They finally have a “person of interest” in last week’s sexual assault of a MNGOP booth volunteer:

The image released above is of a woman considered a “person of interest who may have been involved in a sexual assault” at the booth.
As reported earlier this week, the victim, an unidentified woman, reported being groped by another woman after a “verbal disagreement regarding political affiliation.”
A State Fair police spokesperson at the time confirmed they’d received a report of a volunteer being groped “over the clothes.”
The perpetrator is described as a white woman in her 30s, brunette and 5 feet 4 inches tall. 
Anyone with information about the woman pictured should call the Minnesota State Fair Police Department at 651-288-4500.

Let’s see: homely, visibly clenched with rage and deeply unfulfilled in life, with visible evidence of transferring all the energy people used to put into family, faith, community and career into political ire, doubtless alone in life and monomaniacally focused on her hatred for everyone that’s different from her?

In this town, that doesn’t narrow down the suspect pool all that much.

Pass this article along to a friend enamored of stupid First Amendment arguments.

Some people read this story – about a “psychiatrist” taking umbrage at people calling Trump “crazy” to avoid stigmatizing the mentally ill – and taking it as a sign of the growing intellectual frivolity of our society’s putative elite and the left in general.  

I”m going to add emphasis:

“Second, calling Trump crazy hides the fact that we’re crazy for having elected him and even crazier for allowing his crazy policies to persist,” Frances went on. “Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin, Mao in the last century. He may be responsible for many more million deaths than they were.”

Someone looking to get headlines for their book, consulting practice or media brand by making a big, stupid headline? 

But of course.

But let’s not sell the little fella short. Remember – Berg’s Seventh Law never sleeps.

Why are “progressives” blaiming Trump for millions of deaths he never committed (note to my progressive readers: the guy’s making it all up)?

It’s no secret that Democrats like Ilhan Omar are openly anti-Semitic and actively seek to destroy Israel.
President Trump says Jews who support such Democrats are betraying their own people and the nation of Israel. 
Paul Mirengoff, writing at Powerline, is upset the President would point this out. Trump is not a Jew.  It’s “inappropriate” for him to speak out.  He “slanders” Jews.
Mirengoff says there are lots of reason Jews might prefer Democrats over Trump, policy reasons or domestic issues.  True, but irrelevant.  If Candidate A says he will give you everything you ever dreamed of, for free, and also will destroy Israel, then voting for Candidate A means you are voting to destroy Israel. 
Mirengoff is the perfect stereotype of the Dave Durenberger – Arne Carlson style of Republican.  It’s no wonder conservatives were sold out time and again while liberals advanced their agenda. 
Being nice is not more important than telling the truth.
Joe Doakes

I suspect Mirengoff (whom I’ve interviewed) is speaking more or less clinically about Jews’ reasons for preferring Democrats, but Joe is correct. It’s easy to “clinical” your way into despotism.

Barack and Michelle Obama buy a place high up in the Rockies, as a hedge against rising sea levels.

Just kidding. They bought a place on Martha’s Vineyard.

Apparently he took that whole “We’ll make the ocean level recede” thing pretty seriously.

#MeToo, indeed.

Seems a Democrat activist did, in fact, what the Dems have spent the past three years condemning the President for *talking* about – not *actually* doing, mind you – while being surreptitiously filmed. A female GOP volunteer was sexually assaulted by a Democrat while working at the GOP booth.

So…all sexual harassment, to say nothing of assault, *isn’t* wrong?

#BelieveAccusers, indeed.

The attacker was a woman who was taking part in an organized demonstration at the GOP booth, by the way – one of an organized throng of goons who bum-rushed the booth yelling “F**k Trump”.

They – a half dozen guys – also harassed the three women, including Chair Carnahan, who were busy closing up the booth last night. Ever notice how it’s always throngs of male goons attacking women, alone or in small groups (like the “Anti”-Fa thugs who teamed up on Preya Samsundar two years ago)?

#Toxic “#Masculinity” indeed (or, more likely, proof that “toxic” masculinity isn’t “masculine” at all).

