So, just how wrapped up was the American Revolution and the founding of the American Republic wrapped around slavery?
Not.
Quite the opposite: while all of the 13 colonies had originally allowed slavery, it had been abolished in most of the states by the revolution…
…and was recognized by most of the founding fathers as explicitly contrary to all of the Revolution’s interests except self-preservation (dividing in the face of the British would have been national suicide)…
…and abolition was a driving force behind the framing of the Constitution.
Just in case you need some ammo for your next spar with your next “progressive” relative.
The world has become too absurd to be satirized – G.K. Chesterton
As God is my witness, I saw this headline for a few days on social media, and assumed it was The Babylon Bee. And then I wondered. And then I confirmed it.
…what’s happening between Park Siding and Depot Street today is construction of a half-mile tunnel that will carry the Metropolitan Council’s Southwest LRT project through a pinch point in its 15-mile path from downtown to Eden Prairie. Complexities with water, underground debris, and construction methods seem poised to push the line’s opening deep into 2025 or 2026.
Ever since word started to leak out last fall that the Kenilworth tunnel construction was stuck in a sloppy mess of water and boulders, contractors and Met Council officials have known the line could not meet its opening estimates, and that tunnel costs could blow through the project’s contingency fund. But the agency insists even today that it cannot estimate the magnitude of delay nor additional cost.
But in midwinter, in a private call with government stakeholders, the Met Council did offer some specificity, [Twin Cities Business] has learned. At the time, the project was expected to be delayed by at least two years into late 2025, say individuals on that call, including state Rep. Frank Hornstein (DFL-Minneapolis), who chairs the state House Transportation Committee. Hornstein is a supporter of the project who frames himself as disappointed in its current state.
“We raised questions about all these problem areas. They were waived away. Every dire prediction came true, the ones about cost overruns, the ones about the tunnel, the millions given away to railroads in negotiations,” he said in a spring interview.
On Tuesday, Axios reported that an aide to the speaker and a White House official tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a rooftop reception to honor the fugitive lawmakers. Both individuals were fully vaccinated, although a White House official downplayed the staffer’s illness.
“Yesterday, a fully-vaccinated senior spokesperson in the Speaker’s press office tested positive for COVID after contact with members of the Texas state legislature last week,” said Drew Hammier, deputy chief of staff to Pelosi.
The group of 50 Texas Democrats flouted federal regulations implemented by President Biden that require passengers on privately charted planes to wear masks for the duration of a flight. As of publication, no legal action has been taken against them, even though the Centers for Disease Control issued explicit warnings about not wearing masks. The Federal Aviation Administration did not respond to requests for comment from the Washington Free Beacon.
Since their arrival in Washington, D.C., six of the Texas Democrats have tested positive for COVID-19. The whereabouts of the Texas Democrats are unknown, and the public does not know how many people they infected during their trip to the nation’s capital. Texas state representative Gene Wu, a prominent member of the group who has shared news articles on Twitter about coronavirus strains entering the country while on the lam, did not respond to a request for comment.
Of course, their mission – gundeck the election reforms via foul means in a way they could never do via fair – remains accomplished.
On the one hand, I suppose “dumping the problem on the general public, especially the ones you’ve been demonizing for a generation, like landlords” makes sense to a certain segment of the population.
On the other? Responsibility and accountability without the power and authority to do what’s needed to carry them out is the very definition of oppression.
I’m going to go out on a short, sturdy limb and guess that barbering about “oppression” is going to be considered a “privilege”.
On April 30, 1971, the Milwaukee Bucks defeated the Baltimore Bullets 118-106 to win their first NBA championship. The team had won the equivalent of a Powerball jackpot the previous year, when a coin flip gave the team the first pick in the 1969 draft. The Bucks drafted Lou Alcindor, the dominating center from UCLA, then added the great Oscar Robertson, an equally dominating guard who had played for terrible teams for a decade. The early good fortune lead to glory as the Bucks franchise won its first title in only the third year of its existence.
