Atlanta – she would be in a place like Boise. She had a fever about 8 days ago. Please note – official statistics note that there are 9 people in her province confirmed to have the virus. This belies the fact that she (never known to me to be a liar or fabulist ) has been telling my wife for days that there are hundreds upon hundreds of people all over the sidewalks and streets outside the hospital – and that the hospital is completely filled with patients. And apparently the crematorium has been very busy. Of most grave concern to her – is Beijing nationalized all of their small province’s health care workers and sent them to Shanghai or Beijing – leaving their city of a million with only a handful of doctors. When she had her fever – a nurse looked at her for 10 minutes. They found out she had a runny nose – and because of the runny nose told her she did NOT have the virus. NO TEST WAS EVER DONE – WHY? they simply do not have enough kits – and are having to go by their gut instinct. She was sent back to her own home – and placed in quarantine there – never having been tested. She is unable to leave – and this is being violently enforced in her city. They bring her food 3 times a week. All this to say – any and all numbers coming from China are highly suspect – and basically worthless. And thankfully my mother-in-law is getting much better.
Her younger brother and his young family live in Nanjing. I cannot tell you the grief expressed by my wife the other night – when he called her the last time – and said all international calls have been stopped effective at midnight that day. Nanjing is now under martial law – for the first time since the Japanese occupation before World War II. He told her about the tanks going down the streets and all the main streets being guarded by men with sub-machine guns. All exits out of the city are now being blocked with layers of concrete blocks. Each family has to designate one person who can go outside 2 times a week – to the nearest store for food and supplies. Anyone caught on the streets without appropriate permission – or not wearing a mask is immediately arrested – and placed in quarantine camps themselves. Anyone who thinks this is all being done just because of a “flu” or “a little virus” really needs to have their head examined.
Her father is in Beijing – and has not been heard from in two weeks.
Traditionally, one “advantage” of totalitarian government is their ability to enforce public health restrictions – see also Cuba’s crackdown on HIV, using old-fashioned public health methods reinforced by thugs with guns. But this plague seems to have circumvented even China’s totalitarian reach.
Which – maybe, possibly – is causing “reform”, perhaps even collapse of the central Communist government, to cross peoples’ minds:
Li Wenliang is the doctor thought to be the first person to sound the alarm over the coronavirus. The Chinese government responded by detaining and silencing him for spreading “false rumors.” The authorities’ lockdown on information about the virus undoubtedly increased significantly the magnitude of the epidemic that now plagues China and threatens other countries.
On Friday, Dr. Li died from the virus. According to the Washington Post, within hours of his death millions of Chinese tried to bypass censors to post the hashtag #WeWantFreedomOfSpeech. The censors eventually prevailed, but deleted sentiments are still real sentiments.
The link between the government’s suppression of speech — the lack of freedom — and the public health disaster in China could not be more clear. Li has become the symbol of that link.
This Washington Post editorial tells us that the cononavirus outbreak “is shaking the foundations of a political system built on President Xi Jinping’s assurance that the party knows best for all.” I don’t know if the epidemic actually is shaking the system’s foundations, but it should.
Speaking of Xi, he was scarcely seen in the days following the outbreak. When he finally appeared, after days of speculation as to his whereabouts, it was at an event with Cambodia’s dictator, a stooge of China.
In free nations, leaders can’t get away with going into hiding during times of disaster. Dictators can. However, doing so erodes confidence in their leadership.
Random tangential thought: if the Chinese government is anywhere close to spiralling out of control, I’m happy that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are out of power.
Urban Progressive Privilege – when nobody in your social circle or professional life is allowed to question your personal, moral or political choices…
…but you pay someone to do it for you.
Democrats accept on faith that they are smarter than Republicans. Indeed, accepting this as a matter of faith is a key tenet of “Urban Progressive Privilege“.
And the fact is, I’m always leery of surveys and social “science” that try to correlate virtues – intelligence, cognitive flexibility, and on and on – to political orientation.
But it seems that, Don Lemon’s cackling notwistanding, it’s just not true. Trump voters, and the general public, outscore Clinton voters on science, verbal skills and, yep, map-reading.
The whole thing is worth a read. I’ll pull this quote for the fun of it:
Overall, on most science knowledge questions Trump supporters score significantly higher than Clinton supporters and significantly higher than the combined non-Trump supporting public. If, however, you asked about beliefs, rather than knowledge, on evolution and the origins of the universe you would get substantially better answers on individual science questions from Clinton supporters than Trump supporters.