Berg’s Seventh Law is universal and omnipresent.

While I want to respect the victim’s privacy, I hope the video comes out.

I got a chance to interview, Chairwoman Carnahan on my show Saturda. She pointed out that she got all sorts of craven catcalling when she visited the DFL booth – whereas the DFL’s chair, Ken Martin, was treated with civility and respect at the GOP booth.

This is pretty much par for the course; in 2018, Saint Paul DFL mayor Melvin Carter felt perfectly comfortable walking into my GOP caucus meeting and giving a quick talk – which I, the chair, allowed, because hey, we gotta try to run a democracy together, right? But was *zero* chance in hell I could have returned the favor without an outbreak of hissing and complaints that I’d “triggered” someone or another.

Civility; it’s a one-way street in the Metro.

And what a perfect representation of Urban Progressive Privilege, huh? The thought that one might feel not only empowered, but entitled, to commit sexual assault in service of one’s politics, with the active encouragement of your fellow Democrats?

Who are the “resistance”, here, anyway?

Germany is selling 30-year bonds with negative rates. You pay the government to hold your money, betting they’ll be willing to give back some of it, in the future.
This is like Guido saying “That’s a nice nest egg you got there. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it. I’ll just hold onto it for you, you know, to protect it, like insurance.”
How is it possible that in a world of 7 billion people there are absolutely no worthwhile Investments?
I suspect it’s because people only invest when they believe there’s a reasonable prospect of getting a return in the future. And the future right now is chaotic, because all of the fundamentals – security of property, property rights, profit, order, rule of law – are being overturned by the revolutionary socialists who want to spread the wealth, your wealth.
Negative Bond. A losing investment. S***, I’ve got plenty of them. Why send my money to Germany? I can lose money right here at home.
Although now that I think about it . . . in the olden days, investors paid a premium to buy government bonds because they were safe, even though the investor would have to wait years to start making money. With a negative bond, will investors demand a discount to buy the bonds so they can start losing money sooner?
And can I bundle a bunch of negative interest bonds, then sell derivatives to investors so they could take the losses as a set-off to income and thereby reduce their income tax? Hmmm, this could be a whole new business opportunity.
Joe Doakes

The free market will eventually figure things out – provided government doesn’t throw a wrench in it all over political expediency…

…oh.

Well, it seems at least one tradition is on a “pause” for the foreseeable future.

AM1280 and the NARN won’t be out at the State Fair this year.

Fifteen straight summers, the NARN guys and I worked out at the Fair. The station took a different route this year.

Which on the one hand is fine – no need to add “getting to the fairgrounds” to all the other show prep stuff.

On the other hand, it means I lose the big benefit of being with the station at the Fair: having an air-conditioned room with a fridge full of water to retreat to when the crowds get to be too much. That, along with getting to meet the audience face to face, was one of the highlights of whole “show at the Fair” experience.

I’ll have to come up with some other side hustle that offers that…

So Yesterday: Gillette slamming “toxic” masculinity. “Woke” advertising campaign costs billions, shreds through market share.

Today: Masculinity good.

Tomorrow: Ads with Andrew “Dice” Clay?

Reporter tries to exercise Big Media’s shibboleth – that it’s easier to buy a gun than get a library book.

Finds out it just ain’t so.

To be fair, the woman did a fairly honest job reporting the story.

To be honest, the notion that she thought guns were a gimme at a Walmart tells us something at little depressing about the gullibility and prejudice of Big Media.

Remember Hillary using a private email server for her official State Department business, emails which later went missing?
Remember President Trump suggesting we should ask the Russians to give us copies?
Wrong country.  Her emails were automatically copied to the Chinese.  Every single one.  Confirmed by the Inspector General at the Department of Justice.
Weird how I missed the headlines in all the major media.
Joe Doakes

It makes sense, as Glenn Reynolds notes, when you remember they are all Democrat operatives with bylines.

Around November 1 of every year, ever since I’ve lived in my house in the early ’90s, the guy who somehow inherited the job of “block captain” on our block drops an envelope in everyone’s door with a flyer asking for $20 to cover snow plowing.