At the time, I was a second grader at St. Therese School in Appleton, Wisconsin. While I didn’t follow the NBA that closely at first, I knew this championship was a big deal. Shortly after the Bucks won the championship, Alcindor changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, which confused me a bit, but second graders are easily confused. As we grew older, we would try to imitate Abdul-Jabbar’s famous sky hook on the school playground, ineffectively of course. We would cheer our Bucks and curse the mighty Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers, who would stand in the way of our team’s glory. The Bucks made it back to the finals in 1974, but lost to the Celtics in 7 games, including the finale on the floor of the Milwaukee Arena.
As time went on, Abdul-Jabbar decided that he no longer wanted to live in Milwaukee, which did not fit his cultural needs. The Bucks traded Abdul-Jabbar and the players the team received in return formed the nucleus of a consistent contender for the league championship, but a team that never could get past the hated Celtics and the equally despised Philadelphia 76ers. This went on for over a decade, but by the early 90s Michael Jordan ruled the league and the Bucks became a footwipe. I continued to follow the Bucks throughout my adolescence and into adulthood, but there wasn’t much joy in it.
In 2013, the Bucks finally found the man who would replace Abdul-Jabbar, a Greek citizen of Nigerian descent named Giannis Antetokounmpo. He was 18 years old and while his talent was recognized, he was not invited to hang out in the green room with the other top prospects of that year. When his name was called, he came up on stage from the stands at Barclays Center, a face in the crowd. Over the following eight seasons, he transformed himself from a skinny refugee kid into the most imposing and relentless basketball player on the planet, earning the nickname “The Greek Freak.” On Tuesday evening, Antetokounmpo led the Bucks to their first championship in 50 years, scoring 50 points in a 105-98 clincher against the Phoenix Suns. For his part, Antetokounmpo is a thoroughly likable young man with a big smile and a spectacular game, and his teammates are equally talented and amiable. And after a 50-year wait, my childhood team had finally returned to the summit.
It’s a great story, but only if you accept the narrative that the NBA still means something. In the 50 years between championships, much has changed. The games in 1971 were played in darkened arenas with less than 13,000 people in attendance. The owners were local businessmen and the coachers were guys like Red Auerbach, the curmudgeonly cigar chomping leader of the Celtics. Over the course of 50 years, the NBA engaged in relentless marketing, leveraging the genuine star power of Abdul-Jabbar, Julius Erving, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan to transform the league into an international entertainment. The money flowed and the movie stars and beautiful people were sitting courtside, especially in Los Angeles.
This went on for a long time, but in recent years the dominant player and personality has been LeBron James, immensely talented but a man with a perpetual scowl on his face. His preferred nickname is “King James,” and he has been an imperious monarch for nearly 20 seasons. He indulges in woke social commentary and turns a blind eye to the NBA’s sordid relationship with the Chinese government, claiming that critics of the tyrannical regime are not sufficiently informed. James is a tremendous talent, but he’s utterly detestable.
So after 50 years, how much joy is there in winning a championship of a league full of vipers and hypocrites? For me, more than is justified. The fan in me wants to get a championship cap that matches those the Bucks wore as they accepted the trophy in Milwaukee, but let’s face it, it’s likely that hat probably comes from a crappy Chinese factory and the profits would land in the coffers of some woke conglomerate.
But still, but still, I want to believe the Bucks have accomplished something noble and that my years of fandom are now being rewarded. My head says it’s a lie, but my heart says something else.
Did the management at “Black Rifle Coffee Company” – the gleefully un-PC, over-the-top God Guns ‘n Guts-oriented, veteran owned coffee company – go “woke”?
[CEO Evan Hafer] quickly debunked the notion that he made derogatory remarks about BRCC’s customers or conservatives and then proceeded to explain how the New York Times deliberately twisted his words and took them out of context. According to Hafer, his conversation with the NYT Magazine reporter was in the context of racism and anti-Semitism in America in light of Hafer being the target of an organized attack last year because of “my last name and my heritage.”
“We were purely discussing that,” Hafer says, and he was not conflating those groups with conservatives.
