…not only that Berg’s Seventh Law is universal and immutable, but that Democrat politicians can and do count on their voters being unthinking lemmings who know neither history nor critical thought.

Barack Obama:

Barack Obama – who won a Nobel Peace Prize before spending eight years making “Hellfire” a more common precipitation in the Middle East than rain, and who did more to clamp down on critical media than anyone since Woodrow Wilson – bags on Trump, who made the first serious progress on Middle East peace in decades, and who ramped down military adventurism..

…the way the increasinly Wilsonian-looking Obama promised, and failed, to do.

I’m not a computer programmer and don’t pretend to be; therefore, this is a serious request for an answer from a person who was a knowledgeable computer programmer BEFORE the election (not an instant expert on computers today, the Constitution last week, and epidemiology the week before).

The State of Michigan admitted 6,000 votes were switched from Trump to Biden in one county. They explained it was because the county clerk failed to install a software. The ballots were properly counted when scanned, but vote totals were incorrectly reported.

My question: if the software is a simple addition program, totalling up the number of votes for each candidate, what kind of a programming “glitch” could make it switch votes from one candidate to another, but not all of them, only some of them?

Also, if the software knows how many ballots were scanned, how can some of them be omitted from the total?

I ask because some people are claiming there are algorithms available to generate Switched and Lost ballots, which may have been present in the software used in the voting machines. Is that even possible?

Joe Doakes

I won’t claim to be an expert – but I’m trying to imagine the JAD session (because you just know it was a JAD session, amirite, geeks?) where they described the requirement for the system to be able to finesse totals for weighting, estimates of lost ballots, and other inputs derived from, er, modeling.

…when the Southern Poverty Law Center did actual useful work fighting real injustice.

Those days are at least 30 years behind us. The SPLC today is no less a lefty PR firm than Media Matters or Common Cause.

And it appears the ACLU is well down that same path.

Ilhan Omar thinks we’re the “Klan”:

Omar’s not stupid. She knows that’s not true.

She just knows that CD5 Democrats pretty much believe anything they’re told.

“Masking up reduces rates of infection!”

According to a Danish study? Not significantly:

The recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate among wearers by more than 50% in a community with modest infection rates, some degree of social distancing, and uncommon general mask use. The data were compatible with lesser degrees of self-protection.

“OK, but a complete lockdown-level quarantine will do the trick!”

According to a study of the most controllable experimental subjects of all – US Marine recruits at boot camp – not really:

The virus still spread, though 90% of those who tested positive were without symptoms [18 year olds in perfect, military-grade health? Go figure – Ed.]. Incredibly, 2% of the CHARM recruits still contracted the virus, even if all but one remained asymptomatic. “Our study showed that in a group of predominantly young male military recruits, approximately 2% became positive for SARS-CoV-2, as determined by qPCR assay, during a 2-week, strictly enforced quarantine.” 

Science is, of course, asking questions and testing theories as rigorously as you can. Two studies do not cause science to “settle”.

But the way the media is misreporting these studies, if they report them at all, is a little galling.

2019 – Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself

2020 – Biden Didn’t Win

Can’t wait for 2021.

Joe Doakes

If the Dems win both of those Georgia Senate races, you won’t have to wait long.

After a session of being neutered and stripped of their leadership positions by the increasingly metro-dominated DFL, there’ve been rumors bouncing around CD8 circles that Senators Bakk and Tomassoni were going to bolt the DFL.

And according to Tom Hauser, that may be in the near offing…:

…although not quite to the point of joining the GOP.

Rumors are bouncing about as to which party the “Independent Caucus” will work most closely with – but either way, Bakk and Tomassoni are going to be the most popular guys on Capitol Hill when the session starts.

It doesn’t seem a stretch that on issues of mining and gun rights – and, likely, a few more – the Senate has gone from 34-33 GOP to 34-31-2, and the DFL agenda just got even farther out of reach.

What’ll it mean for Governor Klink’s emergency powers?