It’s the biggest bargain – one of the few bargains left – in Saint Paul; he gives it to a plow driver. The driver lives on the block – so he literally needs to plow our driveway to get to work anyway.

So anytime there’s more than a dusting of snow, our alley is plowed to a fine sheen. And since side streets in my neighborhood are only plowed by the sun in April, the fact that our guy blasts out the street on the east side of the block to get to Minnehaha (a city snow emergency route) is almost literally a lifesaver.

Of course, it’s something that works – which, in a one-party kleptocracy like Saint Paul, means someone’s gotta try to appropriate it.

The same Merriam Park harpies that jammed down the smoking ban (years before the rest of the state) and, most recently, Tony-Soprano-style trash hauling, have been nattering away about socializing alley plowing for the past fifteen years.

It’s flying about as well as…well, the trash system:

Consultants from the University of Minnesota found little public appetite for the level of services the city likely would be able to offer.
Most residents who contract private alley plowers said they were unwilling to pay more than $15 per season for the city to complete the same service, and they expressed concern that the city might actually provide less snow removal and only plow after snow emergencies.
“Respondents will expect the city to plow the alleys after each snowfall or after a 2-inch snowfall, alleys to be plowed at the same time as main streets or at the same time as residential streets,” states a study summary. “Residents will be willing to pay an amount that would not be more than the amount they are currently paying, or less than $15 per season.”

Of course, the fact that real people who live in Saint Paul don’t want it is no defense; the little pack of “woke” Merriam Park biddies who burned countless hours of their worthless labor banning smoking in bars they never went to, and jamming down a trash collection system nobody wants – have sent their little hive minds on it.

For St. Paul to remove alley snow, consultants estimated $3.1 million in one-time start-up costs, such as new plow trucks, and $4.8 million in ongoing annual costs for labor, maintenance, training and recruitment.
That’s a total cost of $7.9 million in year one alone — or more than $100 for each of the city’s 74,000 households. Adding in business storefronts would reduce the cost.

Except to the businesses. Those few that are left, anyway. And that cost will be passed on to consumers – again, the few that are left.

But it’ll happen. Mark my words.

I’ve got a fair number of friends and acquaintances who say they never, ever come to the Twin Cities because of the crime.

Now, I’ve lived here for 34 years – and like most people who live here, I know that the whole place is not a cesspool of criminality. My neighborhood is generally pretty good. To the north, even better. South of Thomas? Not so much.

So most of the hysteria about crime in the Metro is the sort of game of “telephone” you get among people who don’t know the subject all that well – a phenomenon that social media has only accelerated.

But there are places I just don’t go, or at least times when I just don’t go there. Places and times when the risk/reward ratio just isn’t favorable. North Minneapolis after dinner. Dayton’s Bluff or the North End after dark. The less well-lit parts of downtown Minneapolis at night. The Green Line after 10PM.

Statistically, you are much more likely to be a victim of crime and violence when you hang out where violent criminals are.

It’s not hysteria. It’s prudence.

The idea that a third of Americans modify their behavior because of fear of mass shootings?

I was about to say “that’s not prudence – that’s hysteria”; for the most part they are going from one place where mass shootings are vanishingly rare (but correlated via the media’s obsession and Big Gun Control’s focus on mass shootings, rather than by some actual indicator, like “gun free zone” or a state’s regulations on the law-abiding citizen) to another place where, statistically, mass shootings aren’t a whole lot less likely in the same sense that one is “less” likely to get struck by lightning in Saint Paul than Minneapolis.

There are really only two behaviors that affect ones coincidence with and vulnerability to mass shootings:

• Being in a gun free zone
• Being, yourself, gun-free.

Hope we’ve solved this.

Okay, technically it’s Minneapolis, but still, national prominence.
No wonder Congresswoman Omar has time to go jetting off to Israel.  Her work here is done.
 Joe Doakes

We have a generation or two of voters in MInneapolis – mostly white “progressives” and the younger minorities they miseducated – who think that’s a Congressperson’s job.