And someone needs to pass this bit here along to Don Lemon and Mary Louise Kelly:
Testing the hypothesis that Republicans were significantly better at finding an unlabeled country on a map than Democrats, one 2013 Pew study supported that hypothesis (Republicans were indeed significantly more likely to pick out Syria on a map), while the other 2013 Pew study reported that Democrats were insignificantly better at picking out Egypt on a map.
Thus, neither of these two studies supports the CNN’s panel’s ridicule of right-wing map reading, and there is some weak evidence pointing in the other direction. Of course, this was a test of Republicans, not Trump supporters, but Trump supporters did better on the 2018 GSS verbal ability test and on 2018 science knowledge questions, so there is no strong reason to suppose that the results would be radically different if one were to test Trump supporters today rather than Republicans in 2013.
As a conservative in Saint Paul, none of this is news to me.
I’m trying to decide if David Hogg is:
One thing he is? Evidence of “white supremacy”. He’s using up a seat at Harvard that a deserving Asian kid didn’t get.
Exhibit D-24662-F:
The vision of gay slaves and Seminoles sitting in orange T-shirts and ELCA hair waving signs in safe white neighborhoods in Eagan, in 1820 (“centuries ago”) almost made me chuckle.
Erin Palette, with Pink Pistols, s not amused, and lights the little fop up but good.
while the colonists and early citizens of the United States were well-armed and saw virtually no restrictions on what arms they could own or when they could carry or use them in a peaceful manner, this was not true for all inhabitants of the land. Many people of color were brought to this country as slaves, and as property, they had no rights. Furthermore, free persons of color and Native Americans were often prevented by law from owning firearms.
Such gun control as Hogg champions would have hurt those fighting slavery. Abolitionists were highly unpopular and threatened with violence or worse. Rev. Elijah Parish Lovejoy, publisher of the abolitionist newspaper The Saint Louis Observer, was murdered by a pro-slavery mob who shot him before destroying his new printing press. Members of the Underground Railroad needed to protect themselves from law enforcement and bounty hunters enforcing fugitive slave laws, and so were often armed. The most famous example of these is Harriet Tubman, who carried a pistol for self defense while escorting runaway slaves to freedom.
While the 14th Amendment eliminated some of this discrimination, many additional laws were passed to keep people of color, the poor, and other “undesirables” from owning or carrying arms as part of the many Jim Crow laws of the time. Some of these statutes have survived to the present day, such as the North Carolina Pistol Purchase Permit. It requires that an applicant be of “good moral character” despite the fact that “The term ‘good moral character’ is not defined in our statutes nor is there a case specifically on point as to what constitutes good moral character for purposes of a pistol purchase permit.”
Needless to say, being a person of color was ample reason to deny a permit under these circumstances. Most famously, in 1950 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, applied for an Alabama concealed-weapon permit after receiving death threats. He was, of course, denied. In the 1960s, California’s Mulford Act banned the open carry of firearms as a direct reaction to members of the Black Panthers patrolling minority neighborhoods while visibly armed.
Read the whole
Between Hogg and Matt Yglesias, I’m starting to think a Harvard degree, outside of hard sciences and medicine, should be considered a disqualifieer.
Today would be Ronald Reagan’s 106th birthday.
I’ve been writing about Reagan – who, along with PJ O’Rourke, Solzhenitzyn, Dostoevskii and Paul Johnson is the reason I’m a conservative today – as long as this blog has been in existence. His eight years were not perfect, and I don’t beatify my presidents, even if they’ve been out of office for almost thirty years. His last term wasn’t as stellar as his first, and his last two years were very difficult.
Still and all, he was the greatest president of the second half of the 20th Century.
But in these difficult times, after two terms of a President who promoted fear and malaise in the guise of “change” and “doing something”, it’s worth remembering Reagan’s example; when times seemed at their most dire, Reagan walked onto the scene with a smile and a vision, and a backbone of steel, and cleaned up the mess lefty by his failed predecessor – something our next president will need even more of in 2016.
And the most important part? He did it by unleashing something that many, then as now, thought was dead – the inner, optimistic, take-charge greatness of the American spirit.
The best we can hope for from our current president is that he approaches the job with the same tenacity to match his vision that Reagan had.