My guess – and it’s only a guess – is that the House DFL will dig in harder and get more extreme.

Thoughts?

… this is one of the better explanations of critical theory I’ve seen:

On the other hand, I have a little doubt that it’s going to trigger some progressive…

New Yorkers are leaving NYC in record numbers.

I’ve added emphasis in a few places:

City residents filed 295,103 change of address requests from March 1 through Oct. 31, according to data The Post obtained from the US Postal Service under a Freedom of Information Act request.

Since the data details only when 11 or more forwarding requests were made to a particular county outside NYC, the number of moves is actually higher. And a single address change could represent an entire household, which means far more than 300,000 New Yorkers fled the five boroughs.

Whatever the exact number, the exodus — which began when COVID-19 hit the city in early spring — is much greater than in prior years. From just March through July, there were 244,895 change of address requests to destinations outside of the city, more than double the 101,342 during the same period in 2019.

As long as they don’t bring their infantile New York politics with ’em…

Memory is a survival trait.

Squirrels remember where they buried the nut, so they can eat it later
to survive the winter.  Those that don’t, die.

Children remember burning their finger, so they treat fire
respectfully.  Those who don’t, burn to death.

Conservatives remember past public policy disasters, so we can avoid
repeating them.  We use monuments and books to help us remember.

Liberals remember . . . nothing.  Nothing ever happened before they were
born, except slavery, which was bad and therefore everything that
happened before they were born, is bad.  So it must all be torn down and
thrown out and replaced with something that sounds better.  And it must
be done right now, because Liberals have no patience for history lessons
or experience or hard-gained wisdom.  Why would they need any?  What
could possibly go wrong?

Half the population believes President Trump bungled the Covid response
by failing to impose a travel ban and nation-wide lock-down in January,
when Covid hit the news.  They literally cannot remember that we spent
January dealing with impeachment, or the World Health Organization
telling us Covid was nothing to worry about, or hand washing and
elbow-bumps as sensible precautions, or all the Democrat protests over
banned flights from China.  They believe 200 million Americans died of
Covid because they don’t remember differently.

Loss of memory is an anti-survival trait and half our society is eagerly
embracing it.  This does not bode well for the continued existence of
the nation.

Joe Doakes

I’m not sure it’s entirely fair to say “Progressives” (I’m not gonna continue debasing the term “liberal” – the left did enough of that) have no memory.

Orwell showed us how important controlling history – our “collective” story about ourselves – was to a would-be tyrant. This has been borne out in countless socialist and totalitarian regimes – knowing the wrong history could be a lethal error.

Having the correct memory, the one one is told to have, correctly and punctually, is a survival trait, historically (ahem) on the left.

Not sure where this graphic came from, but it’s one of the best bits of journalism I’ve seen lately.

On the left – real science.

On the right…

…NPR’s, and the rest of the media’s, version of “science”.

I should do a similar one for journalism and “journalism”.

Chicago major Lori “Walker” Lightfoot shuts down Thanksgiving, but defends going to Biden rallies.

Because science.

Joe Biden’s “Cancer Charity” appears to be about as legitimate as the Clinton Foundation.

President-elect Joe Biden‘s cancer charity spent the majority of its money on staff payroll and gave none to research, it has been revealed.

First reported by The New York Post, tax filings viewed by DailyMail.com showed that The Biden Cancer Initiative amassed $4,809,619 in contributions, but spent $3,070,301 on salaries.

Joe and Jill Biden founded The Biden Cancer Initiative in 2017 to help find a cure and ‘solutions to accelerate progress in cancer prevention.’

This might’ve been a great story to have gotten out there, I dunno, a couple weeks ago…

Democrats in the Senate couldn’t get President Obama’s judicial
nominations approved under the old rules, so Chuck Schumer changed the
rules.  Republicans saw the rule change and used it to President Trump’s
judicial nominations approved.  Rule changes cut both ways.