Let’s not be coy about it – Jason Lewis lost the 2nd District congressional election because Angie Craig floated to a close win on a tsunami of out-of-district money during a first-term midterm that was bound to bring out the knee-jerks and the soccer moms. The Bloomberg fortune alone pumped seven figures of filthy anti-gun lucre into the district – testimony to how much Big Left hated the most articulate conservative in the House.

But it’s a whole ‘nother election, and Angie Craig has exactly as much to show for her time in office as you’d expect an “HR Executive” to have accomplished – the same as they accomplish in the real business world. Bupkes.

Or – rematch? Nah. Maybe a swing at the Butcher of Vandalia, Tina Smith.

I’d go for that.

If women’s soccer players don’t get equal pay, they’ll quit playing.  Then people who don’t watch womens soccer won’t be able to watch womens soccer.  That will show them!!

Joe Doakes

It’s fascinating, to me, watching people who clearly have no idea how the free market works, trying to engage in the free market.

This is a battle the women should be winning – or, perhaps, already are.

I’m starting to think it’s not about money,

Socialist men are weaker, less capable.

Filed uinder “Dog Licks Dog”.

MITCH: “Trump’s tariffs…”

AVERY LIBRELLE: “Will be passed on to American consumers. It’s economics 101”.

Pete: “Very good. That is actually correct, one way or the other; all changes in price driving by anything other than market demand will be either paid by consumers, or not purchased at all. You’re coming along, Avery! So – artificially raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour…”

AVERY LIBRELLE: “…will never get passed on to consumers!”

Pete: “OK. Why?”

AVERY LIBRELLE: “Because shut up”.

And SCENE

About a decade back, I heard an interview on All Things Considered with Sarfraz Manzoor, who’d just come out with his book Greetings from Bury Park – his memoir about growing up as a British-Pakistani in Luton, in the Midlands, and getting immersed in Bruce Springsteen’s music. And I think I sat in the garage for a solid half hour, catching the whole fascinating story; someone who couldn’t have come from a more different culture than me, getting pulled on the same musical and personal odyssey by the same bunch of records.

If you’ve read this blog at all, you can see the grab. Right? I don’t think I need to restate the obvious.

I caught the show the other night.

First things first: This isn’t Mama Mia with Springsteen music. While there is the requisite act of the movie where Manzoor’s fictionalized version of himself, “Javed”, gets the same burst of recogniton while listening to “Darkness on the Edge of Town”, the musical epiphany only opens the door to all sorts of conflict in real life – which, in turn, illuminates all sorts of the musical themes.

Any description of “musical epiphanies” from ones’ teenage years is bound to swerve into the cloying and mawkish at times. Teenagers are cloying and mawkish, and it doesn’t matter what culture they’re from. And so the movie’s occasional short-cuts through plot points, via lyric drops or the occasional borderline production number that might – hell, probably will – come across as cringingly sentimental to the non-belever comes across as cringingly autobiographical to those who’ve (raises hand) been there.

So – did I enjoy the movie? Yes, but that wasn’t my main takeaway. It’s more accurate to say I felt a lot of it in the pit of my stomach. The movie took me back to a lot of things from my teens and twenties, in pretty much the same way Manzoor remembers them. That’s a good thing.

Mostly.

And – no spoilers, here – the music isn’t necessarily the most important point of the movie. There’ll be another post about that before too long.

Cons? Yep, there were a few.

It’d be impossible to do a movie about eighties Britain, especially as a Pakistani, without throwing in some of the politics of the era. And Manzoor’s memories of the era include a lot of the prattle of the anti-Thatcher left – which sounded at the time every bit as intolerent and libelous as Big Left’s cant against conservatives (to say nothing of Trumpkins) today. The infantlism of today’s campus “progressive” seems modeled on the prate and gabble of European lefties of the era. That, and the occasional bout of Thatcher-bashing were to be expected. That wasn’t unexpected, or especially dishonest. On the other hand, the rest of the movie – which imparted a lot of humanity on Manzoor’s very traditional Pakistani family and most of the movie’s other, very disparate characters – had me expecting much better of one of the side-conflicts; when “Javed” met his (inevitably left-wing) love interest’s (inevitably) Tory parents, they were portrayed with all the nuanced humanity of a Joe Piscopo sketch on SNL. It was a throwaway – and the movie would have been better had it been thrown away.