Oh, there are those who say “today’s GOP wouldn’t nominate Reagan!” – to which I respond with a contemptuous sign, before telling the critic to listen to “A Time for Choosing”, and tell me who is more resembles; Arne Carlson, or Scott Walker?
Reagan’s gone. But that spirit, the one he understood, almost alone among American politicans of his era, lives on in the American people. Most of it, anyway.
So Happy Reagan’s Birthday, everyone!
NOTE: While this blog encourages a raucous debate, this post is a hagiography zone. All comments deemed critical of Reagan will be expunged without ceremony. You’ve been warned.
You have the whole rest of the media to play about in; this post is gonna be gloriously one-note.
SCENE: Mitch BERG is watiing in line at his favorite barbeque joint when Aaron ROSTON, writer at the (possibly fictional) progressive blog “MinnesotaLiberalAlliance.Blogspot.com“, walks into the store and gets into line behind BERG. ROSTON is a crossing guard at a school in rural southern Minnesota, and is a bullying activist – mostly focusing on promoting bullying of children of conservatives.
ROSTON notices BERG, despite BERG’s best efforts.
ROSTON: Merg!
BERG: Uh, hi, Eric…
ROSTON: Eric?
BERG: Sorry. Mistook you for someone else.
ROSTON: (not waiting for BERG to finish his sentence) Minnesotans are moving out of state because they’re racists. The Center of the American Experiment is basically the Klan Robe crowd for pointing it out.
BERG: “Klan Robe Crowd”, huh?
ROSTON: Yep. That’s the only reason to leave Minnesota. Racism.
BERG: Right. Not schools that are collapsing, a hostile business and tax environment, stagnant economy outside the metro because the economy is being hobbled by taxes, regulation and the stranglehold of one party on the bureaucracy, spiking urban crime, totaly bonkers transportation and energy policy, and a cold, tax-hostile place to retire?
ROSTON: Come on. You’re better than that!
BERG: What does that mean?
ROSTON: You know the roots of conservatism are entirely in racism.
BERG: I know that that’s precisely false in regards to modern, post Sharon Declaration conservatism.
ROSTON: You know you’re wrong.
BERG: Er, I know you’re gaslighting.
ROSTON: It’s true. Full stop.
BERG: “Full stop?” What is this, freshman comp class?
ROSTON: Experts the world over agree.
BERG: Name them.
ROSTON: It’s’ not my job to do your research for you.
BERG: There is noi “research”. Name just one of these “experts”.
ROSTON: It would blow your mind if I did.
BERG: You are right in more ways than one. (Looks over ROSTON’s shoulder). Hey, look, Eric…
ROSTON: Who?
BERG: …sorry, Aaron. Look – a six year old with a red cap that looks like a Trump cap!
ROSTON: (Spins around and looks in vain. But BERG uses the opportunity to make good his escape).
And SCENE
It’s weird, the things that stick in memory.
In my mind, February 2002 was cold and snowy. Who knows if that’s true – but that’s how it’s stuck in my mind.
I was working at a company in Minnetonka whose death spiral, which incompetent management had started long before the post 9/11 “Dot Bomb” reared its head.
9/11 had happened five months earlier. And my own personal collapsing tower, a divorce, had happened not long before that. I was living with my two kids – at the time, 8 and 10 years old – and getting used to a whole new way of living.
And as both worlds – the wider one and my personal one – spun out of control, I found myself missing the voice I’d lost fifteen years earlier, when I’d gotten whacked from my first, and to that point last, talk radio gig at KSTP. I didn’t need, or ask for, much – but having some way of getting what I was thinking out to someone other than my kids, dog and cats was something I was craving.
And which seemed so, so far away.
I”d come back from lunch, to an office across the lake from Ridgedale Mall, and was already bored out of my mind.
I went to Time.com – and it occurs to me, it may have been among the last times I ever did that – and read an article about “The New Generation of Conservative Intellectuals Online”. One of the featured thinkers was none other than Andrew Ferguson – and his “blog”, the Dish.
And, most importantly, a sidebar on how to create a “blog”.
I ran home that night, fed the kids, put them to bed, and went out to “Blogger.com” and started setting thngs up…
…and got to my first roadblock; picking a name.
Not sure where “Shot in the Dark” came from: I think it was mostly a play on words, encompassing the DIY/no idea what I”m doing vibe that I felt, as well as my nascent Secone Amendment activism
Either way, that next morning I got up at 5:30AM – the only “me” time I really had at that point – and started writiing.