“The New York Times, as we know, the chances of them being objective were fairly slim, but we gave them the opportunity,” he added. He went on to mention veterans issues he hoped to bring attention to. But, unfortunately, the New York Times chose to go with “the salacious headline” about the company instead.
Hafer reiterated that racists and anti-Semites have no place in his company.
“I really need you guys to get the facts straight on this, which is: There’s no chance in hell I’m gonna talk s–t about conservatives to the New York Times. It’s just not gonna happen.”
How long do the mainstream media hacks have to keep exposing themselves as frothing-at-the-mouth haters of conservatives before conservatives get it? If Hafer truly thought that the Times was going to give him a fair shake and that this would be a good marketing opportunity, then he’s too monumentally stupid to be around anything that isn’t toddler-proofed. It’s like walking into a biker bar while wearing a tuxedo and being surprised you got your a** kicked after you called all of them wusses. It’s just super easy to predict how some things are going to work out.
Conservatives shouldn’t be treating The New York Times and its ilk with any kind of courtesy. Unless you want to be a turncoat, it’s not going to work out well for you. Don’t hang out with an enemy who spends all day pointing a knife at you then turn away and act surprised when you get stabbed in the back.
And here’s the most important lesson for conservatives: don’t pull the knife out, hand it back to your enemy, then turn away again.
Well, Kruiser’s gonna kruis. At the risk of giving Hafer too much credit – something I tend to be wont to do – he’s a businessman from Utah, not breezy media analyst; there’s a first time for everyone.
Not saying that stands up – Black Rifle is pretty savvy, generally.
Further evidence for my eternal advice – if you’re a conservative, any conservative, and the mainstream media are interviewing you for any reason, record the interaction. Every single time. If you’re misquoted, wrenched out of context, played for a patsy – as is likely in many corners of the media these days – you’ll have evidence.
Title: Analyzing the Propensity of Modern Feminists, Progressives and the Media to Overstate Accrued Virtue.
Aim of the Experiment: The aim of the experiment is to test whether there is any activity approved of by “Big Left” that a woman can do, that will not be turned into a example of supreme personal moral virtue.
Hypothesis: It is predicted that, provided the activity is one promoted by “Big Left”, that there is no activity a woman can carry out that will not be referred to as “Brave”, “Courageous”, “Fierce” or other such superlatives.
Background Theory: It is believed that the rhetorical “Bar” for an action to be considered an act of personal moral courage, when the action is:
Congruent with the values of modern political and social “progressives”, and
Performed by a woman
…has dropped to the point of nearly being indistinguishable from any normal activity.
Methodology: The research team:
Observed an extensive list of actions
We specifically looked for examples of morally unremarkable, mundane, even counterproductive activities not being referred to in morally superlative terms
Conclusion: There is literally nothing a woman can do (provided it’s congruent with the values of Big Left) too unremarkable, mundane or even destructive that won’t be called ‘Brave’.
Last year, when the FBI triiumphantly claimed that they’d busted a plot to kidnap MIchigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, I said, in as many words, “I bet a shiny new quarter this was a setup by the feds”.
The explosives expert was the undercover FBI agent. He was the one who figured out where to plant the explosive and offered to obtain as much as the group wanted. Would there even have been a plan to blow up the bridge without him? The Iraq War veteran is heard barking at the other members about not hanging around unless they were “down with the thought of kidnapping.” It almost sounds as if he had to talk some of them into it. A government informant from Wisconsin was the person who traveled around the country and introduced various militia members to each other, sometimes paying their travel costs. Many of the eventual members had never met each other before this. There were fully a dozen informants and undercover agents involved every step of the way.
When you put all of that together, you are forced to consider the question that Buzzfeed is asking. Without all of those agents and government informants holding people’s hands and guiding their steps, would there even have been a conspiracy without them? The defendants are saying no. They claim that the whole idea of kidnapping Whitmer never rose above the level of fantasy, though they freely admit going to paramilitary training sessions together and engaging in anti-government conversations and online chats.