Democrats couldn’t get Joe Biden elected using legitimate ballots, so
they kicked out poll watchers and dumped half-a-million phony ballots in
key counties to steal the election.  Democrats refused to play by the
old rules in this election.  Republicans, seeing this . . . what?  Will
keep playing by the old rules in the next election?  That means losing
for certain.  Even die-hard RINOs like Pierre Delecto and Susan Collins
aren’t that stupid.

In 2022, if Republican activists block polling places armed with
AR-15’s, burn down Democrat poll watchers’ homes, storm into vote
counting centers to throw ballots on the floor amidst thousands of fake
ballots . . . who can complain?  The old rules no longer apply, remember?

And if Democrat activists try to do the same but Republican activists
resist and innocents are killed in the cross-fire . . . is this truly
how we want future elections to run?

Will there even BE future elections?  Will President Harris allow them? 
The rules have changed . . . .

Joe Doakes

It’s only “paranoid” until it comes true.

“Anti”-Fa and the parts of BLM that are more forthright about their Marxism make no bones about the fact that it’s a revolution they want.

Violence?

With or without, they are clearly fine either way.

SCENE: Mitch BERG is standing, socially distanced, in line at the Q-Fanatic Barbeque in South Minneapolis. Focused on the smell of the delicious brisket, he’s caught by surprise as Avery LIBRELLE walks in behind him.

LIBRELLE: Merg!

BERG: Oh, shhh….sure enough, it’s Avery. What’s new…

LIBRELLE: You wingnuts are paranoid. [Switches to that condescending coo-ing voice that “progressives” use as they parrot this particular chanting point] Nobody is coming for your guns.

BERG: Why do you say that?

LIBRELLE: You said the same scare tactic of Obama, and he never came for your guns.

BERG: Obama had some blue seats in red states to defend – had he let slip his inner id on guns, he’d have extincted them. Well, extincted them faster, because in a lot of America a “blue state Democrat” is a little like a “dodo bird driving an AMC Gremlin”.

LIBRELLE: So – he didn’t come for guns!

BERG: He was a lot of things, but not politically stupid.

LIBRELLE: Biden is even more centrist on the issue than Obama was. So no [switches back to the condescending coo-ing voice] Nobody’s coming for your guns.

BERG: So that’s your final answer.

LIBRELLE: Of course. Paranoid wingnut.

BERG: Got your phone handy?

LIBRELLE: I lost it. Let’s use yours.

BERG: Naturally. [Pulls up Joe Biden’s campaign site, scrolls down to paragraphs 6-10]. Go ahead and read that.

LIBRELLE: [Silently mouths the words]

BERG: Either you’re lying and he is coming for our guns, or he’s lying on his campaign website.

LIBRELLE: Well, of course he’s coming for…those guns.

BERG: So in one line, you’ve gone from [mocks the cooing tone] “nobody’s coming for your guns” to “we’re coming for the guns a bunch of people who don’t know the difference between a firing pin and a crochet needle think you don’t really need to have“. That was fast.

LIBRELLE: [Mocking tone] All right, you got me. Joe Biden’s gonna break into your house and take your guns.

BERG: So in two lines, we’ve gone from “Nobody’s taking your guns” to trying to mock me for catching in covering, badly, for your own lie.

LIBRELLE: Trump banned bump stocks.

BERG: Bad Trump. Don’t change the subject.

LIBRELLE: Hey, can you lend me ten bucks?

BERG: Why?

LIBRELLE: I need to run over and buy some spray paint to paint to paint “Meat is Murder” all over this place.

BERG: Ask them [BERG points a thumb toward unamused counter guy]

LIBRELLE: Oh, great idea. I…

But BERG has already left.

And SCENE.

I think Democrat politicians count on their voters having the attention spans of ferrets on espresso:

Is there a Democrat who can think critically?

I’m not trying to ask a trick or rhetorical question…

When “progressives” win, two things happen:

1. Drunk with power, they overreach.
2. They start eating their own.

They won’t be able to try Phase 1 for a bit yet.

But here’s hoping we’re seeing the beginning of Phase 2.