And nearly every weekday morning for the past 18 years, it’s been the same routine. My kids are grown up and moved out, and one of them has a kid of his own. My little writing hobby that drew maybe half a dozen readers a day morphed into what I have today – four-figure daily readership – and so much more, a social circle and a radio show and a bunch of friends I can’t imagine my life without, and a whole world the doors to which I thought had slammed shut in the eighties.
Anyway – today Shot in the Dark turns 18. It can vote and join the military.
And I’d like to thank you all for being here, and being the reason I do it, all these years; some of you, literally since just about Day 1.
Thanks. And here’s to 18 more.
So – if you’re an anti-gun legislator and you’re proud of it, how about you show the world?
James O’Keefe asked the question of a phalanx of key anti-gun Democrats and their staffers. And the results were…
Money quote (emphasis added):
After some discussion, Erik Sperling, legislative assistant for Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI 13th) said he thought it would make it more likely for someone to break into his home if they knew for sure there was no way for the people inside to protect themselves.
“So, you’re sort of saying you should have a gun to protect your home then,” the undercover reporter says.
“Yeah, it’s a tricky thing,” Sperling says, adding that he’d want a sign on his boss’s house to say “Armed security, stay back,” because of his status. By the end of the encounter, he says, “What’s the thinking behind this strategy Because it seems to make the case for the (gun rights) side.”
Gun control – for the peasants.
Baltimore admits it hasn’t actually recycled glass in seven years…
…but tells everyone to keep separating their trash:
Steve Lafferty, county sustainability officer, said it’s true the county has not recycled the material since 2013, the year it also opened a $23 million single-stream recycling facility in Cockeysville. Lafferty was hired to the newly created sustainability position in September 2019…Over the years, the county’s Department of Public Works encountered technical and financial limitations that meant it could no longer recycle glass at county municipal facilities.
But while separating glass from garbage won’t result in any recycling at all, it will keep a bunch of public employees working, and donating dues to their public employee union, thus keeping money coming to the Maryland Democrat Party.
Rush Limbaugh confirms he’s been diagnosed with lung cancer:
“Ladies and gentleman, this day has been one of the most difficult days in recent memory for me because I’ve known this moment was coming in the program today,” Limbaugh began. “I’m sure you all know by now, I really don’t like talking about myself, and I don’t like making things about me other than in the usual satirical, joking way.”
“So, I have to tell you something today that I wish I didn’t have to tell you,” he continued. “And it’s, it’s a struggle for me because I, I had to inform my staff earlier today. … I have been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer.”
He signed off by revealing that he hopes to be back on Thursday and said, “Every day I’m not here, I’ll be missing you and thinking about you.”
I can’t help but remember the way the soulless ghouls of the fever swamp cackled and chortled over Tony Snow’s untimely demise, long ago.
Thoughts and prayers for the man who’s done more than any other to keep radio – not just talk – alive for almost three decades.
An MPR News tweet.
From 9:30.
AM.
Nearly 12 hours before the State of the Union address.
So – “fact-checking” the putative reputation of the speaker, long before the speech actually happens?
That’s not “fact-checking”. That’s not even “journalism”.
That’s public relations for the Democratic Party.
Early yesterday evening, as I drove home from work, I heard National Public Radio’s wall-to-wall coverage of the Iowa Caucuses.
As they – or one or another of their intervieweews, anyway – raved about the process, they kept mentioning an “App”. One of the NPR anchors – who “covers” “election security”, we were told – mentioned that “the App” was of unknown origin; “who programmed the thing” was literally a secret. The media hadn’t even been allowed to look at it, or at the people who developed it.
“What could possibly go wrong?”, I said to myself.
Nonetheless, Dems were in high spirits, including Tom Perez:
Well, you saw the headlines.
As I drove home around 11 last night, it was becoming clear the Hawkeye Cauci were turning into a Bolivian Cluster Cuddle, with “the App” not working, and with precinct chairs sitting on hold for hours, or just giving up and going home.
So – what about “the App?”
So – not only do people commit suicide when they cross Hillary, but so apparently do entire party units.
The conspiracy theory du jour – Bernie was winning, and the Hillary/Biden machine told the Iowa Machine to finesse the the results no matter what.
Which, Ben Shapiro notes, shouldn’t be a problem for Bernie or his Bros:
Wonder if Putin had anything to do with it?
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