My two cents: the establisment wants to deliver on that “wave of white supremacist terror” they’ve been promising since 2009, they’re willing to create it from scratch.
Americans – at least the noisy ones that take part in politics – don’t like each other very much. Dennis Prager notes that we’re more divided, politically and intellectually, today than we were in 1861; other than slavery and its various side effects and the state and regional social differences that they led to, Americans weren’t that far apart back then.
Today? The hate is palpable. I felt it almost two decades ago, and it’s gotten much, much worse in the five years.
Half the country is using the nation’s government and media institutions and, increasingly, the corporate world to gain control over the other half.
And as the Declaration of Independence notes, people are inclined to suffer from indignities and oppression…
…until they’re not.
So – what if that other half finally says “enough”, and decides we’re better off apart?
Ignore the source – pseudonymous social media trolls are cheaper than Dogecoin derivatives these days. With that said, whoever drew this…:
…must live in Texas (or Florida?), and be one of those Texans / Floridians who doesn’t spend a lot of time paying attention to the rest of the country. The Dakotas will join a mostly-blue Midwest only via a hypothetical conquest, and Minnesotans invading North Dakota would look a little like this, or maybe this.
There have been 50 homicides so far this year in Minneapolis, which is close to the amount that had accumulated by the summer of 1995 — the year the city was given the nickname “Murderapolis.” There were 97 total murders that year.
Unlike most Minnesota endeavors, I wouldn’t rule out Minneapolis “winning“ the title this time around. During the Murderapolis years, both of the Twin Cities mayors believed that law and order and public safety our primary jobs city government what is there to do. Not “privileges“.
I can’t say I was a huge fan of Sharon Sayles Belton, but she and the City Council she had actually knew what their priorities were supposed to be.
While Jacob Frey ran for office as a “law and order“ candidate (compared to the contenders in the field against whom he ran, at any rate), Minneapolis is weak mayor system and strong, and progressive to a fault, City Council make that more or less futile.
Imagine you went to the doctor who told you: “Your child has a one-in-a-million chance of catching a particular disease, and if she does catch it, she has a one-in-a-million chance of dying from it. I recommend you authorize me to give her this vaccine.”
You might ask, “Why? What’s the point? She’s not at risk. Why bother?”
Your doctor might say: “It won’t help her, but it’s the neighborly thing to do. Taking the vaccine protects your neighbors so they don’t get the disease. And it’s free, plus I’ll throw in a coupon for an ice cream cone in the hospital cafeteria.”
You might say, “Okay, sounds good. By the way, are there any potential side effects of the vaccine?”
And your doctor might say, “Not really. There’s a one-in-six chance she’ll have a heart attack which is why we make you wait 20 minutes before leaving the office, but most of them survive. Oh, and blood clots and heart inflammation, those are possible, too, and maybe infertility or miscarriage but we really don’t know the long term side effects because the vaccine was rushed through the approval process so quickly and has been in use such a short time. She’ll probably be fine.”
Would you let the doctor vaccinate your daughter under those circumstances, or would you weigh reward-versus-risk and conclude getting vaccinated is a bad idea?
SCIENCE DENIER! MURDERER!
You’re not supposed to question the doctor. You’re supposed to blindly trust anybody wearing a lab coat. People like you are the reason we can’t give accurate numbers about cases and deaths. If we did, you’d use them to think for yourself. Stop that! We already did your thinking for you and we’ve decided you don’t need to weigh reward-versus-risk, you just need to Shut Up and Do as You’re Told. Hold her arm steady, she’ll just feel a little pinch . . .
Joe Doakes
Someday, one would hope they would be a reckoning for how much of our “public health“ effort exists for the appeasement of Big Karen.
Pleadin (falsely, it would seem) “racism“ apparently wasn’t enough to get the Minnesota DFL upset withRepresentative John Thompson (DFL – ???) But years old domestic violence accusations apparently triggered the last vestiges of #MeToo; late last week, it was enough to causethe DFL to ask for Thompson‘s resignation.