The CDC has issued a new order allowing cruise ships to sail again. 

Without passengers.  They can take volunteers who will pretend to be passengers, so the cruise lines can try out their new antiseptic cleaning and social distancing measures to keep the ship safe from the deadliest virus ever known to mankind, which so far (rounded to the nearest whole number) has killed ZERO percent of Americans.

The volunteer cruise must simulate a real cruise, so there will be on-board entertainment venues, activities and meals. No prohibition on wrist bands to obtain unlimited alcoholic beverages while soaking in the hot tub . . . this sounds like my kind of gig.

Yes, yes, taking a risk, informed consent, waiver of rights . . . look, I could get killed crossing the street, alright?  I’m studied the Covid facts and numbers.  I’m willing to throw caution to the winds.  I’ll take my chances of dying of Covid on my free cruise. 

Where do I sign up?

Joe Doakes

I can’t imagine they’d have a lot of trouble finding volunteers in Minnesota…

Just a further reminder…

…for those who may need it…

…(and “those who may need it” in are pretty much invariably Democrats)…

…that when the left jabbers about “unity”, they mean “everybody who isn’t united with us shuts up”.

At the, er, very least.

So what’s the big problem with American democracy today?

Is it that decades of miseducation has turned Democrats into a lumpen mass of herd animals to whom “critical thought” may as well be Sanskrit – even, maybe especially, the “Educated” ones?

Well, that’s a little hyperbolic, but that’s a big part of is.

But reading Mark Steyn’s piece…

So now we’re told that we all have to rush to Georgia for two months to focus on the run-off election because those two GOP Senate candidates are the only things that stand in the way of Biden-Harris ramming the Green New Deal down your gullet, and giving statehood to DC and Puerto Rico, thus greatly diminishing Susan Collins’ importance in Senate arithmetic now and forever.

Maybe. But it really would be nice if these guys would make an argument for something once in a while, instead of just saying we’re the fellows to block the other fellows. I mean, we’ve been here before even within the shriveled perspective of political memory: A decade ago we were told we had to back Republicans because they’re opposed to Obamacare. They raised a zillion dollars, saved their seats, won total control in 2016 …and had no plan.

It’s not enough. Last time round, the only guy making real arguments was Trump: Build the wall, renegotiate Nafta, get tough with China… So he won the argument, and then he won the election.

If they succeed in taking him out, we’re left with Republicans who have no argument other than process: Vote for me, so we’ll save the Senate. If we save the Senate, we can block Biden’s judges. So we’ll save the courts, so they can keep ruling that, er, Obamacare’s unconstitutional and that Pennsylvania shouldn’t be monkeying with election rules this close to the big day.

…it occurred to me – our biggest problem today is that so much of our “democracy” has become like the Blue state economy. It’s not about tangible things – in the case of politics, actual arguments and choices and ideas, the political equivalent of hopper cars full of wheat, trains hauling oil, cars rolling off the assembly line.

As Steyn noted, Trump made an argument. So did Reagan. So did Kennedy, and Carter for that matter.

But our elections today aren’t so much about selling the American people on an argument as they are about moving numbers in the right direction – by fair means or (as we see in Blue cities) means most foul.

And that’s a very bad thing.

Sarah Hoyt makes an interesting observation: the “mostly peaceful” rioters and looters are suffering from Wealthy Heir disease.

You know what she means.  She means the kid who got his trust fund money for his 18th birthday, bought a Camero, got drunk and wrapped it around a tree.  She means the kid whose parents paid his tuition, room and board so he could drink and whore his way through a degree.  She means the kid whose Daddy ran for Vice-President and can pull strings to have the charges dropped.

Not all of them, of course.  The “mostly peaceful” demonstrators handing clothes out of the smashed window at Sak’s Fifth Avenue didn’t look like trust fund kids.  The ones chasing a white kid down the street to beat him to death didn’t look like college students.  But the young lawyers arrested for burning a police car were hardly the downtrodden oppressed masses yearning to be free.  They’re supposedly the cream-of-the-crop.  They’re oppressors-in-training.  By historical standards, they’re unimaginably wealthy already – only jealousy and greed motivates them to demand more.