So do I recommend it? If you’re not a Springsteen fan, you may not “get” it. Or then maybe you will. Who knows?

If you are? It’d be interesting to see what you think.

ASIDE: By the way – the movie reminded me that my theory – Springsteen is America’s best conservative songwriter – has been completely vindicated this past year. I suspect this would be to the chagrin of a former regular commenter – but alas we’ll never know.

More coming in the next week.

According to a writer for the ever-simpering Brit Independent, no politician has ever been treated as scabrously as…

…Mitt Romney?

Brett Kavanaugh?

No, no no no!

It’s Ilhan Omar!

She’s got a sinecure seat in a district no less one-party than East Berlin in 1974. She’s politically bulletproof; she could shoot down an Israeli airliner and get 75% of the vote. Chicago ward heelers wish they were as set up as she is.

She’s got a local media that paints her toenails for her. 

She’s looking forward to a lifetime of wealth, on the public, media and non-profit dime at the very least, for her and her family. 

Someone treat me that “badly”, stat.

Joe Biden, reacting to Israel’s decision to deny entry to people who advocate its destruction, said:
“I have always been a stalwart supporter of Israel—a vital partner that shares our democratic values. No democracy should deny entry to visitors based on the content of their ideas—even ideas they strongly object to. And no leader of the free world should encourage them to do so.”
But Joe, if you support Israel’s right to exist as an independent nation, then you concede it has the right to manage its own internal affairs, including deciding who to admit and who to deny.  Otherwise, if Israel lacks that power, then it’s not an independent nation, it’s a colony and you’re playing the role of emperor, telling the locals what they can and cannot do.  Which is precisely what you accuse President Trump of doing. 
So why should I vote for you, and not for him?
Joe Doakes

The extent to which the Democrats need their supporters to be uninformed morons is frightening.

They say the most arrogant and obnoxious residents of New York City are the ones born in Buffalo.

Likewise, the most annoying, provincial, arrogant hangers-on to any ideology are the ones that came to it with the  most personal sturm und drang.

There’ a former conservative blogger who, along with some other personal changes, flipped their politics a while ago.  They’ve written a few angst soaked social media posts theatrically apologizing for and renouncing having ever been a conservative, much less an outspoken one.

Which I found a little insulting and a lot depressing.  I mean, I grew up liberal, to the extent that I didn’t tell anyone that I’d voted for Reagan (in the middle of one of the most Republican states in the Union, mind you) – but consider the things I learned as a larval prorgressive key to my development.  I’ve never apologized for having once written a party platform at a mock government that’d send a tingle up Bernie Sanders’ leg – although some have thought I should (and have been told to go pound sand, albeit in a good-natured kind of way).

So be what you want to be.  Go with God.  It’s a free country.  So far.

Which is why the ever-more-constipated-sounding virtue signaling of Max Boot, once one of the best foreign policy writers out there, has been such a buzzkill.  He’s changed his alignment…

…well, no.  He’s let his never-Trumpism define his politics, which were always “Eisenhower Republican”;  think New Dealers who opposed communism.

His departure from the GOP (OK, its departure from him) is kind of cloying and annoying.

His swerve into virtue-blasting, on the other hand, is a sign he’s over as a significant public thinker.

…that statement would seem to have spread to statements about her own “group”.

Bear with me.

“Protect” Minnesota was at Game Fair over the last two weekends. Game Fair is pretty much the biggest outdoor sports fair in the state; hunting, fishing, dogs, the whole nine yards. It takes place in deep-red Ramsay.

And “Protect” MN, for some reason, had a booth there.

Or so the Reverend Nord Bence reminds us:

So let’s get this straight – you gave away free stuff (of some marginal utility – cheap trigger locks), and people took them?