He was “effective” enough after his “Burn Hugo Down” antics for the same three people to endorse him for election.
So – what are they thinking?
My guess:
Threatening children: Effective.
“Burn down Hugo”: Effective.
Be a human virtue-signal to the most over the top “progressive” wing of the DFL: Effective.
Be a potential polling drag on the rest of the DFL heading into what could be a tough mid-term?: Aaaaaaah.
Bonus Question: Does anyone out there seriously believe the DFL knew none of Thompsons domestic violence or, er, domesticity allegations before he got elected?
“We support free speech, but…” = “We don’t support free speech”.
Points will be docked from the first member of the local prog peanut gallery who says “I thought you Republicans supported property rights – why not allow the vendor to decide what to do with their own property?”
This is the city getting a business – possibly sympathetic, possibly not – to do its censoring for it. Just like the Administration is doing with Facebook and Twitter.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit hears cases from Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina and from federal administrative agencies. It recently decided Hirschfeld v. Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco & Explosives (what us old timers called ‘ATF’ before the name changed. Text of opinion here and also here.
2-1 decision says it’s unconstitutional to deny 18-year-olds their full rights under the Second Amendment.
The dissent argues that we’ve been doing it wrong for a long time so we shouldn’t restore their rights now; that it’s not the federal courts’ job to protect civil rights that Congress took away; Second Amendment rights shouldn’t be protected as strongly as other fundamental rights (intermediate scrutiny instead of strict scrutiny) because guns are dangerous; and the challenged law only applies to purchases from federally licensed firearms dealers (18-year-olds can still obtain guns from unlicensed sellers, back alleys, gun show loopholes, friends and relatives so their rights aren’t infringed by being denied purchases from licensed dealers.)
The dissent points out the prohibition on felons and mentally ill owning guns as evidence Congress can deny 18-year olds the right to buy guns because felons – crazies – teens – pretty much the same. Senator Frank Dodd studied the issue and announced ‘a causal relationship between the easy availability of firearms other than a rifle or shotgun and juvenile and youthful criminal behavior,’ so it’s scientifically proven guns cause kids to kill. Besides, it’s only a temporary denial of their rights – those crazy kids can buy guns as soon as they turn 21 so even though justice is delayed a few years, it’s still justice.
The dissent goes on a great length how people over 18 but under 21 are responsible for a vast proportion of crime so it’s sensible and proper to deny them their Constitutional rights. Seems to me that analysis could be applied to “Blacks” just as easily. Would we be so eager to deny gun rights in that case?
What’s never mentioned is the reason the nation adopted the 26th Amendment lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. I wonder why not?
I wasn’t living here in 1980. I’m not sure how Minneapolis’s Loony Left reacted to the “Solidarity“ protests in Poland – where the Polish “Solidarity“ trade union led a year of demonstrations against Poland’s communist government. The demonstrations – which newly elected President Ronald Reagan supported morally, symbolically and materially – were the beginning of the end of the communist bloc, and the Soviet Union with it.
I have vague memories, arriving in the Twin Cities years later, of sensing that an awful lot of Minnesota leftists had bet on the wrong side in that particular episode. I mean, two decades later some of them still did, in my comment section.
Now, 40 years later, as a similarly benighted country protests for similar reasons, a Democrat government is lending the Cuban demonstrators a bit of rhetorical support from a senile president, along with an executive branch that is, as we noted yesterday, laying down the law hard in favor of the regime.
Facing an economic crisis, food and medicine shortages and rising prices, the Cuban people are demanding that the communist regime give up power.
“We have to see the larger context of the pandemic, COVID-19. The economy has also collapsed, Cuba depends on tourism,” said Nimtz. The Minnesota Cuba Committee is also calling for an end to the U.S. trade embargo.
“What we are doing here is to demand, demand that the Biden administration end the embargo, lift the embargo, and do as he promised,” said Nimtz.
Minnesota Progressives; reliable communist useful idiots for 60 years.
:If it biological man says she identifies as a woman, that decision must be treated as sacred.