Rioters.  Looters.  Ingrates.  Antifa.  Liberals.  Democrats.

Almost makes a guy reconsider that wealth tax we’ve been hearing so much about.

Joe Doakes

This is, of course, a part of Urban Progressive Privilege.

Florida governor DeSantis proposes broadening Florida’s self-defense laws to make shooting in defense of property against looters more legally tenable.

The media is howling that it would enable roaming packs of vigilantes to slaughter people on the streets. Like most media reports on expanding self-defense rights, it’s a lot more nuanced than that:

The law would expand the state’s self-defense law, which currently forbids “the use of force in defense of property,” by increasing what constitutes a “forcible felony,” according to the Miami Herald. DeSantis seeks to make looting or “interruption or impairment” of a business such a felony, thereby justifying deadly force to prevent it…The Republican’s bill would also make it a third-degree felony to obstruct traffic, and would allow drivers to have legal immunity if they unintentionally kill or maim anyone engaging in blocking a roadway during a demonstration, according to the Herald. The law, which is only a draft at the time of publishing, is also set to grant state authorities the ability to withhold funds from localities that choose to reduce their police budgets

Expect much pants-wetting from the class that still thinks looters are “mostly peaceful”.

But they’re missing the point. The target of this bill isn’t looters.

It’s Kamala Harris.

DeSantis is setting himself up as the “Law and Order and Competence” candidate for the presidency in 2024.

And after this past year, I gotta say he’s on my short list.

Testing reveals the Covid virus is spreading rapidly throughout the state; therefore, we must lock down again to prevent a Surge of Covid cases resulting in a huge number of hospitalizations which will overwhelm the medical system, leaving patients to die untreated in hallways and parking lots.  So claims the Walz Administration.

Someone should tell the Star Tribune.  As of last week, they reported:

” . . . 614 Minnesota hospital beds were filled with COVID-19 patients, including 149 who needed intensive care . . . Minnesota hospitals still have intensive care capacity, though, with 1,028 of 1,467 immediately available ICU beds filled with patients who have COVID-19 or other unrelated medical problems.”

We have 400 ICU beds immediately available for all comers, not just Covid patients.  The “immediately” is important, because in his second press conference announcing the extension of the two-week Stay Home Order, Governor Walz admitted we had the ability to ramp up to 3,000 ICU rooms within 72 hours. 

Unless something has changed that the Walz administration won’t talk about, we are using 149 of 3,000 ICU beds for Covid patients DESPITE the virus spreading rapidly throughout the state. There is no evidence of a Surge and even if there were, the medical system has plenty of excess capacity to serve it.

There is no medical reason for the lock down. End it now.

Joe Doakes

Pretty sure it’s all about showing the peasants who’s boss.

I never quite know what to say to veterans.

Hear me out, here.

Saying “thank you for your service” seems trite – almost mawkish.   Someone who never served saying “Thanks for going overseas and getting shot at!”?

See what I mean?

In the meantime, what I want to say is “glad you made it home”.  But I can see that being taken the wrong way.

So I’ll wing it.

Veterans:  thanks for spending the best years of your lives in barracks, troops ships, foxholes, berthing spaces, CVC helmets, cockpits and gun mounts, doing things most of us can’t imagine, to protect the freedoms too many Americans take very much for granted.

If bars ever open again, the next drink’s on me.

It doesn’t roll off the tongue, but it doesn’t have to.

(Adapted from a post I first ran five years ago).

The Lincoln Project is a group of ostensible “principled Republican” Never-Trumpers (which I can respect, so far)…

…who ended the cycle by going all-in for Biden (which I cannot).

But now, there’s this:

And with that, I’m gonna suggest they pick a more appropriate name.

Maybe “The Beria Project”.

(Kids, ask your history-literate parents).