And 130 people out of tens of thousands of attendees, many of whom don’t understand what gun control will mean to them in the long term, lined up and talked and signed your meaningless petition?

Shazam.

So you know what would really convince me? If thousands of these rando hunters grabbed “Protect” Minnesota t-shirts, and wore them proudly around and about the game fair, showing the world that the tide was turning!

And did that happen?

Take a gander for yourself:

This is one of two loads being packed out to their Prius (OK, I made the car up) at the end of six days of exhibiting. The other load was equally as full.

If they gave away a dozen t-shirts, I’d be amazed – and I’ll bet dimes to dollars all are being used as bore patches today.

The Reverend Nord Bence:

If her lips are moving, don’t believe her.

…you see a headline on social media that you just swear has to be from Babylon Bee, but it’s not:

St. Paul school board members aren’t paid enough, St. Paul school board members say

But sure enough, it’s a real story. Or as real as the mainstream media gets, anyway.

Of course, they preside over a crumbling district with one of the worst achievement gaps in the country, on a board that serves mostly as a DFL farm team.

But it’s all about keeping up with the Joneses:

Board members get $10,800 per year, which is less than what comparably sized metro districts pay. However, members are eligible for district health insurance; those who sign up get a premium subsidy that’s worth $9,643 this year.
Jon Schumacher and Mary Vanderwert, who are leaving the board next year after serving one four-year term, gave the strongest endorsements for a raise at a meeting Wednesday evening.
“I feel very strongly that there really does need to be an increase so we can make sure that we have people who have passion, who have expertise and who aren’t going to feel that serving on this board is going to make it impossible for them to meet their financial needs,” Schumacher said.
Vanderwert suggested a salary increase of $5,000 or more.
“I definitely think it’s time for us to do this,” she said. “It’s the most important work a community does, and the board positions need to be attractive to high-quality people.”

Full (but unneeded) disclosure – I worked with Mary Vanderwert a loooong time ago. Perfectly fine human being, although there’s that whole “SPPS School Board member” thing.

Did I mention the Joneses?

…Anoka-Hennepin, pays between $14,400 and $15,600, depending on the board member’s role, human resources director Laurin Cathey said.
Minneapolis, the third-largest district, pays $22,000.
Most board members make $9,000 in Osseo, $7,236 in St. Cloud, $7,200 in Bloomington and $5,000 in Brooklyn Center, Cathey said.
Cathey also looked at St. Paul’s national peers and found school board members receive no pay in either Des Moines, Iowa, or Portland, Ore.

I wondered if they bothered comparing school board pay to graduation rates, minority achievement or percent of students who need remedial classes in college?

And maybe correlate that with ideological distribution of the school board’s members?

Hmmmmm.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

A friend of the blog writes:

This thread!
I read it and think back to my own woes 20 years ago after I graduated from college. People were being laid off in my chosen field, so there were no jobs for new grads. Some of my cohorts refused to take jobs that they were also qualified for, but with way less pay. Not me. I took a low paying job, worked a bit, went to my manager’s boss, showed him my resume, talked about my skills. He looked up my recent review and gave me a raise. I then added two other part time jobs that were actually in the field for which I had a degree. Eventually, one of those became full time. And eventually, I became a manager.
I am so struck by how many of my cohorts, and most of today’s millennials, think promotion, good pay, etc, all happen immediately. It is something you work to, you demonstrate your worth, demonstrate your willingness to work, then pay happens. Then promotions happen. The cohorts that I know who wouldn’t work for less pay, lesser jobs are still mostly not working full time, still complaining that life is unaffordable.
My parents are the Silent Generation, so I think they instilled this in me. I am generally thought of as not an optimist, but I have to believe that the children of millennials will rebel against their parents and actually get back to work, show much better work ethics.

After college, it took me seven years and a career change to earn over $20K a year (after inflation, probably 35ish today). It was because of choices I made – going into an industry that was awful for entry-level wages even before it died – and I knew it at the time. Figured it was worth it for a shot a the big time.

I think kids today figure the big time will come to them…