Ditto a biological woman claiming to now be, or identify, as a male.
Naturally, someone of any gender declaring an affectional orientation for their own gender is to be supported.
Industries and entire areas of academic disciplines have sprung up to support all of those decisions. Institutions, up through and including academia, the American Civil Liberties Union, and a fair chunk of corporate America, deem that decision to be absolute, inviolate and ironclad. Naturally, there’s a branch of medical science devoted to helping people transition physically as well as psychologically, to support that identity.
Democrats seized upon the Covid virus as a means to terrify voters so they would accept suspending the Constitution and mailed ballots (which are easier to harvest and cheat) allowing Democrats to ‘fortify’ the election to remove Bad Orange Man from office.
But terrifying the American public caused panic worldwide and in a global economy, that’s not risk-free. The First Order Effect of The Big Steal was The Garden Administration but what are the Second and Third Order Effects?
SCENE: A group of parents are gathered at a school board meeting in “Anytown, USA” – a medium-sized city in a swing-ish state. The city voted for Trump in 2016, elected a Democrat cityi council in 2018, and was nearly statistically tied in 2020.
While these meetings are normally somnolent affairs dealing with abstruse board policies and contracts, this is the exception. The district’s contract with a curriculum consultant who’s been training the staff on “inclusive teaching” is under discussion.
The audience is orderly, but the tension is palpable as school board president, Doctor Karen Gossleiten-Prigg, addresses the audience.
GOSSLEITEN-PRIGG: Questions? OK – you, over at the microphone to my left.
AUDIENCE MEMBER 1: Why is the district teaching Critical Race Theory?
GOSSLEITEN-PRIGG: We’re not teaching “Critical Race Theory”. Indeed, the entire term “CRT” is a creation of (clears throat) conservative media.
You, over on my left…
AUDIENCE MEMBER 3: But Ms. Gossleitein-Prigg…
GOSSLEITEN-PRIGG: …That’s Doctor Gossleiten-Prigg.
AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: (Over snickers in the audience) …Doctor Gossleiten-Prigg, I brought a series of CRT press clippings to show the audience:
GOSSLEITEN-PRIGG:
AUDIENCE MEMBER 3: You’re telling me there isn’t a certrain…tone to the discourse when it comes to this subject?
GOSSLEITEN-PRIGG: Right, but that’s not Critical Race theory. You ,over on my left…
(Audience members 2,4,6 and 8, standing at the mic on GOSSLEITEN-PRIGG’s right, start to rustle a bit. )
AUDIENCE MEMBER 5: So you’re saying that the district doesn’t teach critical race theory?
GOSSLEITEN-PRIGG: That’s correct. You on my left…
(Audience members 2,4,6 and 8, start to audibly complain )
AUDIENCE MEMBER 7: So if you’re’ not teaching Critical Race Theory, what are you teaching them?
GOSSLEITEN-PRIGG: Glad you asked. What we are proposing is a set of standards, a framework if you will , for teaching the history of this country. You, on the left…
AUDIENCE MEMBERS 2,4,6 and 8 (Agitated) Hey! What about us?
GOSSLEITEN-PRIGG: You’re on the right. You on the left…
AUDIENCE MEMBER 9: So you’re not teaching Criticial Race Theory?
GOSSLEITEN-PRIGG: Of course not. CRT doesn’t exist. Again – we’re creating a framework for teaching history.
AUDIENCE MEMBER 9: So where are kids being taught that “whiteness” is a deterministic unavoidable state that makes one uncontrollably racist, and that every group of “white’ people is in and of themselves a “structure” that just can’t avoid hating other races?
Cubans, actually suffering the oppression that a few million “progressive” snowflakes fantasized they were suffering during the Trump term, are thinking, again, about risking it all to come to America:
And our administration will have none of that:
DHS Secretary @AliMayorkas threatens fleeing Cuban refugees: "Allow me to be clear, if you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States … Again, I repeat, do not risk your life attempting to enter the United States illegally. You will not come to the United States." pic.twitter.com/gSsLbbCuSH
